Ancient calendars and constellations

Not much more than a hundred years ago the Sanscrit language began to yield to the study of Europeans some of its literary treasures. Almost on the moment, a controversy arose as to the antiquity of the science of astronomy in India; for scholars were amazed to find in this already long dead language many learned astronomical treatises, besides complete instructions for calculating, year by year, the Hindu calendar, as also for calculating horoscopes.

Some then proclaimed the wonderful facts revealed, and extolled the antiquity and accuracy of this Indian science, while others, noticing the many points of resemblance between European and Indian methods, supposed, and warmly advocated the opinion, that much of the astronomy contained in Sanscrit works had been borrowed from the Greeks.

Sir William Jones was amongst the first to enter the lists against this Grecian theory; and he thus throws down his glove in defence of the antiquity and originality of the science of astronomy in India.

“I engage to support an opinion (which the learned and industrious M. Montucla seems to treat with extreme contempt) that the Indian division of the Zodiack was not borrowed from the Greeks or Arabs, but, having been known in this country (India) for time immemorial, and being the same in part with that used by other nations of the old Hindu race, was probably invented by the first progenitors of that race before their dispersion.”[43]

Since Sir William Jones wrote this challenge, and supported it with whatever linguistic and scientific resources were at his command, volumes of heated controversy by many authors have been devoted to the same subject.

Just at present, however, an almost indifferent calmness has taken the place of the excited interest formerly manifested. The majority of scholars, both European and Indian, appear to have accepted, as an axiom, the opinion that much of Indian astronomy, and certainly the Indian acquaintance with the twelve-fold division of the Zodiac, is to be attributed to Grecian influence.

A minority of writers still hold the view advocated by Sir William Jones about a hundred years ago, and thus reiterated by Burgess (the translator of the Indian standard astronomical work the Sûrya-Siddhânta) in 1860. “The use of this (twelve-fold) division, and the present names of the signs, can be proved to have existed in India at as early a period as in any other country.”[44]

The minority who hold this view are so few at present that, as has been said, the majority rest in their opposed opinion in all the calmness of conviction.

I will now as briefly as possible state the chief arguments put forward, for and against, this conviction.

I. In favour of the comparatively late introduction into India of the twelve-fold division of the Zodiac, it is contended that the divisions of the Indian Solar Zodiac so closely resemble those of the Grecian (the Zodiac which we to this day depict on celestial globes), that it is not possible to believe that two nations or two sets of astronomers could independently of each other have imagined the same fanciful and apparently inconsequent series.

History does not tell of communication between Greece and India, sufficient to account for this similarity of astronomical method, till after the date of Alexander’s conquest—about 300 B.C. The Greeks could not at that late date have first become acquainted with the figures of the Zodiac, for in Grecian literature of a much earlier age the figures of the Zodiac and other constellations are alluded to as already perfectly well known. As the Greeks therefore could not have learnt all their astronomic lore from the Indians, the Indians must have learnt theirs from the Greeks at some date later than Alexander’s Eastern conquests.

A corroboration of this opinion is drawn from the consideration that, in the most ancient Sanscrit work in existence—the purely Indian Rig Veda, containing no Grecian taint—the twelve-fold divisions of the Zodiac appear to be unknown. This opinion as to the Rashis or constellations of the Solar Zodiac is so generally adopted, that the age of any Sanscrit work in which mention of these Rashis occurs is at once—no matter what its claims to antiquity may be—set down as not earlier than the comparatively modern date of 300 B.C.

II. As regards the Indian Lunar Zodiac. The Indians make use at present for calendrical purposes, not only of the twelve-fold Solar Zodiac, they have also a series of 27 Nakshatras, or Lunar mansions (this is for convenience sake designated by European writers as the Lunar Zodiac). It is admitted on all hands that the Nakshatra series was not derived from Grecian sources. But it is contended that the fixation of the initial point of this Lunar Zodiac (a point at the end of Revatī and the beginning of Aswinī, 10 degrees west of the first point of our constellation Aries) was due to an astronomical reform of the Hindu calendar, probably carried out under Grecian auspices at a date not much earlier than 600 A.D. A very clear statement of this opinion is thus given by Whitney (the editor of Burgess’ translation of the Sûrya Siddhânta):—

In further corroboration of this view—deduced from the astronomical supposition (to which I have drawn attention by italics) put forward in this extract—ancient Sanscrit literature is appealed to. Hymns and lists referring to the Nakshatras are to be met with in the Yajur and Atharva Vedas, in which Krittikā, now the third Nakshatra, holds the first place.

