At Plate X. a drawing is given of the southern heavens and of the constellations—invisible at midsummer and visible at midwinter, above the horizon of an observer in latitude 23° N. at the date 3000 B.C., a thousand years later than the date referred to in Plate IX. For reasons which will appear more clearly when we come to the discussion of the Soma myth, it is to about this date that I would attribute the composition of many of the Vedic hymns.

But if Indra is to be considered as representing the summer solstice, and Vritra as representing the constellation Hydra, we must surely expect some astronomic interpretation for Soma—Soma by which the mighty Indra is invigorated and enabled to triumph gloriously over the demon. According to non-astronomic explanations, “the concrete terrestrial plant and the intoxicating juice extracted therefrom” are considered to be the basis of the mythology of Soma. It is admitted that in post-Vedic literature Soma is a regular name of the moon, which is regarded as being drunk up by the gods, and so waning. Some writers point to the possibility that even in the Rig Veda, “in the Soma hymns there may occasionally lurk a veiled identification of ambrosia and the moon, ... but on the whole, with the few exceptions generally admitted, it appears to be certain that to the seers of the Rig Veda the god Soma is a personification of the terrestrial plant and juice.”[60]

One German writer, Hillebrandt, very strongly upholds the view that Soma in the Rig Veda “often personifies the moon,”[61] and especially according to him is this the case in the 114 hymns of Maṇḍala IX., all addressed to Soma pavamāna, or “purified Soma,” prepared for and quaffed by Indra to invigorate him for the Vritra combat.

That Soma in the Rig Veda is primarily the moon, and that the moon is symbolized and always more or less directly referred to in the Vedic hymns to Soma, fits in, as must be evident to the readers of this paper, with the astronomic theories advocated in it. If we consider that Indra’s conquest over Vritra represents the god of the summer solstice, with his bright weapons, conquering, and driving from heaven and earth the constellation Hydra, we can easily understand how in this contest Indra might be strengthened by copious draughts of Soma, i.e. by the bright light of the full moon flooding the heavens with radiance and enfeebling all but the brightest stars.

But a further confirmation of the lunar character of Soma, and an elucidation of the imagery of the Soma pavamāna hymns of Maṇḍala IX., are to be found if—still crediting the Vedic Rishis with a knowledge of the ancient constellations—we study the position of these constellations at the date 3,000 B.C. (see Plate XI.)[62] At that date the full moon of the midsummer or solstitial season was always to be observed in the constellation Aquarius. With this thought in our mind as we read the mystical hymns of Maṇḍala IX., in which Soma is so often described as rushing impetuously to the vase or pitcher, and as surrounded by celestial waters, with many other such expressions, we easily recognise an allusion to the midsummer full moon in the constellation Aquarius; and when further we read the legend so often repeated, that the eagle brought the Soma to Indra, or to the sacrifice, we have only to look at the celestial globe to see the eagle (Aquila) directing its flight towards the pitcher of Aquarius—and to remember that the very night before the moon attained the celestial vase, it would have been on the same meridian as the constellation Aquila; and the imaginative Vedic bard might then describe it as borne along by the eagle,—one of the most glorious constellations in that part of the sky.

In one hymn especially devoted to the legend of the Soma-bearing eagle (or hawk), allusion to the small but well-marked-out constellation Sagitta (the arrow) may be detected. In Wilson’s translation of Maṇḍala IV. 27 (vol. iii. p. 174), we read: “When the hawk screamed (with exultation) on his descent from heaven, and (the guardians of the Soma) perceived that the Soma was (carried away) by it, then, the archer Kriṣánu, pursuing with the speed of thought, and stringing his bow, let fly an arrow against it.”

Now to turn to another important Vedic deity, Agni.

