A History of Sanskrit Literature c35.s1.1

c35.s1.1

THERE is a definite breach of continuity in Indian thought on astronomy, with which astrology and mathematics are ever closely connected.¹ In the Vedic period we find extremely little sign of astronomical study; the year is vaguely reckoned, and the twenty-seven or twenty-eight Nakṣatras, moon stations, are of dubious origin. At the close of the Vedic period we have more elaborate works on the calendar evinced in Sūtra notices and summed up in the *Jyotiṣa Vedāṅga*,² preserved in two versions, for the *Yajurveda* and the *Ṛgveda*; we find here a calendar arranged on the basis of a five-year Yuga, with a 366-day year, notices of the position of the sun and moon at the solstices, and at new and full moon with regard to the Nakṣatras. Some further development of a purely Indian type is found in the case of works like the *Gārgī Saṁhitā*, of which we have fragments, the astronomical hints of the *Vṛddha Gargasaṁhitā*, the fragment of Pauṣkarasādin preserved in the Weber MS., the Nakṣatra and other Pariçiṣṭas of the *Atharvaveda*, and the *Paitāmaha Siddhānta* recorded by Varāhamihira. The Jain texts, chiefly the *Sūryaprajñapti*,³ though they develop a fantastic view of their own, are essentially of this type. The epic, the Purāṇas, the Smṛtis, and old writers such as Parāçara known from fragments are of the same type.