The Nakshatra Krittikā contains the group of stars known to us as the Pleiades. The most brilliant stars in the Nakshatra Aswinī are the two stars in the head of the constellation Aries (the Ram), known to astronomers as α and β Arietis.

The vernal equinoctial point coincided about 2,000 B.C. with the constellation Krittikā. It is considered to be most probable that on account of this coincidence, at the early date when the hymns and list in question were composed, Krittikā was chosen as the leader of the Nakshatra series, and hence a similar reason for the later choice of Aswinī as leader relegates it to a date not much earlier than 570 A.D.

These very briefly, as far as I have been able to gather them, are the chief arguments in favour of—

(1) The Grecian introduction of the twelve-fold Zodiac into India about 300 B.C.

(2) The date of 570 A.D. for the fixation of the initial point of the Indian Zodiacs, and for the commencement of the history of Indian astronomy.

These propositions are based on cogent reasonings, and are maintained by very high authorities. The opponents of the modern theory have brought and bring forward the following considerations:—

Again the same writer points out that the resemblance between the Indian and the Greek Zodiac is—

These considerations put forward by Sir William Jones are further emphasized by the reflection that not only does the Grecian theory entail the improbability of the proud and jealous Brahmins adopting into their science and their mythology the teachings of foreigners; but that it also entails the greater improbability of the two rival Hindu sects, Brahmins and Buddhists, having at the same date and with equal enthusiasm adopted into their science and religious symbolism and calendars the same innovations.

Again the opinion of the Greek writers at the beginning of our era may be quoted as showing the high estimation in which, at that time of the world, Indian astronomy was held: as for instance in the life of Apollonius of Tyana (written about 210 A.D. by Philostratus), the wisdom and learning of Apollonius are set high above those of all his contemporaries; but from the sages of India he is represented as learning many things, especially matters of astronomy.[47]

This high opinion held by Greeks in regard to Indian astronomy may be contrasted with the very moderate praise bestowed on the Grecian science by Garga, a Hindu writer of, it is supposed, the first century B.C. He says:—

Somewhat to the same effect speaks a Hindu author of a later date, Varāhamihira, who wrote an astronomical dissertation treating of five different works known to him on the science of astronomy. He says:—

This moderate, and, as it reads, judicial opinion of Varāhamihira, touching the superiority of the native Sūrya Siddhānta over the Pauliśa and Romaka Siddhāntas, may be appealed to as not conveying the impression that when Varāha wrote his co-religionists and scientists were accepting, wholesale and with avidity, Grecian astronomic methods in place of their own already well-established native science. It is true that in Varāha’s work many words evidently of Grecian origin are to be met with; and some scholars have claimed that these “Greek terms occurring in Varāhamihira’s writings are conclusive proofs of the Greek origin of Hindu astronomy.” That such terms should occur in a work professedly a resumé of five astronomic treatises—some of them Indian, and some European—can scarcely be considered as conclusive proof that in the writer’s time no purely Indian astronomic science existed. Varāha’s writings suggest an author interested in comparing the resemblances and the differences to be met with in home and foreign methods, rather than one introducing for the first time important astronomic truths to the notice of his readers.

It may be further urged that the claims to antiquity in Sanscrit astronomical works are so well known, that those who adopt the Grecian theory must necessarily throw discredit in a very wholesale manner on all their authors. Bentley’s furious diatribes may be quoted as an extreme example of the way in which the evidence of such Sanscrit claimants to antiquity is sometimes dealt with; and it may be pointed out that such violent denunciation cannot be looked on as convincing argument.

It is unnecessary now to further pursue the pros and cons of what has hitherto been said and written on the vexed questions as to the originality and antiquity of astronomy in India, and especially as to the Indian acquaintance with the twelve-fold divisions of the Zodiac, and the date of the fixation of the initial point in their Zodiac. We have seen that by the majority the Grecian and modern theory is the favoured one.

Within the last quarter of a century, however, an unexpected reinforcement has come into the field, in aid of the disheartened and nearly silenced minority, who still believe in a great antiquity for the science of astronomy in India.

