A History of Sanskrit Literature c35.s1.5

c35.s1.5

The characteristics of this period are a general ignorance of the mean motions of the sun and moon, resulting in faulty appreciation of the length of years and months; a total ignorance of the true motion as opposed to mean motion; the teaching of an equal daily increase or decrease of the length of the day; dividing the sphere into twenty-seven or twenty-eight Nakṣatras; entertaining fantastic ideas of the constitution of the earth and the universe, and a determination on false premisses to work out large numerical calculations. All save the Jain texts assume that the winter solstice fell at the beginning of the Nakṣatra Dhaniṣṭhā, but this datum is quite insufficient to enable us to fix in any way the date of the works. They contribute to the scientific period two ideas of great importance, if of no value: the conception of great Yugas, during which a complete change of the heavenly bodies is carried out, so that a new Yuga begins with all of them in the same places as the preceding Yuga; and the conception of the lunar day, Tithi, which is a thirtieth part of a synodical month, a strange and not convenient unit.