The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c6.6.1

c6.6.1

But the complications here referred to are evidently the growth of later times. The four ways of reckoning time, the Sâvana, the Chândra, the Nakshatra and the Saura, are not all referred to in the early works, and even in later days all these measures of time do not appear to have been fully and systematically utilised. There is, as I have said before, no early work extant on Vedic calendar, except the small tract on Jyotisha, and our information about the oldest calendar must, therefore, be gathered either from stray references in the Vedic works or from the early traditions or practices recorded in the old sacrificial literature of India. There are several sacrificial hymns in the Rigveda, which show that the sacrificial ceremonies must then have been considerably developed; and as no sacrificial system could be developed without the knowledge of months, seasons, and the year, it will not be too much to presume that in Vedic times there must have existed a calendar to regulate the sacrifices. It is difficult to determine the exact nature of this calender, but a study of the sacrificial literature would show that the phases of the moon, the changes in the seasons, and the southern and northern courses of the sun were the principal land-marks in the measurement of time in these early days. What is still more interesting, however, is that the leading features in the early sacrifices are the same as those in the year. The late Dr.