The researches of archæologists in Western Asia have of late brought to our knowledge vast hoards of information concerning the ancient inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria, and the surrounding highlands and plains; amongst other matters, concerning the science of astronomy possessed by these peoples.

In 1874, a Paper entitled The Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians was read by Professor Sayce before the “Society of Biblical Archæology,” and since that date other Papers, by various authors, dealing with the subject have appeared in the same Society’s Proceedings. Also in the Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, articles have been contributed by such writers as Epping and Strassmaier, Oppert, Mayer, Mahler, Jensen, Lehmann, and others, in which the calendars and astronomical methods in use in Mesopotamia are discussed.

Epping and Strassmaier’s Astronomisches aus Babylon and Jensen’s Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, are important volumes devoted to these same matters.

Whatever else concerning the subject of all these writings remains uncertain and open to discussion, some facts are clearly established. We now know that the inhabitants of Babylonia in a remote age (certainly as early as the fourth millenium B.C.) were acquainted with the twelve divisions of the Zodiac, and that these divisions were imagined under figures closely resembling in almost every instance those now depicted on our celestial globes. The calendar used by the Accadians, and later by the Semitic Babylonians and Assyrians, was indeed based on the observance of the Zodiacal constellations and of the journeyings through them of the sun and moon. The varying positions of the planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are also noted by references to the Zodiacal asterisms: and not only Zodiacal, but several of the extra-Zodiacal ancient constellations are represented on the monuments.

All this information gained from the cuneiform tablets concerning the science of astronomy in Western Asia must undoubtedly affect the judgment of enquirers into the history of the same science in India.

Now that it is clearly proved that 3,000 B.C. and earlier the twelve-fold fanciful signs of the Solar Zodiac were known to the inhabitants of Babylonia, it cannot any longer be asserted dogmatically that the inhabitants of India must have waited till 300 B.C. to learn this twelve-fold division from Grecian astronomers after the date of Alexander’s conquest.

But again as regards the fixation of the initial point of the distinctively Indian Lunar Zodiac, or circle of the Nakshatras, at the “end of Revatî, and the beginning of Açvinî,” that is to say, at a point not far from the first degree of Aries—cuneiform tablets teach us the important fact that long before the equinoctial point coincided with any of the degrees of Aries, that constellation was the leader of the Zodiacal series—inasmuch as the month Bar zig-gar (Accadian) the “Sacrifice of righteousness,” that is, the month when the sun was in conjunction with Aries, always in the tablets appears as the 1st month of the year.[52]

These late revelations of archæology seem to strike at the root of the main arguments relied on by the advocates of the Grecian and modern origin of astronomic science in India; and this being the case, it is possible to turn with unbiassed minds to a consideration of the teachings of Sanscrit literature, and endeavour to learn from them what is the real truth as to the acquaintance of ancient Indian authors with the figures of the Zodiac and other astronomic phenomena.

The opinion has been very generally adopted, as has been said, that in the Rig Veda there is no mention of any of the twelve figures of the Solar Zodiac. Some few writers have contended that occasional references to these figures are to be met with, and this question has been argued on etymological grounds. My entire ignorance of the Sanscrit language prevents me from at all following the arguments employed in this discussion. And here it may be said, and said with good reason, that for the discussion of points connected with Vedic literature, writers ignorant of the language in which the Vedas were composed are but ill equipped for the task. At every step I keenly feel my own disqualifications; but many translations and commentaries on the Rig Veda are in existence; and without entering into etymological questions, it has seemed to me that broad astronomic explanations of some of the myths might be supplied, if only the possibility of the Vedic Rishis having been acquainted with the strange figures of the celestial sphere should be admitted. In this paper I am anxious to draw the attention of those who can study Vedic texts in their original language to these possible explanations. Those only who know Sanscrit are really qualified to judge finally whether the suggestions here made can be sustained on further enquiry into the Vedas. If the interpretations of Vedic myths here proposed are correct—no doubt corroboration will be found for them in the Sanscrit names and epithets of mythic personages. If no such corroborations are to be met with, the probabilities in favour of the correctness of the astronomic interpretations will be greatly diminished.

