Page 681 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

NOTE

ON THE INTERPRETATION OF
"'
THE VEDANGA JYOTI$HA

(CRITICISM AND SUGGESTIONS)
Small as it is, the VedAnga Jyoti~ha is the oldest tract on Hindu
Astronomy, and its importance, from a historical point of view,
especially of the position of solstices recorded therein, did not
escape the attention of early Sanskrit scholars like Colebrooke,
Sir William Jones and others. The tract appears in two recensions,
-the Rik or the one belonging to the ~ig-veda, and the other
to the Y ajurveda. Of these the first was published by Captain
Jervis, at the end of his Indian Metrology, so far back as 1834,
and the late Prof. Weber brought out in 1872 a critical edition of
both the recensions, with various readings collected from the
manuscripts then available to him. But the corrupt state of the text,
as well as the enigmatical nature of the rules contained therein,
made the work-except a few simple verses- quite unintelligible;
and some scholars even doubted the antiquity of the astronomical
statements embodied in it. Dr. Thibaut, in his essay on the Vedanga,
which appeared in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in
1877, was the first to decipher a few of the difficult verses, and
among others who followed him, the name of the late Shankar
Balkri~hnaDikshitdeserves to be specially mentioned. Mr. Dikshit
in his important work on The History of Indian Astronomy, written
in Marathi and published at Poona in 1896, has not only explained
more verses of the Vedanga than any of his predecessors, but has
given us for the first time a lucid account of the principles and the
methods of calculation adopted in the Vedanga, together with an
outline sketch of the quinquennial calendar based upon it.
Whitney's reproach that the Vedanga was 'filled with unintelli-
gible rubbish, ' was thus proved to be entirely groundless. But
still about 12 verses remajned unexplained; and the credit of ex-
plaining these foc the first time, undoubtedly belongs to Lala
Chhote LAl (nom de plume Barhaspatyah ), an executive engineer
inN. W. P. who published his valuable essays on this subject first
in the Hindustan Review in 1906, and subsequently, with certain
additions and corrections in a book form in 1907. But in a task
beset with so many difficulties, no finality, as Barhaspatyah himself
v. 3