Agni is classed, according to Macdonell, amongst terrestrial gods, but he points out that in some passages he is to be identified with the sun. Wilson describes Agni as comprising[63] “the element of Fire under three aspects: 1^st, as it exists on earth, not only as culinary or religious fire, but as the heat of digestion and of life, and the vivifying principle of vegetation; 2^nd, as it exists in the atmosphere, or mid-heaven, in the form of lightning; and 3^rd, as it is manifested in the heavens, as light, the sun, the dawn, and planetary bodies.” And—having enumerated various deities who in the hymns appear as manifestations of the sun—he adds, “still, however, the sun does not hold that prominent place in the Vaidik liturgy which he seems to have done in that of the ancient Persians, and he is chiefly venerated as the celestial representative of Fire.”

The classification of Agni as a terrestrial god, given by Macdonell, and the order of his “aspects,” as given by Wilson, are not in accordance with the theory here advocated, nor, according to Macdonell, is it the classification or order always adhered to by Vedic authorities.

For some very puzzling myths concerning Agni, I believe an astronomic interpretation may be given, and thereby the position of Agni in the first place, rather than in the last, as a celestial god, may be established.

To explain this legend, Wilson makes other suggestions. He writes:[66] “The legend of his (Agni’s) hiding in the waters, through fear of the enemies of the gods, although alluded to in more than one place, is not very explicitly related ... the allusions of the Súktas (hymns) may be a figurative intimation of the latent heat existing in water, or a misapprehension of a natural phenomenon which seems to have made a great impression in later times—the emission of flame from the surface of water either in the shape of inflammable air, or as the result of submarine volcanic action.”

It cannot but be admitted that these myths are puzzling, and that to account for the notion so prominent throughout the Vedas of “Agni in the waters,” the various suggestions of “lightning,” “latent heat existing in water,” “the emission of flame from the surface of the waters, either in the shape of inflammable air or as the result of submarine volcanic action,” are inadequate to explain the fact that Agni, whose very name “is the regular designation of fire”[67] should in the hymns be so closely associated with water. Nor are the difficulties concerning “Agni in the waters” to be overcome by the tempting and poetic suggestion, put forward by some writers, that in these passages reference is made to the sun rising in the morning out of the ocean, and again hiding itself beneath the waves at sunset. The composition of the Rig Veda is attributed to Aryan settlers “scattered over the Punjaub and regions lying to the west of the Indus”: by such settlers the sun could never have been seen rising out of the ocean, for no ocean bounded their horizon on the east. Even the phenomenon of the sun hiding itself at evening in the water, could only have been observed by those who lived on the western coast, and it is therefore not easy to imagine why sunrise and sunset should in India have been so closely and constantly associated with a sea horizon.

But if once the acquaintance of the originators of the Agni myths with the Zodiacal figures is admitted, the astronomic interpretation of those relating to Agni in the waters is not difficult; it is as follows:

Agni is the personification of fire, but his chief personification is as the fire of the sun. “Agni in the waters” is especially the fire of the sun in the celestial waters of Aquarius. 3,000 B.C. the sun was in conjunction with Aquarius at the time of the winter solstice.[68] Those hymns therefore which dwell upon the myths of Agni hiding himself in, being born in, and rising out of the waters, may be considered as hymns referring to the sun at the winter solstice in conjunction with the constellation Aquarius, and therefore as hymns especially suitable for use on the occasion of a great yearly festival held at that season of the year.

European writers often describe the mid-winter sun as hiding itself, or as every day withdrawing itself more and more from view. In poetic similes, the snows of winter often crown the head of the aged out-going year, while the in-coming year is represented as a babe or infant. The appropriateness of such similes is due to the fact, that our calendrical new year is fixed within a few days of the winter solstice. Again, in sober prose, the sun at the time of the winter solstice is said, having attained its lowest point, to rise or begin its upward course on the ecliptic. It is therefore not difficult to understand how the Vedic Rishis, who appear to have combined the characteristics of poets and of scientific observers of the heavens, should have 3,000 B.C. described the fire of the solstitial sun, as hiding in, being born in, and rising out of the celestial waters of the constellation Aquarius.

