The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c7.62

c7.62

Supposing the Krittikâs to denote the asterism of that name this gives us, according to Prof. Whitney's* calculation, 2350 B. C. as the probable time for the compilation of the Taittirîya Sanhitâ. Some scholars unwilling to carry the antiquity of the work to such a remote period, have urged, without assigning any special reason, that by Krittikâs we must here understand the beginning of the zodiacal portion of that name. Now as the position of the asterism of the Krittikâs in its zodiacal portion is 10° 50' from the beginning,† these scholars would place the vernal equinox about 11° behind the asterism of the Krittikas and thus reduce the antiquity of the Sanhita nearly by 11 x 72 = 792 years or to about 1426 B. C.* I have briefly stated before my reasons for discarding this supposition and holding that the names of the Nakshatras in the early Vedic days must be taken to denote the asterisms known by such names. If Indian priests are to be supposed incapable of making any accurate observations of solstitial points in 1200 B. C., † it is to my mind utterly inconsistent and illogical to hold that the forefathers of these priests, when they assigned the vernal equinox to the Krittikas, understood the word to mean not the asterism but the imaginary beginning of the zodiacal portion of that name. I cannot also understand why scholars should hesitate to assign the Vedic works to the same period of antiquity which they allow to the Chinese and the Egyptians. ‡ But it is needless here to enter into this controversy. For if I once succeed in showing, as I hope to do, that there is sufficient internal evidence in the Vedic literature itself of a still remoter antiquity, all theories, conjectures, and guesses, which have the effect of unduly reducing the antiquity of the Vedic works and also of throwing discredit upon the claims of the Indians to the origin of the Nakshatra system, will require no refutation.