Page 74 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

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tells Arjuna that he, KriiJhl:ta is ' MargashtriJha of the months
(and ), Vasanta of the seasons '. Anandagiri in his gloss on
Shankara's BM~Jhya upon the Gita, observes that Margashirsha
is here specially selected because it is a month of plenty. But the
reason does not appear to be either sufficient or satisfactory; for
the next sentence, and in fact the whole context, shows that Marga-
shir~Jha was here intended to be the first of the months. The
principal commentators on the GitA are too philosophical to
notice this point, but in a commentary written by Surya Pandit,
an astronomer, entitled the Paramartha-prapa I find that he explains
the statement on the ground that Margashiuha was otherwise
called .Agrahaya'}ika and 'the latter word denotes that the full-
moon night in this month was the first night of the year. • If we
accept this explanation, and no other plausible one is forthcoming,
it appears that this statement in the Bhagwad Gita was based on
an etymological misconception of the meaning of the term
Agrahay01)ika and later writers like Amarasinha and Vagbhata,+
-simply followed the GitA in assigning the same position to the
month of Margashirttba. We may, therefore, treat all these state-
ments as coming from one source and representing a certain period
of the Sanskrit literature, when native scholars first misconceived
the primary meaning of Agrahay01)ika. I have already shown that,
properly understood, the etymology of the word gives little room
for such a misconception. Agrahaylll}ika is really a derivative word
and cannot therefore mean that the month denoted by it was the
first in the year just as JyeiJhtha does not mean the eldest month.
But it appears that the tradition about Mfigashiras ( Agrahdy01Ja )
• The commentary is printed at Poona. The words in the origina I
are-~~: 1..~ '4~f~dllfta«t~~IGtT'tllftClf~'Wmt.l ~
~ a111frl{V!t I 8ftf '<'4111(14~1ifi ~~ ~illlf I 81~) ;~ +IT~ !i<-<4~1~"tftr­
'fi:~ 1 If Anandagiri's explanation be correct then the GttA is not opposed
to deriving Ag,.ah:iJt~ from Agrah:J,~. the name of a Nak,hatra, and
the whole of the above discussiOn would be unnecessary.
t VAgbhata, in his, larger work entitled Astlngasangraha, other-
wise called Vriddha Vlgbha~a, enumerates months as beginnang wath
Mlrgshll'lha. In i, 4 of t~e work the Uttarlya\Ul is said to commence
with MAgba; while MArgashlttha rs mentioned first amongst the months
there enumerated, much aft-er the same way as Amara has done io 1
4, 13, and 14.
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