法苑珠林 4.59

4.59

The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra states: As explained in the Chapter on Avaivartika: Concerning days, months, years, and seasons—a day is reckoned from dawn to dawn, with an initial period, a middle period, and a final period; the night likewise has three periods. One day and one night have thirty muhūrtas. At the spring and autumn equinoxes, fifteen muhūrtas belong to the day and fifteen muhūrtas belong to the night; at other times they increase or decrease. In the fifth month, the day reaches eighteen muhūrtas and the night twelve muhūrtas; in the eleventh month, the night reaches eighteen muhūrtas and the day twelve muhūrtas. A month is either thirty and a half days, thirty days, twenty-nine and a half days, or twenty-seven and a half days. There are four kinds of months: first, the solar month; second, the civil month; third, the lunar month; and fourth, the sidereal month. The solar month is thirty and a half days; the civil month is thirty days; the lunar month is twenty-nine days plus thirty sixty-seconds [of a day]; the sidereal month is twenty-seven days plus twenty-one sixtieths [of a day]. The intercalary month arises from the two matters of the solar month and the civil month; this is called the thirteenth month. Sometimes thirteen months are called one year; such a year has three hundred and sixty-six days, cycling through and beginning again. When a bodhisattva knows the middle period of a day, the preceding period has already passed, the subsequent period has not yet arisen, and the middle period has no dwelling place; there is no characteristic to be grasped of a period of the day, being empty and devoid of anything. Coming to thirty days, twenty-nine days have decreased; how can they combine to form a month? Since there are none, how can they combine to form a year? For this reason, the Buddha said that worldly phenomena are like an illusion and like a dream, merely phenomena that deceive the mind. Bodhisattvas are able to know the worldly combinations of days, months, and years, and are able to know their dissolution into nothingness; this is called skillful discernment. (According to the sūtras, when people have little merit, solar and lunar anomalies occur: there may be a red sun or a red moon and various evil omens, as fully explained in the sūtras.)