But to return to our subject. It is sometimes argued that the Vedic bards could not have been acquainted with the twelve-fold division of the Zodiac, as otherwise these great constellations would surely have claimed at their hands clear and outspoken notice. With this argument I cannot fully agree. Even before pointing out the important place which I believe astronomical phenomena hold in the Rig Veda, I would draw attention to the fact that according to the generally received and non-astronomic explanation of the myths, it is necessary to suppose that still more striking and important natural phenomena than those connected with the constellations of the Zodiac—phenomena with which the Vedic bards must certainly have been acquainted—were almost entirely ignored by the authors of the Rig Veda. It is true that some great scholars claim on linguistic grounds a solar origin for much Vedic imagery and nomenclature; yet when the hymns are examined in translations, and the notes and commentaries which accompany these translations are studied, the impression left on the mind of any reader unacquainted with Sanscrit must be that very little attention or honour is given to sun, moon, or stars, in comparison to that so freely lavished on the elements of fire, air and water, and on the mysterious properties of the juice of the Soma plant.

The beauty of the dawn is almost the only celestial glory that appears to appeal with any insistence to the imaginations of the Vedic Rishis.

If out of the more than one thousand hymns of the Rig Veda, not one is addressed to the moon, and on the most liberal calculation considerably less than a hundred to the sun, under any aspect, it need not be cause for wonder if the constellations of the Zodiac are not remembered. The poets of the Rig Veda, however ignorant of astronomy, and at whatever age they lived, must have sometimes lifted their eyes above the sacrificial fire and its smoke, above the rain and storm-clouds, above their altars and libations of Soma. They must have often seen “the sun when it shined” and “the moon walking in brightness,” and if they so rarely hymned these great luminaries with whose appearance and existence they so certainly were acquainted, it would prove no ignorance on their part of the twelve-fold division of the Zodiac and its quaintly imagined figures, were it indeed the case that all mention of these figures is absent from the Rig Veda.

But as has been stated above, my desire is to draw attention to possible astronomic interpretations of many of the Vedic myths, and the adoption of such interpretations would necessarily entail a reversal of the dictum that all mention of the twelve-fold Zodiac is absent from the Rig Veda.

Those who have studied this wonderful and mysterious collection of hymns most constantly and deeply are obliged to confess that it is still very imperfectly understood, and though it is agreed unanimously that the Gods of the Veda are personifications of the phenomena of nature, yet as to the exact phenomena underlying the various Vedic myths there is among scholars much difference of opinion. It is impossible not to feel in reading the hymns and the many speculations, notes, and comments appended to them, that notwithstanding all the labour and research bestowed on the work, much of this ancient Veda still remains a cypher, for the right understanding of which the modern reader does not possess the key.

Guided by the teachings of archæology, I now make the suggestion that the key to this cypher may perhaps be found in crediting the authors of the Veda with a somewhat advanced knowledge of astronomy, and an acquaintance with the, to us, apparently fanciful constellations of the celestial sphere and Zodiac; and in assuming that the figures of the “ancient constellations” often supplied the basis of Vedic imagery.

To pursue this possible clue towards the understanding of the myths, it were much to be desired that all students should be acquainted with the names and positions in the heavens of the forty-five constellations—so well distinguished by the epithet “ancient”—and that they should master some of the more easily observed conditions of their diurnal and annual apparent movements, as also those of the sun and moon, and further that they should have learnt what changes in the scenery of the heavens have been brought about by the slow movement known to astronomers as the “precession of the equinoxes.”

Classical and philological scholars have however so rarely time and attention to spare from their own intensely interesting and important studies that as a rule astronomical phenomena are not much observed or considered by them. The accompanying diagrams drawn from a celestial precessional globe may, it is hoped, enable those, who have not as yet devoted thought to such subjects, to judge for themselves of the reasonableness or otherwise of the following astronomic suggestions concerning the most important of the Vedic gods.

According to A. A. Macdonell—who in his late work Vedic Mythology has summed up clearly and compendiously the opinions of a host of scholars on the nature of the Vedic gods—Indra is the favourite national god of the Rig Veda; he is celebrated in 250 hymns, a greater number than that “devoted to any other god, and very nearly one-fourth of the total number of hymns in the Rig Veda.”[53]

What may be called the central myths related of Indra, stripped of all epithet and ornament, relate that, invigorated by copious draughts of Soma, Indra fights with, overcomes, and drives from heaven and earth a demon called Vritra or Ahi, who is represented under the form of a dragon, serpent or water snake. Indra also searches for, finds, and releases cows which had been stolen from the gods (or according to some commentators, from the angirasas, or priests). Indra bestows on his worshippers all the blessings of plenty, especially he is the dispenser of rain.

