Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s20.163

v1.c3.s20.163

(2) All the lists of the Nakṣatras begin with Kṛttikās. It is only fair to suppose that there was some special reason for this fact. Now the later list of the Nakṣatras begins with Aśvinī, and it was unquestionably rearranged because at the time of its adoption the vernal equinox coincided with the star ζ Piscium on the border of Revatī and Aśvinī,¹¹⁵ say in the course of the sixth century A.D. Weber¹¹⁶ has therefore accepted the view that the Kṛttikās were chosen for a similar reason, and the date at which that Nakṣatra coincided with the vernal equinox has been estimated at some period in the third millennium B.C.¹¹⁷ A very grave objection to this view is its assumption that the sun, and not the moon, was then regarded as connected with the Nakṣatras; and both Thibaut¹¹⁸ and Oldenberg¹¹⁹ have pronounced decidedly against the idea of connecting the equinox with the Kṛttikās. Jacobi¹²⁰ has contended that in the Rigveda¹²¹ the commencement of the rains and the summer solstice mark the beginning of the new year and the end of the old, and that further the new year began with the summer solstice in Phalguni.¹²¹ He has also referred to the distinction of the two sets of Deva and Yama Nakṣatras in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa¹²² as supporting his view of the connexion of the sun and the Nakṣatras. But this view is far from satisfactory: the Rigveda passages cannot yield the sense required except by translating the word dvādaśa¹²³ as ‘the twelfth (month)’ instead of ‘consisting of twelve parts,’ that is, ‘year,’ the accepted interpretation; and the division of the Nakṣatras is not at all satisfactorily explained by a supposed connexion with the sun. It may further be mentioned that even if the Nakṣatra of Kṛttikās be deemed to have been chosen because of its coincidence with the vernal equinox, both Whitney¹²⁴ and Thibaut¹²⁵ are prepared to regard it as no more than a careless variant of the date given by the Jyotiṣa, which puts the winter solstice in Māgha.