Week, month, year - cycles

[Koenraad Elst]

To N. Ganesan, Sergei Schmalz and others:

    The Nakshatra cycle is also known in China and starts with the
Pleiades/Krttika, reason enough for the late Joseph Needham (Science and
Civilization in China, section Astronomy) to date its origin to the 24th
cent. BC, when this asterism held the spring equinox.  The same reasoning
goes for the Indian system, putting the starting date in the mid-Harappan
period.
Needham thinks the Indian and Chinese systems have a common origin.  On the
assumption that the RgVeda and a fortiori the Shat. Br., B.Shr.S. and other
texts with astronomical data are post-1500 BC, he proposes that it
originated in China and was transmitted to India.  But this need not be so,
and may be reversed if we either admit a higher chronology for Vedic
literature or assume that it borrowed these astronomical notions from the
IVC.

Parpola, I think, has written that traces of an earlier counting of
Nakshatras can be discerned, with Rohini/Aldebaran at the head, pointing to
ca. 3100 BC.  The epithet Kalapurusha, "time man", for Prajapati/Orion may
be a reminiscence of Orion as equinox-marker, close to 4000 BC.  Several
Vedic instances of Orion lore with apparent astro-chronological implications
led Tilak and Jacobi to suggest 4000 BC as within the (centuries-long)
period of composition of the Rg-Veda.  Given the mythic language and
context, this might be one instance where the Thapar-Witzel explanation of
"reminiscence" could apply: the stories and the resultant epithets of their
main actors may have lived on long past their time of astronomical
relevance.

    To really stray from the path of orthodoxy, I venture to doubt that the
12-part Rashi division of the ecliptic was borrowed from Hellenistic
sources, though its general use in astronomy and astrology certainly was.
In most cultures, names of constellations persist for thousands of years.
In some cases, these names do relate to their (precession-dependent)
position in the seasonal cycle, e.g. a once-autumnal constellation is called
"the Sandal" in Chinese uranography because it marked the season when cattle
was slaughtered and its leather used to make shoes.  But most
constellations, and especially the most conspicuous ones, got their names
from other factors, esp. their general appearance.  In some cases, the shape
really suggests the name, esp. Leo and Scorpio, but in most cases you have
to read a meaningful shape into the star pattern.  Nevertheless, once an
interpretation annex name of a star pattern is agreed upon in a given
culture (and note the remarkable similarity of interpretations/names across
cultural frontiers), it tends to last for thousands of years, much like
river-names.  So, the names of the Zodiacal constellations may have been
around for ages, even in India.

That the Zodiacal constellations are usually attributed to Mesopotamian
culture is, if true, not much of an objection.  There was plenty of
interaction
between Mesopotamia on the one hand, and various IE cultures (Hittites,
Mitannians, Iranians) and the IVC on the other.  So, I wouldn't be surprised
if the names Leo/Simha, Aquarius/Kumbha, Pisces/Mina etc. already existed in
the Rg-Vedic period.  They may even pre-date the (Vedic use of the)
Nakshatra system, which seems to make its appearance during the Vedic
period, when Nakshatra-derived personal names start replacing the older,
typically IE naming system of the early Vedic Aryans.  Shifting of focus
from the solar Rashis to the lunar Nakshatras seems to be a phase in the
march of civilization, viz. from an imprecise astronomy concerned with the
seasons (for agriculture etc.) and using the imprecisely observable solar
position (imprecise because the sun is never seen against a background of
stars) to a more professional astronomy for its own sake, or for religious
purposes, using the better observable lunar motions against the stellar
background, hence the 27 lunar mansions.

The Rashi names Vrshabha, Mithuna, Simha and Kanya are mentioned in the
Rg-Veda, and judging from the context, they are used in an astronomical
rather than their primary natural sense.  In 5:83:3, it is said of the
rain-god Parjanya: "he makes the messengers of rain spring forward.  Far off
resounds the roaring of the Simha, what time Parjanya fills the sky with
rain-cloud."  Sidereal Leo then (I leave you to calculate just when) marked
the month of June, the onset of the monsoon.  Two months earlier, the hot
season then started under Gemini/Mithuna, which is called "the basis of heat
(tapas)" in 3:39:3 (though I am aware that this verse has also been given a
sexual as well as a yogic meaning).  Clearest of all is perhaps the
reference to Kanya/Virgo (then marking the rainy season, hence, as in this
verse, an apt comparison for the water-rich Saraswati), described in 6:49:7
as "having Chitra as her life", Chitra being the star Spica, alpha Virgonis.

The divisions in 27 and in 12 may well have coexisted.  Indeed,till today
the Indian months' names (12) are typically derived from the name of the
most prominent asterism (27, with 2 or 3 per month) within its sector of the
sky.  In Hellenistic uranography, we find subdivisions of large
constellations sometimes designated as constellations in their own right,
e.g. Argo Navis divided in Puppis, Pyxis, and two more, or the Wain as the
most conspicuous part (saptarshi) of the Great Bear.  That the division in
12 was indeed known to the Vedic Aryans is clear from 1:164:11, which
describes the year as a twelve-spoked wheel, apart from mentioning the
division in 360°.

Yours sincerely,
Koenraad Elst

http://members.xoom.com/KoenraadElst/