According to the usual non-astronomic explanations of these myths, Indra, an “atmospheric god,”[54] is “primarily the thunder god” who conquers “the demons of drought or darkness,” or again, “Indra[55] is a personification of the phenomena of the firmament, particularly in the capacity of sending down rain. This property is metaphorically described as a conflict with the clouds which are reluctant to part with their watery stores until assailed and penetrated by the thunder-bolt of Indra; ... the cloud is personified as a demon named Ahi or Vritra ... a popular myth represents him (Indra) also as the discoverer and rescuer of the cows, either of the priests or of the gods which had been stolen by an Asura named Pan̂i or Vala.”

Macdonell, alluding to the same incident, observes:[56] These “cows released by Indra may, in many cases, refer to the waters, for we have seen that the latter are occasionally compared with lowing cows. Thus Indra is said to have found the cows for man when he slew the dragon.... But the cows may also in other cases be conceived as connected with Indra’s winning of light, for the ruddy beams of dawn issuing from the blackness of night are compared with cattle coming out of their dark stalls. Again, though clouds play no great part in the Rig Veda under their literal name (abhra, etc.), it can hardly be denied that, as containing the waters, they figure mythologically to a considerable extent under the name of cow (go), as well as udder (ūdhar) ... thus the rain-clouds are probably meant when it is said that the cows roared at the birth of Indra.”

At the close of the section devoted to Indra, Macdonell refers to the probably pre-Vedic origin of the Indra myths. He says:[57] “The name of Indra occurs only twice in the Avesta. Beyond the fact of his being no god, but only a demon, his character there is uncertain. Indra’s distinctive Vedic epithet vrtrahan [Vritra-slayer] also occurs in the Avesta in the form of verethraghna, which is, however, unconnected with Indra or the thunderstorm myth, designating merely the God of Victory. Thus it is probable that the Indo-Iranian period possessed a god approaching to the Vedic form of the Vrtra-slaying Indra. It is even possible that beside the thundering god of heaven, the Indo-European period may have known as a distinct conception a thunder-god, gigantic in size, a mighty eater and drinker, who slays the dragon with his lightning bolt.”

In reading the Indra hymns in the Veda, and in trying to fit them to the explanation given in the passages quoted, a constant and very disagreeable strain is put on the imagination; it must, for instance, attempt to grasp and hold, at the same time, two very far apart opinions as to the nature of the demon Vritra. Vritra is to be thought of as a demon of darkness, and as a demon of drought; the cows are clouds, they are also ruddy beams of light!

Darkness and drought are not to be easily bracketed together. Drought is in all lands, India not excepted, connected with a long continuance of bright and stainless skies. The appearance then of a little cloud “like a man’s hand” is the joyously hailed precursor of “the sound of abundance of rain.”

Again, the driving away of a snake-like cloud is no forcible simile by which to describe in myth the advent of rain in India—rain which to be of any use is no mere refreshing shower, but a long-continued downpour from clouds not hastily dispersed.

Indra’s action first in driving away the cloud-demon Vritra, and then in seeking for the beneficial cloud cows, is also contradictory.

For the reconciling of many of these contradictions the astronomic interpretation of the Indra-Vritra myths is as follows:—Indra may still retain all his atmospheric attributes of sending down rain but—Indra is primarily and essentially a personification of the summer solstice.

The summer solstice in India is an all-important agricultural epoch; it brings with it “the rainy season,” the real spring of the Indian year. Before this season all the land is parched and arid, and vegetation is at a standstill.

