History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.761.3

v6.c82.761.3

Pāṇini derives the word 'nāḍindhama'¹⁰⁷⁷ from nāḍī. Nāḍī is a very ancient word ¹⁰⁷⁸ It occurs in the Ṛgveda and appears to mean some cylindrical instrument like a flute.¹⁰⁷⁹ It appears that the word nāḍī came to mean a period of time when a conch or a trumpet or similar instrument was blown to announce the lapse of one nāḍī (60th part of the day) as there were no clocks then. Hence division into 60 nāḍīs or ghaṭīs (both words being mentioned by Patañjali who is generally held to have flourished about 150 B. C.) was the ancient mode of dividing the day in India and if any Sanskrit work (like the Sūryasiddhānta, chap 12. 78-79) refers to 24 parts of the day, that work may be regarded as one of later times, but the whole system of time measuring by weekdays in India cannot be said to have been borrowed from a foreign source. Even Patañjali refers to the words nāḍī and ghaṭī as long in use before his time Therefore, the division of the day into nāḍīs or ghaṭīs must be held to be long anterior to 200 B. C. On the whole it would not be far from the truth to say that weekdays were not borrowed by ancient India *en bloc* from elsewhere It is arguable that usages in Babylon and Syria might have suggested the arrangement of days into weeks, but there is hardly any cogent evidence beyond similarity and prejudice to show that the origin of the nomenclature and the method of arriving at the order of the weekdays were not indigenous Vide Cunningham in I A. vol 14 pp. 1 ff.