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Art. XII.—On the Jyotisha Observation of the Place of the Colures, and the Date derivable from it

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

William D. Whitney Esq.
William D. Whitney Esq.
Affiliation:
Professor of Sanskrit in Tale College, New-Haven, U.S.
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Extract

Colebrooke, in his celebrated essay “On the Vedas, or Sacred Writings of the Hindus” (As. Researches, vol. viii.; Misc. Essays, vol. i.), was the first to direct general attention to the now familiarly known passage of the Jyotisha relative to the position of the solstices in the Hindu lunar zodiac, and to derive from it a date for use in determining the doubtful chronology of the earliest period of literary productiveness in India. His conclusion is expressed as follows: “Hence it is clear, that Dhanishṣhâ and Aslesha are the constellations meant; and that, when this Hindu calendar was regulated, the solstitial points were reckoned to be at the beginning of the one, and in the middle of the other: and such was the situation of those cardinal points in the fourteenth century before the Christian era” (Misc. Essays, vol. i., pp. 109–110). He had a little before (ibid., p. 106) declared that he “inclined to think, that the ceremonies called yajña, and the prayers to be recited at those ceremonies [namely, the prayers constituting the sanhitâs of the three older Vedas], are as old as the calendar.”

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , April 1865 , pp. 316 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1865

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References

page 317 note 1 There is the more reason for arguing the case anew, as, in a criticism of Dr. Haug's Aítareya Brâhmaṇam (in the Saturday Review for March 19 1864) which is understood to come from the pen of Prof. Müller, this scholar seems inclined to abandon in part his former opinions, in deference to the authorit of the writer whom he is criticizing; he says: “he is right also when he assigns the twelfth century as the earliest date for the origin of that simple astronomical system on which the calendar of the Vedic festivals is founded.” The “margin of several centuries” here disappears, and the date of the observation becomes ascertainable with exactness.

page 318 note 1 Namely, those of Viṣâkhâ and Chitrâ. For the amount and direction of the errors of position of all the junction-stars, see the table in our notes on the Sûrya-Siddhânta, in the Journ. Am. Oriental Society vol. vi., p. 355Google Scholar (p. 211 of the separate impression).

page 319 note 1 This is the rate adopted by Archdeacon Pratt in his calculation, and it is quite sufficiently exact. The Rev. R. Main, in a note to Müller's Preface (p. lxxxiv.), already referred to, substitutes a more precise valuation, and makes a difference of five years in the result; a totally insignificant correction in a calculation of this character.

page 320 note 1 Wilford's statement is put forth in correction of that of Sir William Jones, who had fixed the date at 1181 B.C. This seems a remarkable concordance with Archdeacon Pratt's result; but, in fact, the coincidence is only fortuitous: the real agreement of Jones's process is with my own. The amount of precessional movement, 23° 20′, and the derived interval of time, 1680 years, are the same in his calculation and in mine: but he reckons the interval back from an assumed period of Varâha-mihira, a.d. 499, and I, from the time when the equinox was actually 10′ east of Piscium, or a.d. 560.

page 321 note 1 Davis's date, 1391 b.c., differs from this only to an insignificant amount, which may possibly be explained by supposing that he reckoned the precession at 1° in seventy-three years: its rate is, indeed, a little slower than 1° in seventy-two years, although the latter value is a good deal more nearly correct than the former.

page 323 note 1 Weber, in his Jyotisha (Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1862, p. 28)Google Scholar, if I rightly apprehend his meaning, also inclines to, this view.

page 324 note 1 See Journal Am. Or. Soc., vol. viii., pp. 44–5Google Scholar.

page 325 note 1 For instance, upon the comparative asterismal chart given in the additional notes to our translation of the Sûrya-Siddhânta, (Journ. Am. Or. Soc., vol. vi.)Google Scholar

page 326 note 1 That is to say, in longitude; which is evidently, upon the whole, the fairest method of regarding their position as estimated by the unaided eye.

page 328 note 1 See the Aitareya Brâhmaṇam, etc., by Haug, Martin. Bombay: 1863. Vol. i., Introduction, pp. 42sqGoogle Scholar.

page 330 note 1 See the details in the second of Weber's, valuable articles on the nakshatras, in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1861, pp. 282sq., 344 sqGoogle Scholar.