The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c7.15

c7.15

There is thus sufficient independent evidence to show that before the Hindus began to make their measurements from the vernal equinox in Revatî there existed a system in which the year commenced with the winter solstice in the month of Mâgha and the vernal equinox was in the last quarter of Bharaṇî or the beginning of the Kṛittikâs.† We need not, therefore, have any doubts about the authenticity of a work which describes this older system and gives rules of preparing a calendar accordingly. Now this is what the Vedâṅga Jyotiṣa has done. It is a small treatise on the Vedic calendar, and though some of its verses still remain unintelligible, yet we now know enough of the work to ascertain the nature of the calculations given therein. It was once supposed that the treatise mentions the Râṣhis,