Page 80 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

''hiras. R~anath in his Trikan~a Viveka, gives a quotation from
Rabhasa and another from a Smriti to the same effect. • If the
word Mrigashiras was thus ever used in the feminine gender:'the
~ a
feminine adjective Agrahdyar.a£ might have been used as a synonym
for the same, not because it was- the name of the full-moon, but
because the asterism was spoken af in the feminine gender. This
may account for the fact why Amarasinha lay particular tress
on this point. For says he ' M rigashir!Jham ( i ) Mrigashiras ·
Agrahay~t (is used ) to denote the very same 't thus implyfn.g
that a feminine word is used to denote what he supposed might
be regarded only in the neuter gender. This is, indeed, a plausible
explanation. It not only absolves Amarasinha from the charge
of having given a wrong, or at leat a distorted word, but mak~s
him warn his readers not to misunderstand the word AgrahayaiJf
for the full-moon night-a mistake into wbich almost all his
commentators .have, however, unfortunately fallen. It may further
explain why inste.ad of the Nakthatra, the full-moon day ( both
of which were on this theory denoted by the same word Agrahdylifl£)
came to be regarded as the first night of the year and so gave rise
to later speculations. But the fact that Amarasinha mentions
Marga hir$ha first amongst the months shows that he was not
altogether free from the influence of the speculative theory; and
the explanatioo above stated must therefore be accepted with
caution.
But whatever explanations we may adopt to defend Amani,
I think it will Se plain from the above that, so far as our purpose
is concerned, we must reject the explanations of the commentators
of Amara, who derive the name of the Nak~thatra, as given by
Amara, from Agrahdyat;~£, the name of the full-moon. After this
we may either suppose Agralu!ya~Ja or igrahuyat;~i, or Agrahdy(lt;lt
to be the same of the :Nak!Jhatra, for in every case the difference
onsists only in the form and gender and not in the derivation,
~
or the meaning of the word. Thus understood AgrahdyarJi or
Agrahuya!Ja both give us the same meaning, viz., that year was in
the front of the Nak~hatra of Mrigashiras; or in other words

• See extract~ from RO.manAtha"s com . in Anundoram Horooah's
publication, p. 112.
t Thus:- ~~~n~ ~m~ff~'lrt~v~n 1 IYhy ff~'l: