Vishnupurana 2.8.11

The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition 2.8.11

Language: English

2.8.11

Fifteen days of thirty Muhúrttas each are called a Paksha (a lunar fortnight); two of these make a month; and two months, a solar season; three seasons a northern or southern declination (Ayana); and those two compose a year. Years, made up of four kinds of months, are distinguished into five kinds; and an aggregate of all the varieties of time is termed a Yoga, or cycle. The years are severally called Samvatsara, Parivatsara, Idvatsara, Anuvatsara, and Vatsara. This is the time called a Yuga.

2.8.11.n1

The four months are named in the Váyu, and are, 1. the Saura, or solar-sydereal, consisting of the sun's passage through a sign of the Zodiac: 2. the Saumya or Chándra or lunar month, comprehending thirty lunations or Tithis, and reckoned most usually from new moon to new moon, though sometimes from full moon to full moon: 3. the Sávana or solar month, containing thirty days of sunrise and sunset: and 4. the Nákshatra or lunar asterismal month, which is the moon's revolution through the twenty-eight lunar mansions.

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The five years forming this Yuga, or cycle, differ only in denomination, being composed of the months above described, with such Malamásas, or intercalary months, as may be necessary to complete the period, according to Vriddha Garga. The cycle comprehends, therefore, sixty solar- sydereal months of 1800 days; sixty-one solar months, or 1830 days; sixty-two lunar months, or 1860 lunations; and sixty-seven lunar-asterismal months, or 1809 such days. Col. Warren, in his Kála Sankalitá, considers these years to be severally cycles. "In the cycle of sixty," he observes, "are contained five cycles of twelve years, each supposed equal to one year of the planet (Jupiter). I only mention this cycle because I found it mentioned in some books; but I know of no nation nor tribe that reckons time after that account. The names of the five cycles, or Yugs, are, 1. Samvatsara, 2. Parivatsara, 3. Idvatsara, 4. Anuvatsara, 5. Udravatsara. The name of each year is determined from the Nákshatra, in which Vrihaspati sets and rises heliacally, and they follow in the order of the lunar months." K. S. 212. It may be reasonably doubted, however, if this view be correct; and the only connexion between the cycle of five years and that of Vrihaspati may be the multiplication of the former by the latter (5 x 12), so as to form the cycle of sixty years: a cycle based, the commentator remarks, upon the conjunction (Yuga) of the sun and moon in every sixtieth year. The original and properly Indian cycle, however, is that of five years, as Bentley remarks. "The astronomers of this period (1181 B. C.) framed a cycle of five years for civil and religious ceremonies." Ancient and modern Hindu Astronomy. It is in fact, as Mr. Colebrooke states, the cycle of the Vedas, described in the Jyotish, or astronomical sections, and specified in the institutes of Paráśara as the basis of calculation for larger cycles. As. Res. VIII. 470.

Linked texts (1)

Viṣṇupurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit