The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c8.33

Language: English

c8.33.1

The whole of this difficulty, however, vanishes, if we give up the notion, that the full-moon night in the month of Mârgashîrṣha might have commenced the year at one time and that the name of the Nakshatra as given by Amara must be derived from the name of the full-moon. There is no express authority in the Vedic works to support such a theory and a closer examination of Pâṇini's sûtras points to the same conclusion. Months in the Hindu calendar receive their names from the full-moon nights occuring in them; and the characteristics of a month are the same as those of the full-moon night after which it is named. If the full-moon night in Mârgashîrsha was, therefore, ever the new-year's night then the month itself would have come to be properly called the first month of the year. In other words the month of Mârgashîrsha would itself, in that case, be called Agrahâyana. Boehtlingk and Roth do interpret the word Agrahâyana in this way on the authority of Shabda-kalpa-druma and Târânâtha has done the same probably on the same authority, for none quotes any passage where the word is so used. Now if Agrahâyana ever meant the month of Mârgashîrsha the word would also assume the form Agrahâyana on the ground given above by Bhattoji ;* and we shall have Agrahâyana as another name of the month of Mârgashîrsha. The word occurs in the Gaurâdi list (Pan. iv. 1. 41), and therefore must be taken to have been known to Pânini. What did he understand it to mean?

c8.33.2

There is strong ground to hold that he could not have understood it to mean the month of Mârgashîrsha. For if we suppose that in Pânini's times there were two forms of the word in this sense—Agrahâyana and Agrahâyanika—he would have rather mentioned Agrahâyanî in iv. 2. 23,† along with Chaitrî, &c., which gives the double forms Chaitra and Chaitrika and not with Ashvatta in iv. 2. 22† as he has now done. We may, therefore, infer that Agrahâyanika was the only sanctioned form of the word to denote the month of Mârgashîrsha in Pânini's time. This means that Pânini did not know of the theory which makes the year commence with the Mârgashîrshî full-moon night or the month of Mârgashîrsha (*Agrahâyaṇa*). If so, he could not have derived the word *Agrahâyaṇî* for the full-moon night directly by taking it to be a Bahuvrîhi compound.* The only other alternative is to derive it as we derive *Chaitrî* and other similar words, and I think this is what Pânini meant. For if he had been aware of any such difficulty in the formation of *Agrahâyaṇî*,—a word thrice used by him,—and especially in in obtaining the initial long vowel as Bhattoji and others have felt by taking it to be a Bahuvrîhi compound, he would have naturally noticed it himself. I therefore conclude that Pânini derived *Agrahâyaṇî* from *Agrahâyaṇa*, as the name of a Nakshatra. In this case we can derive *Agrahâyaṇî* in a simple and easy manner. For by Pânini iv. 2.

c8.33.3

3, we get the initial long vowel, when derivative words are formed from the names of the Nakshatras to express time; we now want the feminine suffix *i*, and though this could have been obtained by Pân. iv. 1. 15, yet, for accentual purposes, it may be considered as provided for by the inclusion of the word *Agrahâyaṇat* in the Gaurâdi list in Pan. iv. 1. 41. We can thus derive the word in the ordinary way, and unless we have strong grounds to maintain that it was really the full-moon night and not the Nakshatra, which commenced the year, we shall not be justified in accepting unusual derivations and explanations of these words. It is true that the word *Agrahāyaṇī* as denoting a Nakshatra is now lost and Amarasinha only gives *Agrahāyaṇī* and not *Agrahāyaṇa* as a synonym for the Nakshatra of Mṛgashiras. But I shall presently show that Amarasinha is not alone in misconceiving the meaning of these old words. The theory that the Mār-gashīrṣhī full-moon was the first night of the year, has been the source of many other errors in later literature; but before examining these it was necessary to show how the theory has distorted the natural meaning and derivation of the very words on which it appears to have been based.

c8.33.4

As remarked above if there be any express or cogent authority to support the theory we might connive at the etymological difficulties, but if it be found that the theory is inconsistent with many other facts, or leads, as I shall presently show, to absurd results, the etymological distortions would afford us an additional ground for rejecting it.