The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c8.38

c8.38

We shall now examine in detail the theory that the full-moon night in Mārgaśīrṣha was once the first night of the year. So far as I am aware there is no express authority for such an hypothesis except the statement in the Bhagavad-Gītā (x. 35) where Kṛiṣhṇa tells Arjuna that he, Kṛiṣhṇa, is "Mārgaśīrṣha of the months (and), Vasanta of the seasons." Ānandagiri in his gloss on Śaṅkara's Bhāṣhya upon the Gītā, observes that Mārgaśīrṣha is here specially selected because it is a month of plenty. But the reason does not appear to be either sufficient or satisfactory; for the next sentence, and in fact the whole context, shows that Mārgaśīrṣha was here intended to be the first of the months. The principle commentators on the Gītā are too philosophical to notice this point, but in a commentary written by Sūrya Paṇḍit, an astronomer, entitled the Paramārtha-prapā, I find that he explains the statement on the ground that Mârgashîrsha was otherwise called Agrahâyaṇika, and the latter word denotes that the full-moon night in this month was the first night of the year.* If we accept this explanation, and no other plausible one is forthcoming, it appears that this statement in the Bhagavad-Gîtâ was based on an etymological misconception of the meaning of the term Agrahâyaṇika; and later writers like Amarasinha and Vâgbhaṭa,† simply followed the Gîtâ in assigning the same position to the month of Mârgashîrsha. We may, therefore treat all these statements as coming from one source and representing a certain period of the Sanskrit literature, when native scholars first misconceived the primary meaning of Agrahâyaṇika. I have already shown that, properly understood, the etymology of the word gives little room for such a misconception. Agrahâyaṇika is really a derivative word and cannot therefore mean that the month denoted by it was the first in the year just as Jyeṣṭha does not mean the eldest month. But it appears that the tradition about Mṛigashiras (Agrahâyaṇa) ever being the first of the Nakshatras, was completely lost in those days, and native scholars believed, on what they considered to be sound etymological grounds that the month and not the Nakshatra was the commencement of the year. Once started and embodied in the Gîtâ, the theory gained an easy and rapid currency amongst native scholars, all of whom naturally felt bound to shape their views accordingly.