History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.267

v6.c82.267

After the vernal equinox, days become gradually longer than the night and after the autumnal equinox nights are gradually longer and longer than the day. As there are only thirty muhūrtas from one sunrise to the next sunrise it is proper to say that a muhūrta is equal to two ghaṭikās (i. e 48 minutes). But it is also said that there are 15 muhūrtas of the day. The longest day in India of the Vedāṅga-jyotiṣa locality was of 36 ghaṭikās and therefore if one insisted on the number 15 each muhūrta on that day would be 2⅖ ghaṭikās, while as the shortest day was 24 ghaṭikās in length each muhūrta of that day would be only 1⅗ ghaṭikās. This difference in length in the case of muhūrtas is noted by the Viṣṇudharmottara (I. 73 6-8) and by the Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa (I. 2. 21. 122-123). The Viṣṇudharmottara (I. 83 67-73) sets out the names of the deities of the 30 muhūrtas. It appears that in ancient times it was understood that the longest day gained and was of 18 muhūrtas, while the short night of that day had only 12 muhūrtas i. e. 6 muhūrtas got attached to the day sometimes and 6 muhūrtas got attached to the night sometimes when it was longest. Patañjali⁷⁹⁷ in his bhāṣya on Vārtika 2 of Pāṇini II. 1. 29 mentions this. This would be a matter of personal observation which need not extend beyond a few years. But even here Prof. Neugebauer smells Mesopotamian influence ('Exact sciences in Antiquity' p. 178). This is a characteristic example of the jaundiced eyes with which most Western writers look at things Indian. If the writer of the Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa was a native of the extreme north-west of India or had stayed there for some years he would have easily noticed the difference between the longest day and the shortest day as about twelve ghaṭikās, particularly as that very verse of the Vedāṅga-jyotiṣa shows that water clocks were then used. Even illiterate people in the villages of Bombay State know that the difference between the longest and shortest day in their villages is about six ghaṭikās (as Bombay is a little over 18 degrees, N. Lat). There is nothing to show that the writer of the Vedāṅga-Jyotiṣa was not a person who was either born in the extreme north-west of India or stayed there. The North-west of India was a centre of Sanskrit culture at least six centuries preceding the Christian era and Takṣaśīlā (Taxila) was a great University where princes came to learn (vide Rhys Davids in 'Buddhist India' p 8). Pāṇini hailed from that part, it appears, and teaches the formation of words like Saindhava, Tākṣaśīla and Śālaturīya as meaning a person whose ancestors lived in or who himself stayed in Sindhu or in Takṣaśīlā or in Śalātura (Pāṇ. IV. 3. 89-90 and 93-94). Later writers call Pāṇini Śālaturīya (vide Bhāmaha VI 62-63). To suppose that a learned Indian who was writing a work on Jyotiṣa had to run all the way from India to Mesopotamia a thousand or more miles for finding out the difference between the longest and shortest day in his own country or for saying that the difference between the longest and shortest day in Mesopotamia being 12 ghaṭikās the same was the difference between them in India or for consulting works written in the Cuneiform characters for that purpose almost borders on the absurd. Besides Prof. Neugebauer is not quite correct. The latitude of Babylon is 32° 40' North and even there the ratio would not be exactly as 3 to 2 Gāndhāra is 31° 40'