Page 43 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

30 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ORION
in our present inquiry except the fact that the enumeration of
the deities presiding over the various Nak~hatras begins with·
Agni, the presiding deity of the KpttikAs. • From these data as-
tronomers have calculated that the solstitial colure occupied the
position above mentioned between 1269 B. C. to 1181 B. C.,
according as we take the mean rate of the precession of the
equinoxes 50° or 48.60 a year.t

Some scholars, however, have boldly raised the question,
what authority is there to hold that the position of the solstitial
colure was recorded in the VedAnga Jyotitha from actual observa-
tion ? It is conceded that the position of the solstitial colure might
have been incorporated in the Jyotisha from real traditional in-
formation, but it is at the same tilDe ~ntended that the language
of the treatise and the methods given therein create doubts about
the antiquity claimed for the work on the strength of the position
of the solstitial points given therein. '' I feel bound to remark ",
says Prof. Max Mt1ller, "that unless there was internal evidence
that the Vedic hymns reached back to that remote antiquity this
passage in theJyoti~ha would by itself carry no weight whatever." t
The existence of the different versions of the VedAnga Jyoti~ha
and the obscurity into which some of its verses are still shrouded
render it rather difficult to meet the above objection, especially as
it is a side attack on the antiquity of the work with an admission
that the position of the colure might have been recorded in the
work from real traditions current in the time of its· author. It is,
however, needless to answer this objection, inasmuch as there is
ample confirmatory evidence in the Vedic works themselves which
not only bears out tile statement in the VedAnga Jyoti•ha, but
takes us back into still remoter antiquity.

There are many passages in the Taittirtya S&IJlhita, the Taittirtya
Br&hmapa and other works where the KpttikAs occupy the first

• Cf. Ved. ]y. Verse 25. atftf: srarrmt; ~ etc.
t See the late Krish~shlstrl Go:1bole's Essay on the Antiquity of
the Vedas, p. x8; also Pref. to \tig., Vol. IV, p. uviii.
! See Pref. to \tig. Vol. IV, p. xxv. The mention of ~ for if~1r,
first in the list of ~ymbolic representa.tions of the Nak~h·atras in. verse
14, lends some support to these doubts.