The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c8.56

c8.56

I have already mentioned before that the year was divided into two ayanas, the northern and the southern, and that though originally the northern ayana indicated the passage of the sun to the north of the equator yet it afterwards came to indicate the passage of the sun from the winter to the summer solstice. I have also stated that after this change was made all the attributes of the older ayanas must have been gradually transferred to the new ones, though the old division was concurrently kept up; and that the new ideas were formed solely with reference to the solstitial division of the year. Thus the Pitriyâna during which time the sun in older times went down the equator must have come to be regarded, for some purposes at least, as commencing from the summer solstice. With the winter solstice occurring on the Phâlguni full-moon day, we shall have the summer solstice on the Bhâdrapadâ full-moon, so that the dark half of Bhâdrapada was the first fortnight in the Pitriyâna, understood as commencing on the summer solstice. It was thus pre-eminently the fortnight of the pitris or the manes; and *to this day*, every Hindu celebrates the feast to the manes in this fortnight. As far as I know no reason has yet been advanced why the dark half of Bhâdrapada should be called the fortnight of the pitris (*pitṛ paksha*) and why special feasts to the manes should be ordained at this particular period of the year. With the winter solstice in the asterism of Uttarâ Bhâdrapadâ, that is when it occurred on the Phâlguni full-moon, the matter is simply and satisfactorily explained. For then the Dakshinâyana or summer solstice commenced on the dark half of Bhâdrapadâ and this fortnight therefore naturally became the *first* fortnight in the *ayana* of the manes.[^ *]