Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s20.158

v1.c3.s20.158

The Nakṣatras and Chronology.—(I) An endeavour has been made to ascertain from the names of the months the period at which the systematic employment of those names was introduced. Sir William Jones¹¹¹ refers to this possibility, and Bentley, by the gratuitous assumption that Śrāvaṇa always marked the summer solstice, concluded that the names of the months did not date before B.C. 1181. Weber¹¹² considered that there was a possibility of fixing a date by this means, but Whitney¹¹³ has convincingly shown that it is an impossible feat, and Thibaut¹¹⁴ concurs in this view. Twelve became fixed as the number of the months because of the desire, evident in the Brāhmaṇas, somehow or other to harmonize lunar with solar time; but the selection of twelve Nakṣatras out of twenty-seven as connected with the night of full moon can have no chronological significance, because full moon at no period occurred in those twelve only, but has at all periods occurred in every one of the twenty-seven at regularly recurrent intervals.