In this Agni myth, as in that of Indra, we may perceive traces of a pre-Vedic origin. The latitudes in which the Rig Veda was composed are not those in which attention is forcibly drawn to the diminution of the strength and visibility of the sun at the winter season. In the Rig Veda, however, Indra’s conquest over darkness as well as over drought is celebrated, and the same traditional cause may be assigned for the description of Agni hiding himself at the time of the winter solstice in the waters of Aquarius.

Indra, Soma, and Agni no longer hold the important place in the Hindu Pantheon which they appear to have held in Vedic times, and on the astronomic theory, this fact may partly be accounted for by noticing how slow but inevitable changes in the scenery of the heavens, produced by the precession of the equinoxes, gradually obscured more and more completely the meaning of the imagery employed in the hymns to these deities. Indra, if he represents the summer solstice, is indeed still as powerful as ever, and still triumphs over the demon of drought, but no longer is that demon well represented by the snake-like constellation Hydra; for on the night of the summer solstice, after the sun has set, the whole of Hydra is still above the horizon. No longer does the mid-summer full moon bathe its brightness in the celestial waters of Aquarius, nor does the mid-winter sun hide itself in them. The hymns remain, the phenomena they referred to, exist no longer.

But leaving now the subject of the “ancient constellations” and of reference to them in the Rig Veda, let us turn to the second section of the argument in favour of the modern origin of Hindu astronomy as stated above.[69] It is a claim made for the very modern date of 570 A.D. as that for the fixation of the initial point of the Indian Zodiac at the “end of Revatî and the beginning of Açvinî.”—This claim I desire to oppose.

It has been admitted by scholars, but almost with a sort of reluctance, that mention is made of some of the Nakshatras in a few of the Rig Veda hymns. The matter is rather avoided than cordially enquired into. It is, however, a question of great and important interest to ascertain, if possible, whether the circle of the Nakshatras was known to the Vedic Rishis, and if it were known, whether the initial point was fixed there, where as we have read, all schools of Hindu astronomy agree in declaring that the planetary motions commenced at the creation.[70]

We have learnt from Babylonian archæology that we are no longer forced to assume that only at the date of about 570 A.D. could this initial point have been fixed by Indian astronomers. It therefore need no longer be looked upon as an unreasonable quest to search in the ancient pages of the Rig Veda for indications that this important astronomical point had been fixed, even before Vedic times, as the starting-point of a calendrical and sidereal year—and if we should find such indications in the Rig Veda, they may well out-weigh arguments against the antiquity of this fixation, based upon passages in later works, such as the Yajur and Atharva Vedas.

From the Yajur Veda itself, arguments may be drawn in favour of a year beginning in the month Chaitra,[71] at or before the date of the composition or compilation of that Veda.

In the Taittirîya Sanhitâ (contained in the Yajur Veda) a passage occurs[72] which is translated and commented upon by B. G. Tilak (The Orion, or Antiquity of the Vedas, p. 46 et seq.). In this passage is discussed the superior suitability of three different days on which worshippers might consecrate themselves for the yearly sacrifice. Not any one of these three days has any connexion with the spring equinox or the sun’s conjunction with Krittikā. The choice of date for the yearly sacrifice appears to lie between, first, the “Ekâṣhṭakā (day)” of some month not named,[73] but one in the “distressed,” or “reversed” period of the year, i.e. the mid-winter season; second, the full moon of Phalgunī; and third, the Chaitra full moon. B. G. Tilak, after some pages of comment on the passage referred to, states in his summing up, amongst others, the following conclusions which he has arrived at.

“1^st, that in the days of the Taittirîya Sanhitâ the winter solstice occurred before the eighth day of the dark half of Mâgha ... and that throughout the whole passage the intention of sacrificing at the beginning (real, constructive, or traditional) of the year is quite clear: ... 2^nd, that the year then commenced with the winter solstice”: “3^rd, that as there can not be three real beginnings of the year, at an interval of one month each, the passage must be understood as recording a tradition about the Chitrâ full moon and the Phalgunī full moon being once considered as the first days of the year.”

