1862.] 
A Letter from Archdeacon Pratt. 
49 
A Letter from Archdeacon Pratt on Colebrooke’s determination 
of the date of the T r edas. 
Calcutta , March 21 st, 1862. 
Mi dear Professor Cowell, —In reply to your question, How 
did Colebrooke deduce the age of the Vedas from the passage which 
he quotes from the Jyotish or Vedic Calendar in his Essays (vol. i. 
p. 110) P I beg to send you the following remarks. 
In that passage it is stated that the Winter Solstice was, at the 
time the Vedas were written, at the beginning of S'ravishtlia or Dha- 
nishtha, and the Summer Solstice at the middle of As'lesha. 
Now the Hindoos divided the Zodiac into 27 equal parts called 
Lunar Mansions, of 13° 20' each. Their names are 
3. As'wini 
2. B liar am 
3. Krittika 
4. Bohini 
5. Mrigas'iras 
6. Ardra 
7. Punarvasu 
8. Pushy a 
9. As'lesha 
10. Magha 
31. P. Phalgum 
32. U. Phalgum 
19. Miila 
20. P. Ashadbd 
21. U. A'shadha 
22. S'ravana 
23. Dhanishtha 
24. S'atabhisha 
25. P. Bhadrapada 
26. U. Bhadrapada 
27. Bevati. 
13. Plasta 
34. Chitra 
15. Swati 
36. Vis'akha 
17. Anur&dha 
18. Jyeshtha 
The position of these Lunar Mansions among the stars is deter* 
mined by the stars themselves and not by the sun, and is therefore 
unaffected by the precession of the equinoxes. If, therefore, we can 
determine their position at any one epoch, we know their position for 
all time. The Hindoo books furnish us with the requisite informa* 
tion. In the translation of the Surya Siddhanta published in the 
Bibliotheca Indica, Chap. VIII. p. 62, you will find that the conspi- 
cuous star Begulus, or a Leonis, is placed by the Hindoo Astro¬ 
nomers at 4 signs, 9 degrees from the beginning of these Lunar Man¬ 
sions (or Asterisms, as they are there called). As 4 signs equal one- 
third of the whole zodiac, they equal 9 lunar mansions. Hence the 
position of Begulus is 9° in Magha the 10th lunar mansion. 
But by the Jyotish, the Summer Solstice was in the middle of 
As'lesha, the 9th lunar mansion, at the epoch of the Vedas : there¬ 
fore Begulus was half a lunar mansion -f* 9°, that is, 15° 40', east of 
the Summer Solstice at that time* 
