Page 77 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

SAMAGllA nLA.~- 2 • THE ORION

make an ayQIIQ, ' and then in the very next verse enumerating the
months commencing with Mlrgashtrtha, there is nothing extra-
ordinary in the supposition that some Hindu astronomers might
have similarly attempted to reconcile what were then regarded
as the two beginnings of the year, by placing the statements in
juxtaposition and puslUng them to their logical conclusions. On
the contrary, I should have been surprised if the Hindu astrono-
mers had not done so.
But, apart from the origin of the libration theory, I think it
is clr,ar that, if we accept, that th~- Mlrgashtrtha full-moon was
ever'a new-year's night, in, the sense that the winter solstice occurr-
ed at that time, we are inevitably landed on an absurdity. By the
ordinary process of reductio ad absurdum we are thus -compelled
to abandon the theory that the full-moon in M!rgashtnha once
began the year at the winter solstice. Native scholars and astrono-
mers, who did not realize the absurdity, accepted the theory of
the libratioa of the equinous as the only possible way of reconcil-
ing the two statements in their sacred books. We now know that
the equinox cannot be placed 27 ° behind Revati; ;Unless it be either
in the beginning of the present cycle of precession of the equinoxes
or about 600 years hereafter, and we should have no difficulty
in rejecting the premi~~es that give us such a conclusion. Perhaps
it may be urged that the full-moon night in Mlrgashtrtha might
have been called the new-year's night in some other sense. • Yes,
it might be; but what evidence is there that any nati'l'e scholars
ever thought of it 'l None that I know of. There are only two
beginnings of the year known in ancient Hindu literature. I have

• The only other explanation, 1 know of, is that given by Bentley
in his Historical Survey of Hindu Astronomy, pp. s-27. Bentley divides
the zodiac into 27 lunar mansions, beginning with Shra,·ith LhA in the
winter aolstice, aa 'il!. the Vedlnga Jyotitha. Then he divide·a it again
into u tro.pi.c~l months b~gin~ing with ~~g~a. The b~gin.ning of Mlgha
and the diVJSJonal Shrav•ththl ·thus cotnCJde at th1s t1me. Now the
beginning of each month must fall back ow.'ng to th" preceaa•on of the
equinoxes; and in thus receding if the beginning of lillY month coincided
with •Y. bed lunar mansion, on the 6th lunar day, the month, aaya
De1ltley, wa& made to commence the year t But what authority ia tber11
in Dative astronomical worka for auch an elaborate and artificial theory
to determine the commencemeat of the year? Native astronomerrare
aurely expected to know better the theory on which they commenced