This is B. G. Tilak’s conclusion; merely judging from the translation, the passage might, as it seems to me, be understood as unreservedly recommending the full-moon of Chaitra as the most suitable for the beginning of the sacrifice, for in the text of the Taittirîya Sanhitâ it is said of it, “It has no fault whatsoever.”

But in whichever sense the words are understood, this passage from the Yajur Veda may be set against the hymns and lists in the Yajur and Atharva Vedas, above alluded to,[74] in which Krittikā is celebrated in the first, and Aswinī in the twenty-seventh place.

The fact that the evidence as to the beginning of the year “in the days of the Taittirîya Sanhitâ,” is, as it seems, so uncertain, and so contradictory to the opinion based on the hymn in the Taittirîya Brāhmana concerning Krittikā being the leader of the Nakshatras, seems to add interest to the question whether there are, or are not, indications in the Rig Veda that the Indian year was counted from the same point on the ecliptic as at present?[75]

And at once, as it seems to me, on turning to the Rig Veda, on page after page, such indications are to be met with.

The first Nakshatra in the Indian series is named Aswinī (Aswins). The two chief stars in that Nakshatra are the twin stars, as they may fairly be called, α and β Arietis—stars of almost equal radiance. The joyous hymns addressed to the twin heroes, the Aswins, I would claim as new-year hymns composed in honour of these stars, whose appearance before sunrise heralded the approach of the great festival-day of the Hindu new year.

The Hindu year is a sidereal year. It is counted at present in most parts of India from a fixed point on the ecliptic, not from a season. It is a calendrical not a cosmic year. Only one apparently small change in the method of counting the years would now require to be made, and again the Aswins might be hymned by the Hindus as the “wondrous,” and “not untruthful,” stars, marking by their heliacal rising a new year’s festival—a festival to be held on the 15th, or full moon’s day.

The Hindu year is now counted from the new moon immediately preceding the sun’s arrival at the initial point of the lunar Zodiac. The first of Chaitra (the first of the light half of Chaitra) never falls later than the 12th of April, and may arrive a month earlier. If the year were to be counted from the same initial point, but from the first new moon following instead of that preceding the sun’s arrival at that point, there would be the difference of a whole month in the range of the month Chaitra. The first day of its bright half would then never arrive before the 12th of April, and might fall a month later.

For the interpretation of the Vedic hymns to the Aswins I would make the provisional suggestion, that when these hymns were composed, the year was so counted from the new moon following and not from that preceding the arrival of the sun at “the end of Revatî and the beginning of Açvinî.” In support of this provisional theory, let us first read the summing up of the Aswinī myths, and of the difficulties and uncertainties surrounding them, according to the present modes of explanation; and then let us consider the astronomic method of interpretation above proposed.

