The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.181.1

v1.c17.181.1

As with the Rigveda, attempts have been made to show that these dates are much too low and that astronomical data enable us to carry the Brāhmaṇas much further back. The lists of the Nakshatras all begin with Kṛittikās, and we know that in the sixth century A.D. the constellation which then headed the Nakshatras was chosen because the vernal equinox took place when the sun was in conjunction with that Nakshatra. From the precession of the equinoxes, we are enabled to arrive at the conclusion that the position of Kṛittikās at the vernal equinox must have taken place in the third millennium B.C. This has been supported by a passage in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa where it is said that Kṛittikās did not move from the eastern quarter at that time. But we have no evidence whatever to connect the sun and the Nakshatras at this period, and the notice regarding the position of Kṛittikās cannot be taken seriously in a work which shows so little power of scientific observation of facts as the Çatapatha. Moreover if, as it is probable, the Nakshatra system was borrowed ready made, we cannot even conjecture for what reason Kṛittikās was placed first. More promising is a definite notice contained in the Kaushītaki Brāhmaṇa and repeated in the *Jyotisha*, a late Vedic work on astronomy, if indeed it can be dignified with this title, that the winter solstice took place at the new moon in Maghās. From this datum results varying from 1391–1181 B.C. were early deduced by different investigators;