The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c11.3.1

c11.3.1

It is said that we cannot suppose that the Vedic bards were acquainted even with the simplest motions of heavenly bodies. The statement, however, is too general and vague to be criticised and examined. If it is intended to be understood in the sense that the complex machinery of observation which the modern astronomers possess and the results which they have obtained thereby were unknown in early days, then I think there cannot be two opinions on that point. But if by it is meant that the Vedic poets were ignorant of everything except the sun and the dawn, ignorant of the Nakshatras, ignorant of month, *ayanas*, years and so on, then there is no authority or support for such a supposition in the Rigveda. On the contrary, we find that some of the Nakshatras are specifically named, such as *Arjunî* and *Aghâ* in Rig. x. 85. 13, while the same hymn speaks generally of the Nakhatras, and the motions of the moon and the sun as causing the seasons. In Rig. i. 164 we have again several references to the seasons, the year and the number of days contained in it (verse 48) and according to Yâska, perhaps to the *ayanas* (Nirukta 7. 24). I have in a previous chapter referred to the passages in the Rigveda, which mention the Devayâna and the Pitriyâna, the old names of the *ayanas* beginning with the vernal equinox; and there is, therefore, no objection to understand the above verse (i. 164. 48) as alluding to the black or the Pitriyâna. The intercalary month is mentioned in Rig. i 25.