India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s14.53

c8.s14.53

What does the beginning with *Śravishṭhā* indicate? Now the list of the *Vedāṅga Jyotisha* also commences with *Śravishṭhā*, and Garga says that the *Kṛittikās* are the first asterism for the ritual, while *Śrāvisṭha* is the first for ordinary reckoning: *Karmasu Kṛittikāḥ prathamam (nakshatram), Sravishṭhā tu saṁkhyāyāḥ* (cited by Tilak, *The Orion*, p. 30). Hopkins who discussed this question with reference to the *Mahābhārata* evidence found that the *Mahābhārata* refers to two beginnings, *viz.* (1) with *Dhanishṭhā* (another name of *Śravishṭhā*) as in the Vanaparva (230. 10), and (2) with *Śravaṇa* as in the Aśvamedha-parva (44.2, *Śravaṇādīni ṛikshāṇi*) (*J. A. O. S.* XXIV, p. 15, 34). Fleet discussing independently another *Mahābhārata* passage, *pratiśravaṇa-pūrvāṇi nakshatrāṇi chakāra yaḥ* (Ādiparva, 71.34) showed that the 'two passages of the *Mahābhārata*, giving a Śravaṇādi list of the *nakshatras* are noteworthy as coming from a time when it was recognised that the winter solstice had travelled westwards from the first point of *Śravishṭhā* (*Dhanishṭhā*), where it was placed by the astronomy which was preserved in the *Jyotisha Vedāṅga*, and was in the preceding Nakshatra *Śravaṇa* (*J.R.A.S.*, 1916, p. 570). Pāṇini's mention of *Śravishṭhā* at the head of his list is evidently in conformity with the Vedāṅga astronomy and points to a time anterior to the revision of the *Nakshatra* list, or, as Dr. Keith would have it (*J.R.A.S.*, 1917, p. 139), its reform by substituting *Śravaṇa* for *Śravishṭhā*. The point is of some importance for the relative chronology of Pāṇini, as explained in the last chapter.