A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c20.s2.36

v1.c20.s2.36

Another piece of evidence put forward as indicating an early date of the oldest layer of the Carakasaṃhitā, associated with Agniveśa, is the absence of the seven-day week of the solar calendar and the names of the days of the week called after their presiding planets. A number of Indian authors assume that the seven-day week was introduced about one thousand years before the beginning of the Śaka era (A.D. 78);275 its absence would thus corroborate that the Agniveśatantra dates from about 1.000 B.C. Actually, the solar calendar, imported with Western astronomy, was known from Gupta times onwards and did not oust the old luni-solar calendar, which invalidates the argument.276