Page 62 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

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madhava • SAya~a tries to get over this difficulty /.)y proposing a
double Vasanta-lunar and solar, the lunar to incffide the months
of Pbalguna and Chaitra, and the solar those of Chaitra and
VaishAkha, quoting amongst others, ~ig. x, 85, 18, as an autho-
rity to show that the seasons were regulated by the moon. The
authorities, however, are not explicit and therefore sufficient to
maintain the two-fold character of the seasons; nor do I see the
necessity of the two-fold character. It is true that the months in
the calendar were all lunar, but the concurrence of the lunar and
the solar year was always secured by inserting an intercalary
month whenever necessary. Under such a system lunar seasons
can have no permanent place. Now and then lunar months ceased,
as they now do, to correspond with the seasons they represented,
but this was at once set aright by the introduction of an inter-
calary month. If we, therefore, exclude the correction due to the
precession of the equinoxes, which was too minute to be noticed
till after hundreds of years, there was thus no reason why the lunar
seasons should come to be regarded as a permanent institution.
But even accepting Saya~a's two-fold character of the seasons, it
can be easily shewn that it does not support his conclusions. A
lunar year is shorter than a solar year by 11 days. If the solar
Vasanta, therefore, commences on the 1st day of the lunar Chaitra
month this year, it will commence on the 12th day of Chaitra
( lunar ) next year and II days later still in the third year when
by the introduction of an intercalary month the commencement
of Vasanta will be again brought back to the 1st day of Chaitra.
The two-fold character of the seasons may thus delay the beginning
of Vasanta to Vaishakha (lunar), but the season cannot be acce-
lerated and. brought back to Phalguna. It is true that in the day
of SAyapa ( 14th century) Vasanta commenced, as it does now,
in the month of Phalguna; but it was so because the winter solstice
had receded by over full one month by that time. Saya~a dot:s not
appear to have fully realised the reason of this change and combin-
ing the occurrenCe of Vasanta in Phalguna in his time with the occur-
rence ~f the same season in Chaitra in the days of the Taittirtya
SaJPhitA and other works he attempted to reconcile the difference
on the theory of the. two-fold character of the seasons. But we
can now better understand the change as due to the precession

• See Cal. Ed., pp. 6o, 61.
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