India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c13.12

c13.12

Prof. Jogesh Chandra Ray has investigated the time of the transition of the winter solstice from the first point of the Dhanishṭhā to the star Śravaṇa on the basis of astronomical calculations in his paper entitled 'The First Point of Aśvinī' (1934). His conclusion is that the Nakshatra Sravishṭhā is the star *Beta Delphini*, and that it was in the fourteenth century B.C., or in the year B.C. 1372 when the sun, moon and the star Śravishṭhā were in conjunction at the time of the winter solstice, and since one Nakshatra period changing at the rate of about one degree in 70 years takes somewhat less than a thousand years (about 933 years), it was in the fifth century B.C. that Śravaṇa occupied a position in relation to the winter solstice similar to that occupied by the Śravishṭhā previously. Counting from B.C. 1372, the precession amounted to one Nakshatra-space in B.C. 405, and the nearest year in which new moon happened on the day of the winter solstice was 401 B.C. At this time Śravaṇa was observed as the star of the winter solstice and recorded by astronomers as being the first in the list of Nakshatras, a fact implied in the statement of the *Mahābhārata* cited above (*Śravaṇādīni ṛikshāṇi*) and interpreted in this light by Fleet, Keith and others. In case the date 401 B.C. represents the year of Śravaṇa Nakshatra coinciding with the winter solstice, the literature and authors referring to Śravishṭhā as the first of the Nakshatras must be placed anterior to that date. With reference to the question of Pāṇini's date this gives us a reliable basis to fix the lower limit of his date at about 400 B.C. The upper limit as stated already may be *circa* 500 B.C. from the date of Makkhali Gosāla referred to as Maskarī in the *Ashṭādhyāyī*.