The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.181.3

v1.c17.181.3

7, the *Veris initium* in the Roman calendar, and which is a perfectly possible date for about 800 B.C., especially when it is remembered that the division of the year into three periods of four months was always a rough one, and the beginning of spring had to be placed early so as to allow of the rains, which are definitely marked out by the fall of the first rain, to fill the period from about June 7 to October 7. With this explanation the theory, that the mention of the full moon in Phalgunī as the beginning of the year records an observation of the fourth millennium B.C., disappears, and still more the theory that the mention of the month Caitra as the beginning of the year carries us back to the sixth millennium. Nor can any more trust be put in the argument that the mention in the late marriage ritual of the Dhruva, a fixed star shown to the bride and bridegroom as a symbol of constancy, points to an observation made at a period when there was a real fixed pole star, *i.e.* in the third millennium B.C. We do not even know whether this part of the rite goes back to the period of the Brāhmaṇas; and, even if it did, for so little scientific a purpose there was no need of anything save a fairly bright star not too distant from the pole. Ingenious therefore as all these arguments are, they must be dismissed as affording no real certainty of correctness. The most that can be said is that they tend to support the period 800–600 B.C.