History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s21.39
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s21.39
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Dr. Jolly (*R. u. S.* p. 21) following Dr. Jacobi (*Z D M G* 30, p. 306) thinks that Yāj. shows an acquaintance with Greek astrology. Dr. Jacobi’s position amounts to this that the naming of the week days after the planets was established among the Greeks towards the end of the 2nd century A. D. and as the names of the week days and the arrangement of the planets in correspondence with them was borrowed by the Indians from the Greeks, no Indian work which enumerates the week days or arranges the planets in the well-known sequence (of Sun, Moon, Mars &c.) could have been composed before the third century after the Christ. As is very often the case with Western Sanskrit scholars in matters of Indian chronology, this grand generalisation is based upon very slender data. The premises are mere assumptions without hardly any evidence worth the name to support them. No one knows exactly when the week-days were named and who were the people that first employed the current names of the week-days. It is well-known that as far back as the days of Herodotus the Egyptians had a presiding deity for each day and that in the times of Julius Cæsar there were days of Saturn (*vide* I. A. vol. 14, p. 1, General Cunningham’s article for the Indian origin of week-days). At least from the third century B.
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C., as vouched for by the 13th edict of Aśoka, India was in close touch with Syria and Egypt, where Buddhist missionaries had been sent by Aśoka while Antiochus and Ptolemy ruled in the two countries respectively. Therefore, if Indians at all borrowed the week-days and the arrangement of planets from foreigners, there is nothing to prevent us from holding that they borrowed them from the Egyptians. The earliest dated Indian record wherein a week-day is mentioned is the Eraṇ Inscription of 484 A. D. (Gupta Inscriptions p. 89) where we have “Suraguror divase.” It is to be noticed that Yāj. does not mention the week-days. In I. 296 he mentions the nine *grahas* in order as the Sun, the Moon, Mars (the son of the earth), Mercury (the son of Soma), Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rāhu, Ketu. No one can gainsay that at least the Sun, the Moon, Bṛhaspati and Venus were known to the Ṛgvedic India. Bṛhaspati in the highest heaven is spoken of in the Ṛgveda³²⁵ and the conjunction of Jupiter and Tiṣya (constellation of Puṣya) is spoken of in the Tai. Brāhmaṇa.³²⁶ We know so very little of the ancient astronomical science in ancient India that one must think twice before dogmatising. Yāj. nowhere mentions the zodiacal signs (rāśis) and probably did not know them. Not only so, in his day the *nakṣatras* were still arranged from Kṛttikā to Bharaṇī as was the case in the Tai. S. IV. 4. 10. Vide Yāj. I. 268 (Kṛttikādi bharaṇyantam). We know from Varāhamihira that in the 5th century A. D.
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the signs of the zodiac and the arrangement of *Nakṣatras* from Aśvinī to Revatī were established facts in all parts of India. Therefore Yāj. who uses the ancient arrangement of Nakṣatras cannot be placed so late as the 4th century A. D. When Yāj. (I. 80) speaks of "susthe indau" we should not, following such commentaries as the Mit., connect the words with the signs of the zodiac or the houses of the horoscope. Viśvarūpa does not speak of *rāśis* in this connection, but of Nakṣatras only. From very ancient times certain Nakṣatras had come to be regarded as auspicious or suitable for particular acts. The Tai. ³²⁷Br. directs that one should not finish a thing or begin to sacrifice on a nakṣatra with an evil name. The same Brāhmaṇa says that ploughing was to be begun on the Maitra asterism (Anurādhā) and consecration of fire on the Āditya nakṣatra. Even the Ṛgveda speaks of auspicious days³²⁹ and the Tai. Br. speaks of Deva-nakṣatras and Puṇyāhas, and says that a daughter should be given away in marriage on the Svāti nakṣatra if she was desired to be her husband's favourite.³³⁰ Vide Baudhāyana Gṛhya (I. 1) for the marriage nakṣatras; also Āp. Gr. S. II. 15. 12-14, Gobhila Gṛhya 4. 4. 28 and 2. 1. 1. Therefore, when Yāj. speaks of planets being badly placed (I. 307), or of Vyatīpāta, Gajacchāyā and the passing (saṁkrama) of the Sun (I. 218), we have no right to connect this with the *rāśis*. In III.
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171 and 172 he speaks of only the conjunction of planets and of the passage (of them) through *tārās* and *nakṣatras*. The Baud. Dh. S. II. 5. 23 speaks of the nine *grahas* in the same order as that of Yāj. Therefore there is hardly any evidence to show that Yāj. knew more astrology than was current in the days of the Brāhmaṇas and the Gṛhyasūtras. Yāj. (in II. 240-241) speaks of the fine to be imposed on those who counterfeited "nāṇakas" (coins) and on those examiners of "nāṇakas" who falsely declared a good coin to be counterfeited and *vice versa*. Mr. Jayasval (Calcutta Weekly Notes, vol. 17, p. clix) says that nāṇaka is the gold coin of the Kushans bearing the picture of the Goddess Nanaia and that the Kushans did not rise to importance before 78 A. D. This would place Yāj. after 100 A. D. But it must be remembered that this connection between the Goddess Nanaia and the word "nāṇaka" is quite conjectural and that the chronology of the Kushans is far from being settled.