112 



G. Thibaut — On tlie Suri/aprajnapti. 



[No. 3, 



traces are to be found either in the Vedanga itseU: or — and this is of great 

 importance as the Vedanga is still partially unexplained — in the Siiryapraj- 

 fiapti which illustrates the constitution of the quinquennial yuga in the 

 most diffuse manner, but has nothing to say about a correction of the kind 

 mentioned. — The subdivisions of the yuga are in the Siiryaprajiiapti de- 

 scribed with great fulness ; what is really essential admits, however, of being 

 stated in a few words. Each solar year is divided into two ayanas of one 

 hundred and eighty-three days each. Each ayana in its turn comprises 

 six solar months, each of which lasts 30|- days. Two of these solar mouths 

 constitute a solar season ; the reckoning of the seasons starts, however, not 

 from the beginning of the yuga, but the latter is made to mark the middle 

 of a season, so that the rainy season which counts as the first begins a 

 month before the beginning of the yuga. Again the yuga comprises five 

 years of 360 days each, each year in its turn being divided into twelve 

 months of 30 days each ; in the Suryaprajiiapti this kind of year — com- 

 monly known as the savana year — is called the harma-year or ritu-year 

 which latter name would more properly be given to the solar year. 

 The six days by which this year is shorter than the solar year are called 

 atiratras. Again the yuga comprises sixty-two synodlcal months, the first 

 of whom begins with the moon being full in the first point of Abhijit. 

 Each of these months is divided into a light and a dark half ; each half 

 comprises fifteen tithis or lunar days of equal duration. Sixty-two of these 

 months being equal in duration to sixty-one karma-months of 30 days 

 each, it follows that sixty-two tithis are equal to sixty-one natural 

 days ; in order therefore to maintain harmony between the numbers 

 of the natural days and those of the tithis, a break in the count- 

 ing of the tithis is made whenever two tithis terminate during one 

 natural day, i. e., according to the Siirj^aprajiiapti on the occurrence 

 of each sixty-second tithi. The details of this process are not stated 

 in the Suryaprajiiapti, but there can be no doubt that mutatis mutandis it 

 was managed as it has been managed in India ever since. To give an 

 example, the sixtieth natural day, counting from the beginning of the 

 yuga, during which the sixtieth tithi terminated was counted as paiicha- 

 dasi (fifteenth tithi), the next following day as pratipad (first day of th^ 

 new lunar half month) and then the day after that not as dvitiya, second 

 lunar day, but as tritiya third lunar day, the second lunar day having 

 already terminated together with the preceding sixty-first natural day. 

 These sixty-two lunar months are divided among five lunar years, the first, 

 second and fourth of wliich comprise twelve lunations each, while the third 

 and fifth count thirteen each. The technical name of years of the latter 

 kind is abhivardhita-samvatsara, the increased year. The. method accord- 

 ing to which the two thirteenth months are intercalated in the yuga is 



