The Vedic Calendar

The Vedic Calendar
Author(s): A. Berriedale Keith

Source: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, urnal of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Jul., 1914), pp. 627-640
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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XVIII
THE VEDIC CALENDAR
Bv A. BERRIEDALE KEITH
I N an article in the Indian Antiquary l Mr. R. Shama
sastry has made a new attempt to prove the
existence in Vedic India in the period of the Samhitas

and the Brahmanas of a really elaborate calendar. He
starts from the admitted existence of an intercalary
month, which is referred to from the Rgveda onwards,
and from the fact that in the Yajurveda and the
Atharvaveda we find the Ekastaka, traditionally identified
with the 8th day of the dark half of Magha, treated

as the commencement of the year. " Whether we will
or no," he concludes, " the fact cannot be denied that
the idea of a thirteenth month, i.e. an intercalated month,
could not have dawned upon the mind of the Vedic poets
unless they had been quite familiar with the true lengths
of several kinds of years."
This assertion is so important in judging the argument
of Mr. Shamasastry that it is necessary to point out that
it is wholly without foundation. We do know that the
Vedic Indian, for whatever ground, regarded the year

as consisting of 360 days; that is vouched for by the
Rgveda and by all the Samhita and Brahmana texts.
Now this year is not a year of the ordinary kind; it
is shorter by over five days than the solar year, and
therefore it is admitted that the need of intercalation
existed from the first, nor is it denied that this intercalation
did take place. But it is sufficient for all the notices of

the texts before the Sutra period that we should accept
the facts which are given, namely, the traditional 360 days
1 xii (1912). Reprinted as The Vedic Calendar (Bombay, 1912).
628 THE VEDIC CALENDAR

year, its incompatibility with the actual facts of the case,
xind the necessary efforts at intercalation. We need not
assume that the Indians knew the true length of any

kind of year whatever, much less the true lengths of
several kinds. We are never told that in this period
there was any realization of the fact that the year of
360 days was either 5 or 6 days too short. The most
that we can say on this head is that there are traces
of a tendency to intercalate a month every fifth or sixth
year, but that even for this the evidence is not cogent.1
But before the practice of intercalary months was

adopted Mr. Shamasastry argues that it was usual to
add sets of intercalary days, such as 9, 11, 12, 21, and
so on, and finds proof of this custom in a passage of
the Kathastlklul Brahmana quoted in the Smrtitattva.2
That passage reads as follows: "The half-months, being
inferior, desired, 'May we be months'; they had recourse
to the twelve-day sacrifice; having made as the thirteenth
a Brahmana, having wiped off (their sin) on him, thej'

rose up. Therefore (they say) ' the Brahmana, having no
support, depends on others9; therefore on the twelve-day
sacrifice there should be a Brahmana as a thirteenth priest."
From this is deduced the meaning that, giving up a practice
of adding 12 days to the synodic lunar year of 354 days
to adjust it to the sidereal solar year of 366 days, the

Vedic priests allowed the 12 days to accumulate to the
extent of a month in the course of 2? years, and then
performed the sacrifice at the close of the thirteenth
month with thirteen priests, of whom the thirteenth
represented the thirteenth month and took on him the
sins of the sacrifice. But the Katha says not a word
about (1) a 354 day year, (2) an intercalation of
12 days, (3) an intercalation after 2i years; and the
whole interpretation is purely visionary.

1 See Macdonell & Keith, Vedic Index, ii, 412-13.
2 Calcutta ed. (1895), p. 782.
THE VEDIC CALENDAR 629

The passage does show that the intercalary month was
regarded as an indefinite one; anayatana, " having no

support," shows that, and it is borne out bjr the name
Malimluca given elsewhere to the month. Mr. Shama
sastry, however, goes further than this: quoting again
the Smrtitattva,1 he shows that the astrological treatises
(jyotihmstra) recognize the intercalary month as sinful
and destructive; and he points out that in the Aitareya

Brahmana2 the 13th priest is called the seller of the
Soma and connected with the 13th month, which is
therefore regarded as sacrificially undesirable. But

Mr. Shamasastry deduces from this the fact that during
an intercalary period the Vedic poets regarded themselves
as being bound with Varuna's noose, and that the removal
of sin or Varuna's fetters at the close of a period of

12 or 21 days is a technical expression of the Vedic
poets implying the intercalary nature of these days.
This he finds in the Aitareya Brahmana* where the
Dvadasaha rite is mentioned as having a period of 12 days
Diksa and 12 Upasad days (they are not the same
12 days, as apparently held by Mr. Shamasastry); the

Diksa and the Upasads render the sacrifice pure. But
that the Diksa or Upasad days were intercalary is not
for a moment hinted at. As little is there any mention

of intercalation in the 12 days vow of Prajapati in the
Atharvaveda,4, or the release from Varuna's fetters at
the close of 21 days in that text,6 or the mention of
27 cows or rivers in the Sdmaveda.* Hence it is wholly
impossible to accept the conclusion " that expressions
such as ' the milking of the kine', ' the destruction of
evil spirits or of enemies', and 'the release from the
fetters of Varuna or of Nirrti' are Vedic expressions
1 p. 778. 2 i, 12. 3 iv, 24.
4 iv, 11. 11, with which Mr. Shamasastry connects iv, 15. 13 (? Rgveda,
vii, 103. 1). fi iv, 10. 0.
6 i, 500 (=ii, 773); Aranya Samhitd, iii, 5 (as cows); Samaveda,
ii, 173 (as streams).

