A Concise History of Science in India c6.s2.1

c6.s2.1

In connection with our discussion of astronomical knowledge in the *Saṃhitās* and the *Brāhmaṇas*, we have several times referred to the *sūtras* and the *Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa* because the latter by and large embodied the astronomical knowledge already found in the Vedic period proper. But the late character and composition of the *sūtras* and the *Jyotiṣa* are not in doubt. The *Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa* records the location of the summer and winter solstices in the middle of *Āśleṣā* and beginning of *Dhaniṣṭhā*. From the present positions of the solstices in the asterisms and from the precessional rate of 1° for every 72 years, it is easy to show that at about 1400 B.C. the solstices coincided with the middle of *Āśleṣā* and the beginning of *Dhaniṣṭhā*. This has led many scholars to suggest 1200 B.C. as the time of composition of the *Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa*. But the possibility of an earlier tradition being recorded in the *Jyotiṣa* and other internal and literary evidence strongly suggest it to be a work of the *Sūtra* period, that is after 700 or 600 B.C. (Filliozat placed it between 400 B.C. and A.D. 200). The work is attributed to Lagadha who probably recast it from an earlier work.