The punctuality of the rains in many parts of India is so exact that the farmer foretells their arrival not only to the day, but to the hour. In good years heavy and almost incessant rain lasts for two or even three months. Indra, as a personification of the season which so punctually brings the rain, is an atmospheric god, the enemy of the demon of drought. But Indra is more than this: many praises are bestowed on Indra in the Rig Veda for deeds which cannot easily be explained on the simple atmospheric theory. “Indra is the highest of all” is the refrain of many Vedic verses; “Indra placed the sun high in the sky,” “Indra tore off one wheel of the sun’s chariot,” “Indra stopped the tawny coursers of the sun.” Now all these phrases are at once and clearly to be interpreted if we think of Indra as the personification of the summer solstice, and especially of the solstice in India, where at that season of the year the sun attains to the very zenith, and thus Indra associated with the sun under one figure of speech is spoken of as “highest of all,” and in a slightly varied figure associated with the season, is said to have “placed the sun high in the sky.” Or again translating into myth the very meaning of the word solstice or “the sun being made to stand,” we read that Indra “tore off the wheel of the chariot of the sun,” and “stopped his tawny coursers.” Indra is, I cannot but believe, not merely an atmospheric god; he is the god of the summer solstice. And if this should be the case, what then may Vritra be? Is the demon of the solstitial Indra personified as only a snake-like cloud? It is impossible to think so. The astronomic interpretation of the myth I would propose is that—a snake-like constellation, not a snake-like cloud, is the representation of the demon Vritra.

On the celestial sphere many serpents and dragons are represented, but the far-reaching constellation Hydra exceeds all the others in its enormous length from head to tail. No very brilliant stars mark the asterism, nor in the grouping of its stars is there anything especially snake-like. For some reason other than its appeal to the eye did astronomers of old invest with all the horrors of the Hydra-form the monotonous length of this space on the vault of the skies.

This reason may be arrived at, with almost certainty, in studying, with the help of a precessional globe, the position in the heavens of this constellation in different ages of the world’s history. So studying, we shall find that 4,000 B.C.—or to be more precise, one or two hundred years earlier—Hydra extended its enormous length for more than 90° symmetrically along one astronomically important (though invisible) mathematical line—the line of the heavenly equator—and was at the same date accurately bisected by another equally important mathematical line, namely the colure of the summer solstice (see Plate IX.).

Almost irresistibly, as it appears to me, the conviction forces itself on the mind, in considering the position held by the constellation Hydra 4,000 B.C., that it was at that date that this baleful figure was first traced in imagination on the sky, there fitly to represent the power of physical (and may we not suppose also, of moral?) darkness—a great and terrible power—but a power ever and ever again to be conquered by the victorious power of light. In astronomic myth this power was represented as that of the sun at the season of its highest culmination, the season of the summer solstice. For an observer in the temperate northern zone all through the long nights of mid-winter, the whole length of the dreadful Hydra was at the date named visible above the horizon. The dark midwinter season was therefore the time of the Hydra’s greatest glory. At every season of the year, except at that of midsummer, some portion of the monster’s form was visible during some part of the night. But at the summer solstice no star in the constellation might show itself for ever so short a time.[58]

The supposed latitude of the observer in Plate IX. is 40° N., a latitude considerably to the north of any part of India; but it is to be remembered that the Indra-Vritra myth cannot be claimed with any certainty as a purely and originally Indian myth, for, as Macdonell points out (as quoted above), there is a probability that “the Indo-Iranian period possessed a god approaching to the Vedic form of the Vrtra-slaying Indra,” and that “it is even possible that beside the thundering god of heaven, the Indo-European period may have known as a distinct conception a thunder-god, gigantic in size, a mighty eater and drinker, who slays the dragon with his lightning bolt.”[59]

For the origin of this world-wide myth, therefore, we should not look to the tropical Indian Zone; but it is in Indian latitudes that we should look for an explanation of the physical phenomena hymned by Vedic bards in the distinctly Indian development of the Indra-Vritra myth. I believe that in thus tracing the course of the Indra story from temperate to tropical latitudes, we shall find a reason for the contradictory attributes assigned to the demon Vritra, namely those of darkness and drought.

In northern latitudes winter is distinctly the dark season; in tropical India there is little or no perceptible difference between the darkness of winter and summer. But in India winter is distinctly the dry season. Midsummer is the all-important season of the rains. Indra’s conquest over Vritra, or the arrival of solstitial rains, marked by the disappearance of the constellation Hydra from the sky, was mythologically in the Vedas described as Indra’s conquest over the demon of drought, but still traditionally—for the power of tradition is great—even in India Indra retained the attributes of the conqueror over the demon of darkness.