The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c12.38

c12.38

We have thus an almost continuous record of the year-beginnings from the oldest time down to the present in the literature of India, and in the face of this evidence it is useless to indulge in uncertain speculations about the antiquity of the Vedas. I have already referred to the occurrence of the pitṛi-pakṣa in Bhâdrapada as a relic of the time when the year commenced with the Phalguni-full-moon. Our Shrâvaṇi ceremony appears to have been once performed in Bhâdrapada (Manu iv. 95 ); and as it marked the beginning of the rains, when the herbs appear anew (Âshvâlâyana Gṛihya Sûtra iii. 5, 2), we can here trace the recession of the rainy season from Bhâdrapada to Shrâvaṇa and from Shrâvaṇa to Âṣhâḍha (Sânkhyâyana Brâhmaṇa i. 3) and finally from Âṣhâḍha to Jyeṣhṭha, as at present, thus fully corroborating the recession of the beginning of the year or the winter solstice from Chaitra to Phâlguna, from Phâlguna to Mâgha, and from Mâgha to Pauṣha. The evidence of the recession of the seasons is not, however, as complete as that of different year-beginnings, inasmuch as there are various local causes besides the precession of the equinoxes that affect the ocurrence of the seasons. The seasons in the Central India and Central Asia cannot, for instance, be the same, and if the Aryas came into India from the North-West, the very change of locality must have caused a corresponding change in the seasons. The evidence of the change of seasons cannot therefore be supposed to be so reliable and conclusive as that of the successive changes in the beginning of the year above mentioned.