We read that[76] “Next to Indra, Agni, and Soma, the twin deities named the Aśvins are the most prominent in the Rig Veda, judged by the frequency with which they are invoked. They are celebrated in more than fifty entire hymns and in parts of several others, while their name occurs more than 400 times. Though they hold a distinct position among the deities of light and their appellation is Indian, their connexion with any definite phenomenon of light is so obscure, that their original nature has been a puzzle to Vedic interpreters from the earliest times. This obscurity makes it probable that the origin of these gods is to be sought in a pre-Vedic period.... The Aśvins are young, the T. S. (Taittirīya Sanhitâ) even describing them as the youngest of the gods. They are at the same time ancient. They are bright, lords of lustre, of golden brilliancy, and honey-hued.... They possess profound wisdom and occult power. The two most distinctive and frequent epithets of the Aśvins are dasra, ‘wondrous,’ which is almost entirely limited to them, and nāsatya, which is generally explained to mean ‘not untrue....’ Their car ... moves round heaven. It traverses heaven and earth in a single day as the car of the sun and that of Uṣas (the Dawn) are also said to do.... The time of their appearance is often said to be the early dawn, when ‘darkness still stands among the ruddy cows’ and they yoke their car to descend to earth and receive the offerings of worshippers. Uṣas (the Dawn) awakes them. They follow after Uṣas in their car. At the yoking of their car Uṣas is born. Thus their relative time seems to have been between dawn and sunrise. But Savitṛ (the sun) is once said to set their car in motion before the dawn. Occasionally the appearance of the Aśvins, the kindling of the sacrificial fire, the break of dawn, and sunrise seem to be spoken of as simultaneous. The Aśvins are invoked to come to the offering not only at their natural time, but also in the evening or at morning, noon, and sunset.... In the A. B. (Aitareya Brahmana) the Aśvins as well as Uṣas and Agni are stated to be gods of dawn; and in the Vedic ritual they are connected with sunrise.... The Aśvins may originally have been conceived as finding and restoring or rescuing the vanished light of the sun. In the Rig Veda they have come to be typically succouring divinities.” ... Again, at p. 51, the writer adds, “Quite a number of legends illustrating the succouring power of the Aśvins are referred to in the Rig Veda.” Here follows an enumeration of many miraculous “protections,” and cures,—and then[77] “The opinion of Bergaigne and others that the various miracles attributed to the Aśvins are anthropomorphized forms of solar phenomena (the healing of the blind man thus meaning the release of the sun from darkness), seems to lack probability. At the same time the legend of Atri may be a reminiscence of a myth explaining the restoration of the vanished sun. As to the physical basis of the Aśvins, the language of the Ṛṣis is so vague that they themselves do not seem to have understood what phenomenon these deities represented ... what they actually represented puzzled even the oldest commentators mentioned by Yāska. That scholar remarks that some regarded them (the Aśvins) as Heaven and Earth (as does the S. B.—Satapatha Brahmana), others as Day and Night, others as sun and moon, while the ‘legendary writers’ took them to be ‘two kings, performers of holy acts.’ Yāska’s own opinion is obscure.”

In contrast to all these vague and often contradictory explanations, the astronomical suggestion made at page 137 may to some appear too matter-of-fact and prosaic. But that a firm and scientific base should underlie mythical and imaginative similes does not in reality detract from their poetic excellence. Indeed, an added fitness, and therefore an added beauty, is to be recognized in the Aswin hymns, when we can think of them as addressed to well-known and beneficent deities presiding over the new year—deities who manifested themselves in the earliest dawn of the new year’s morning under the form of two beautiful and easily to be recognised stars, and to whom their worshippers appealed for “protection,” through the unknown dangers of the future year.

I give two diagrams to illustrate the fact that the time of the rising of the stars α and β Arietis must necessarily, on such a new year’s festival as above proposed, have taken place in some years before the first intimation of dawn, in others a few minutes before the time of sunrise.

It is of course to be borne in mind that the Vedic years were luni-solar. The actual point therefore on the ecliptic at which the conjunction of sun and moon-or new moon-took place, and from which each year was counted, varied in different years to the extent of nearly 30 degrees. The diagram, Plate XII. Figs. 1 and 2, represents the maximum and minimum distance between the rising of the Yoga stars of the Nakshatra Aswinī, and of the sun on the 15th or full-moon’s day of the first month of a luni-solar year; counted from the first conjunction of sun and moon following the sun’s arrival at the “end of Revatî and the beginning of Açvinî.”

It will be seen from the diagram that something more than two hours was the longest interval that, according to the presumed method of counting the Vedic year, elapsed between the appearance of α and β Arietis and of the sun above the horizon.

This astronomic interpretation accounts for the varying times noted in the hymns for the appearance of the Aswins. It also accounts, as it seems to me, for the general tone of the hymns, but as regards the long series of miraculous “protections” of the Aswins, accorded by them to many sick, aged, and decrepit personages, it does not at first sight account.

