The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c6.25

c6.25

There is, however, a further question, as to whether the solar year, with reference to which these corrections were made, was tropical or sidereal. It is true that the great object of the calender was to ascertain the proper time of the seasons. But the change in the seasons consequent upon the precession of the equinoxes is so exceedingly minute as to become appreciable only after hundreds of years, and it is more probable than not that it must have escaped the notice of the early observers of the heavens, whose only method of determining the position of the sun in the ecliptic was to observe every morning the fixed stars nearest that luminary.* Under such a system the year would naturally be said to be complete when the sun returned to the same fixed star. Prof. Whitney has pointed out that the same system is followed in the Sûrya Siddhânta, though the motion of the equinoxes was then discovered.† It is, therefore, natural to presume that the early Vedic priests were ignorant of the motion of the equinoxes. No early work makes any mention of or refers to it either expressly or otherwise, and the solar year mentioned in the Vedic works must, therefore, be considered as sidereal and not tropical. This would necessitate a change in the beginning of the year, every two thousand years or so, to make it correspond with the cycle of natural seasons, and the fact that such changes were introduced twice or thrice is a further proof of the old year being a sidereal one.* The difference between the sidereal and the tropical year is 20·4 minutes, which causes the seasons to fall back nearly one lunar month in about every two thousand years, if the sidereal solar year be taken as the standard of measurement. When these changes and corrections came to be noticed for the first time, they must have created a great surprise, and it was not till after one or two adjustments on this account were made that their true reason, the motion of the equinoxes, could have been discovered. Garga tells us that if the sun were to turn to the north without reaching Dhanishthâ,† it foretold great calamity, and I am disposed to put a similar interpretation upon the story of Prajâpati alias Yajna alias the year, who, contrary to all expectations, moved backwards to his daughter Rohinî.‡ But as I wish to examine the tradition more fully hereafter, it is not necessary to dilate on the point here. My object at present is to show that the Vedic solar year was sidereal and not tropical, and what has been said above is, I believe, sufficient to justify such a presumption, at least for the present, though it may afterwards be either retained or discarded, according as it tallies or jars with other facts.