Page 42 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE K~ITTIKAS 29
the winter ·solstice must have coincided in those days with the
beginning of Dhani~h~ha as described in the VedAnga Jyoti,ha
and other works.
There is thus sufficient independent evidence. to show that
before the Hindus began to make their measurement from the
vernal equinox in Revafi there existed a system in which the year
commenced with the winter solstice in the month of Magha and
the vernal equinox was in the last quarter of Bharapi or the begin-
ning of the Krittikas. • We need not, therefore, have any doubts
about the authenticity of a work which describes this older system
and gives rules of preparing a calendar accordingly. Now this is
what the V edAnga Jyotil!ha has done. It is a small treatise on the
Vedic calendar, and though some of its verses still remain uninte-
lligible, yet we now know enough of the work to ascertain the
nature of the calculations given therem. It was once supposed that
the treatise mentions the Rashis, but a further study of the work
· bas shown that though the word Rashi occurs in some of its verses,
it is there used in a totally different sense. This work gives the
following positions of the solstices and the equinoxes :- t
l. The winter solstice in the beginning of Shravi~hthA.
( divisional ) ;
2. The vernal equinox in 10° of Bharapi;
3. The summer solstice in the middle of Ashle~M, and
4. The autumnal equinox in 30° 20' of VisbAkbA.
The first year of the cycle commenced with the winter solstice t
when the sun and the moon were together at the beginning of
Dbanisb~hA and the Uttaraya11a also began at the same time.
There is very little else in the VedAnga. Jyotil!ha that may help us

Lele, Modak, Ketkar and other Hindu as[ronomers have recently
tried to determine the date of the MahAbhArata war from such refe-
Tences, and they hold that the vernal equinox was then in the KrittikAs.
• Prof. Max Miiller has pointed out that in the Atharva Veda i.
19. 7 and in the YAjnavaJkya Smriti i. 267, the Krittikas occupy their
early position, while rbe Vish~;~u PurAt;~a actually places the vernal
equ inox in the Krittikls.\ See Pref. to ~ig. , Vol. IV, p. xxxi.
t See Ved. ]y. Verse 5 :.:.... ·
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