The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c10.4

c10.4

I have already shown that *Âgrahâyni* if not *Agrahâyana*, can be traced back to Pânini's time, as the name of a Nakshatra, and that it is a mistake to derive it from the name of the full-moon day. We have now to see if we can trace back the word still further. The word *hâyana* does not occur in the Rigveda, and it may be doubted if the name *Agrahâyaṇî* was in use in the old Vedic days. *Hâyana* is, however, used in the Atharva Veda (viii. 2. 21 ; xi. 6. 17) and in the Brâhmaṇas ; and may be compared with Zend *Zavan* meaning winter. Pâṇini (iii. 1. 148) derives *hâyana* from *hi* = to go or abandon, after the analogy of *gâvana* and gives two meanings, *viz*, the grain ‘*vrîhi*’ and ‘time.’ Whether we accept this derivation or not, it is at any rate clear that the word was used in Pâṇini's days, to denote a division of time and a kind of grain, and I think we can better account for both these meanings of *hâyana* by connecting the word with *ayana* and *Agrayaṇa* or the half-yearly sacrifices. Dr. Geiger, speaking of the old Parsî calendar observes that “probably the half-year was more employed in civil life than the complete year.”* Now whether the observation be entirely correct or not, we can, I think at any rate, assume that the division of the year into two equal halves is an old one. I have already discussed the two-fold division of the year into *Devayâna* and *Pitṛiyâna* and its coincidence with the passage of the sun to the north and the south of the equator. *Ayana* in the sense of such a division thus appears to be an old word and by prefixing *h* to it we may easily get *hayana* subsequently changed into *hâyana* like the words in the Prajnâdi list, wherein this word was not included as it was derived by Pâṇini in a different way. The insertion and omission of *h* when followed by a vowel at the beginning of a word is not uncommon even in these days,* and there is nothing extraordinary if we derive *hayana* from *ayana*. Now by a natural process when we have two forms of a word or two derivatives of the same root they gradually come to be utilised for specific purposes, and so acquire distinct meanings. Sanskrit lexicographers class such words under *Yogarūḍha*, meaning thereby that etymology and convention have each a share in determining their denotation. *Hayana* might thus come to exclusively denote a complete year, while *ayana* continued to denote a half-year as as before.† When *ayana* thus became *hayana*, *Agrayana*, which all lexicologists derive from *agra* + *ayana*,‡ would be changed into *agra* + *hayana* = *Agrahayana*; and when *hayana* was changed to *hiyana* in a manner analogous to the words in the Prajnâdi list (Pan. v. 4. 38) as stated above, *Agrahayana* would be altered into *Agrahayana*. We can thus account for the double forms—*hayana* and *hiyana*, *Agrahayana* and *Agrahayana*—which we find given in Bōhtlingk and Roth's and other lexicons, while if we accept Pāṇini's derivation, *hayana* will have to be either thrown out as incorrect or derived otherwise. In Amara ii. 8. 52, *hayana* occurs as a different reading for *dayana* in the sense of a vehicle and Bhânu Dikshita derives it from *hay* to go; but we might as well ask if *hay*, *ay*, and *i*, all meaning to go, are not the different forms of the same root. As far as the form of the word is concerned we may therefore derive *hâyana* from *hayana* and the latter again from *ayana* and similarly *Agrahâyana* from *Agrahayana* and this again from *Agrayana*