1880.] 



G. Tliibaut — On tlie Surya/prajnapti. 



113 



not described in detail ; it is however clear enough how it proceeded. 

 The thirty-first lunation and again the sixty-second one were not counted, 

 but formed together with the month immediately following a kind of 

 double month taking its name from the second constituting member. Thus 

 there is nominally no thirteenth month, and a proper name for the latter is 

 therefore not required. 



Again the yuga consists of sixty-seven periodical lunar months, the 

 moon during it returning sixty-seven times to the place from which she 

 had started at the beginning. No attempt is made in the Suryaprajuapti 

 to group these months into j^ears nor are they subdivided into days of 

 equal duration ; they are simply said to comprise 27 f f days each. They 

 are, however, subdivided into two ayanas each, analogously to the division 

 of the solar year into ayanas. This division is indeed legitimate enough 

 as it is based on the alternate progress of the moon towards the north and 

 south, about which details will be given later on. Less comprehensible is 

 on the other hand the division of each periodical month into six lunar 

 seasons, whose names answer to those of the solar seasons beginning with 

 the rainy season ; a division of this kind is of course utterly gratuitous 

 and purposeless, and to us interesting only as a specimen of the Indian's 

 excessive tendency to systematize. 



If we now proceed to an examination of the account given in the 

 Siiryaprajiiapti of the revolutions of sun and moon, we find at the outset 

 that it differs from the statements made by Garga and in the Vedanga in 

 one important point. According to the latter authorities (see Jyotisha- 

 Vedanga, V. 6 ; this Journal for 1877, p. 415; Weber, Nakshatras II, pp. 28, 

 33), the yuga begins with the winter solstice, at the moment when it is new- 

 moon, sun and moon being in conjunction in the beginning of the nakshatra 

 Dhanishtha ; according to the Suryaprajuapti the yuga begins with the 

 summer solstice, at the moment when the moon is full in the beginning 

 of Abhijit and the sun consequentlj'- stands in Pushya. The coincidence of 

 the winter solstice with new moon marking, according to the Vedanga, the 

 beginning of the yuga may of course actually have taken jjlace at the time 

 when the doctrine of the quinquennial yuga was first established and will 

 have recurred later on from time to time ; but it is evident that it could 

 not regularly recur every fifth year. To this fact, however, as Avell as to 

 the change which in consequence of the precession of the equinoxes gra- 

 dually took j^laee in the position of the sun at the time of the winter 

 solstice, the eyes of the Hindus seem to have i-emained shut during a 

 considerable period. Now it is curious to see that in this one point at 

 least the author of the Siiryaprajnapti who, on the whole, faithfully adheres 

 to the old system and does not hesitate to take over the quinquennial yuga 

 itself with all its glaring imperfections, considered himself entitled or 



