The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c8.53

c8.53

But whatever explanations we may adopt to defend Amara, I think it will be plain from the above that, so far as our purpose is concerned, we must reject the explanations of the commentators of Amara, who derive the name of the Nakshatra, as given by Amara, from Āgrahāyaṇī, the name of the full moon. After this we may either suppose Agra-hāyaṇa or Āgrahāyaṇī, or Agrahāyaṇī to be the name of the Nakshatra, for in every case the difference consists only in the form and gender and not in the derivation, or the meaning of the word. Thus understood Āgrahāyaṇī or Agraḍayaṇa both give us the same meaning, viz., that the year was in the front of the Nakshatra of Mṛigashiras; or in other words *commenced with it*. If what I have said above is enough to prove this, I do not care to insist on a particular form, whether masculine, feminine, or neuter, of *Agrahâyaṇa* which as an adjective is the basis of all such forms. With this reservation, I may, I think, in what follows use the word *Agrahâyaṇa* to denote the Nakshatra of Mṛigashiras and as evidencing the circumstance that it was so called because it was the first Nakshatra in the year.