We have seen that Bergaigne and others have opined that the various miracles attributed to the Aswins are “anthropomorphized forms of solar phenomena,” and with this view the astronomic interpretation, when fully followed out to its logical end, agrees.

But at first sight we wonder how the sun at the beginning of the calendrical year could, in Vedic times, be described as in any way especially sick, aged, or decrepit.

3,000 B.C., when, as we have seen, the winter solstice was in Aquarius, the Indian calendrical and sidereal year, such as has been supposed, would have begun at its earliest a month and a half after the solstice.[78] The sun at the winter solstice, may be, and often is, described as pale, weak, sick and old; but at the beginning of a calendrical year, a month and a half after the solstice, the sun no longer could have been thought of as requiring the miraculous protection of the heralding Aswins.

To help in solving this difficulty, recourse may again wisely be had to Babylonian astronomic lore. The fanciful legends regarding the Aswins, considered only by themselves, can scarcely yield a sufficiently firm foundation on which to build the far-reaching theory I now desire to bring forward concerning them; a theory on all fours with one I ventured some years ago to propound in reference to Babylonian astronomy, in a Paper entitled the “Accadian Calendar.”[79] It was there suggested that the probable date for the origin of that Calendar was about 6,000 B.C. The fact was pointed out that Aries, in the most ancient Accadian and Babylonian astronomical works, always appears as leader of the signs and of the year, and stress was laid on the unlikelihood that this constellation should have been chosen for this leading post at a date when the sun’s entry into it did not correspond with any one of the four well-marked natural divisions of the year, i.e. the solstices or equinoxes. But as on the cuneiform tablets Aries appears as leader long before the time when the sun sojourned in that constellation during the first month following the equinox, it was suggested that it was when the solstitial not the equinoctial point coincided with the first degree of Aries, that the Accadian calendrical scheme had first been drawn up; namely about 6,000 B.C.

A corroboration of the view then put forward is to be drawn from a further study of the Accadian month names. The first three month names, in Accadian, referred, as scholars have pointed out, to the first three constellations of the Zodiac.

(1.) The month of the “sacrifice of righteousness” to Aries.

(2.) The month of the “propitious Bull” to Taurus.

(3.) The month of “the Twins” to Gemini.

The twelfth and thirteenth names in the same series seem to refer equally clearly to a year originally counted as beginning at the winter solstice. They are called respectively:

“12th. The month of sowing of seed.”—“13th. The dark month of sowing.”

For the sowing of most cereals, late autumn and early winter are the favoured seasons. Many crops however are sown in early spring. There might then be a doubt whether “the month of sowing of seed” more fitly described the spring sowing of seed in the twelfth month of a luni-solar year, counted from the equinox,—or the winter sowing of seed in the twelfth month of a luni-solar year, counted from the solstice. But when we find this twelfth month followed by a thirteenth, of which the especial and added epithet is dark, there can, as it seems to me, be little if any doubt that the winter month whose range in different years extended from 12th of December to 22nd January is better described by the epithet dark, than the rapidly brightening month whose range extended from 12th March to 22nd April.

Very curiously, then, and accurately does the Accadian calendar give us the date of its origin, and of the first naming of its months, as that when the winter solstice coincided with the sun’s entry into the first degree of the constellation Aries[80]—the date in round numbers of 6,000 B.C.

To this same date it is, as I believe, that the miraculous protections accorded by the Aswins to the distressed solstitial sun and moon and earth appear to point, and fully does this view corroborate the opinion that the Aswin-legends took their rise in pre-Vedic times. They also, as do the Indra and Vritra myths, refer us for their origin to a more northern latitude than tropical India. In the tropics the sun is scarcely less powerful in winter than in summer. The astronomers who drew up the Accadian calendar, and the myth-makers of the Aswin-legends, must, according to the astronomic theory, have dwelt in temperate zones and formulated calendar and myths about 6,000 B.C.