History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s21.39.2

v1.c6.s21.39.2

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.