Page 81 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

SAMAGU 'lll.Aif-... 2 • TH£ OJUON
commenced with il. If what I have said above is enough ·to prove
this, 1 do not care to insist on a particular form, whether masculine,
feminine, or neuter, of AgrahayOIJO which as an adjective is the
basis of all such forms. With this reservation, I may, I think, in
what follows use the word AgrahaytliJO to denote the Nakthatra
of M~gashiras and as evidencing the circumstance that it was so
called because it was the first Naktbatra iQ the year.
Corresponding to the winter solstice in Pha!guna, we thus
have the asterism of Mrigashiras or Agrahaym_aa to commence the
year from the ver.aal equinox, much after the same manner as
the Krittikas were said to be the mouth of the Nak~hatras when
the winter solstice fell in the month of Magha. The express ,
statement in the Brahmat:tas that the PMlgunt full-moon commenced
the year from, as I have previously shown, the winter solstice, is
thus borne out by the tradition which we find treasured up in
.AgrahayaJ;Jt, Now if the vernal equinox was near the asterism of
M rigashiras the autumnal equinox would be in Miila. It has
been ingeniously suggested by Bentley that this name signifying
• root or origin ' may have been given to the Nakthatra because
it was once the first amongst the asterisms and he has actually
given a list of the Nakthatras beginning with Mlila; but he does
not appear to have used it except to show that when one of the
twenty-eight Nakthatras was dropped the divisional Jyeththa
and Mlila both began from the same fixed pouit in the heavens,-
a position which gives him the vernal equinox in the beginning of
the Zodiacal portion of the Krittikas. I have already shown that
we cannot suppose that the old Vedic priests matie observations
of imaginary lines in the beuens and Bentley's explanation which
entirely depends on the mathematical division of the Zodiac is not
therefore satisfactory. Nor can I accept Prof. Whitney's suggestion
tion that Mdla • may perhaps heve been so named from its being
considerably the lowest or iarthest to the southward of the whole
series of asterisms and hence capable of being looked upon as
the root of all the asterisms.' • I should rather suggest that Mdla
was so called because its acronycal rising marked the commen-
cement of the year at the time when the vernal equinox was near
M rigasbras and the winter solstice fell on the Phalguoi full-moon •
.AgrllMyCI!Jfl setting with the sun in the west and Mlila rising in

• See his Siir.1a Siddhlnta, p. J 94.