The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c6.13.1

c6.13.1

We have now to examine the principal parts of the year, alias the sacrifice. The *sâvana* or the civil day appears to have been, as its etymology shows,† selected in such cases as the natural unit of time. 30 such days made a month and 12 such months or 360 *sâvana* days made a year.‡ Comparative Philology, however, shews that the names for the month and the moon coincide, with occasional small differences of suffix,* in most of the Indo-European languages, and we may therefore conclude that in the primitive Aryan times the month was determined by the moon. Now a month of thirty civil or sâvana days cannot correspond with a lunar synodical month, and the Brahmavâdins had therefore to omit a day in some of the sâvana months to secure the concurrence of the civil and the lunar months.† The year of 360 sâvana days was thus practically reduced to a lunar year of 354 civil days or 360 tithis. But a further correction was necessary to adjust the lunar with the solar reckoning of time. The zodiac was not yet divided into twelve equal parts, and the solar month, as we now understand it, was unknown. The commencement of the cycle of seasons was, therefore, the only means to correct the calendar, and the ancient Aryas appeared to have early hit upon the device of the intercalary days or month for that purpose.