The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.58.3

c12.58.3

Ervad Jamshedji Dadabhai Nadershah, that the method of counting by seasons and days is the older of the two, and the phrases containing the names of months and days are later interpolations, made at a time when the older method was superseded by the latter.¹ But even supposing that the double phrases were used originally, we can, so far as our present purpose is concerned, safely infer from these passages that the method of marking the days of the year by mentioning the season and the day thereof was in vogue at the time when the Âfrigân was written; and if the method is so old, it fully warrants us in interpreting *chatvârimshyâm sharadi* to mean "On the 40th (day) in *Sharad* (autumn)." There can be little doubt that the Vedic bards have recorded in this passage the exact date of the commencement of Indra's fight with Shambara, but in the absence of the true key to its meaning the passage has been so long unfortunately misunderstood and misinterpreted both by Eastern and Western scholars. The grammatical possibility of connecting *chatvârimshyâm*, as an adjective, with *sharadi* helped on this misconception; and though Vedic scholars were unable to explain why Shambara, according to their interpretation, should be described as having been found in the 40th year, yet they seemed to have accepted the interpretation because no other meaning appeared possible to them. The alternative construction proposed by me above is very simple.