JRAS. 1914. 41

implying the passing off of an intercalated period ". It is
further utterly incredible that the first two Anuvakas
of the first Kanda of the rTaittiriya Sar}ihita should

refer to " the cutting off of an intercalated branch or
month, and to the separation of some New Year's Days
or bissextile intercalated days, termed'cows', from their
calves or the consecutive days of the subsequent year

or cycle of years". No hint of such an idea occurred
to either Bhaskara or Sayana, and the Sutras of the
Black Yajurveda, whose authors were exhypothesi familiar
with the calendar, interpret the passage in a wholly
different manner, at once consonant with the text and in

harmony with common sense.
Another argument is adduced by Mr. Shamasastry based
on the fact that a period of 12 days is chosen for the vow
of Prajapati in the Athavvaveda, that a period of 12 days
was added at the end of the year, and that this must
represent a deliberate attempt to bring the synodic lunar

year of 354 days into harmony with the sidereal year of
366 days. The fatal objection to this view is that there is
an obvious explanation of 12 days being added at the end
of a year?if it is admitted that thcjT were added l?viz.,
that the year having 12 months 12 days were a reflex of
the year (pratimd), as stated in the Brahmanas; that there
is no trace of a j'ear of either 354 days or 366 days in the
Brahmanas; and that even in the Niddna Sutra and the

Ldtyayana Srauta Sutra there is no mention of aii3r
intercalation to equate a year of 354 and 366 days, though
these two years are perfectly well known to these texts.
Dhanamjayya (Dhanamjapya is a mere misprint of the

Niddna text) says nothing of the sort; he merely states2
urdhvam dvddasdhdt sdi]ivatsarikdniti, and what pre

cisely he did mean we simply do not know. It may be
1 There is nothing of this in tho passage of the Atharvaveda, iv, 15. 13,
cited by Shamasastry, nor in iv, 11. 11, to which he seems also to refer ;
see also Whitney, JAOS. xvi, p. xciv.
* See Nidana Sutra, vi, 6.

added that in any case Dhanamjayya is not an authority
for what the Brahmana texts meant.
A further question is raised as to the knowledge of a

year of 365 or 365J days. Both seem to Mr. Shamasastry
to be referred to in the Nidana Sutra, if somewhat
indirectly. But even if this is the case, which is most
doubtful,1 is either found in the Brahmanas ? In the
Taittriya Samhitd2 he finds a reference to a year of 360
days, put in order by the sacrifice of 5 nights. The
passage is of importance, for if this is really the sense it is
a proof that the 365 day year was in the time of this
text at least realized as a more correct version than 360
days. It would not indeed carry us much beyond the

admitted fact that intercalation was practised on the basis
of a 360 day }rear, but it would be at any rate a definite
statement that a 365 day year did exist. Unhappily the
whole argument depends on the version of ta rtavas srsfd
na vydvartanta; it is rendered by Mr. Shamasastry as

" The seasons, once ended, did not regularly return again".
But vydvartate has not this sense; it has the same sense
as immediately after in vi pdpmand bhrdtrvyendvartate;
as Bhaskara has it, nd vydvartanta vibhaktasvabhdvabhajo
ndbhavan elcarupd eva sarve 'py rtavo 'bhavan; the

seasons were undiscriminated; the sacrificer is discriminated
from his rival; the sense of the verb is not completely
changed as it has to be in Mr. Shamasastry's version

(" regularly returned " and " gets rid of "), but the addition
of the instrumental renders precise the sense in the second
case.3 The 5 night rite is appropriately explained by the

legend, because the seasons are 5 as the text itself says:
panca vd rtavas sanivatsarah, just as because they are

6, in a later passage,4 the 6 night rite is explained as
connected with them.
1 The passages cited are too vague to yield any certain sense.
2 vii, 1. 10. 3 See Delbriick, Altind. Synt. p. 131.
4 vii, 2. 1.

With this correction of a mistranslation disappears the
only support for a 365 days year before the Niddna Sutra,.
A further refinement is suggested by Mr. Shamasastry:
the 21 kine or 21 fetters of Varuna he considers as
representing an intercalation of 21 days in the last of

4 Savana j'ears to equate them to 4 solar years of 365? days.
Now the fact is that in one form of the Gavam Ayana,

instead of inserting a period of 9 days in the centre, some
authorities inserted 21 ; this we are told by Latyayana,1
and it is undoubtedly so understood by Agnisvamin.

The treatment of this passage by Mr. Shamasastry is
interesting. He first holds that the 9 days are really part
of a period of 12 intercalary days?without any authority ;
next he thinks that the 12 days are added to a year

of 354 days; finally the 21 days are to be added to a year
of 360 days. It is perfectly clear that the days must be
added to one kind of year in both cases, and that we have
a choice between the year of 369 or 381 days. That either
was intended to make up the correspondence of the
Savana and the solar year is not hinted, and to conclude

from such evidence, even for Latyayana, a 4 year cycle
with an intercalation of 21 days is impossible. To proceed
further and say that we may " take it for granted that
the statement of the I'dndyamahdbrdhmana2 that 4 times
50 periods of 21 days make 1,000 years of the Visvasrks
is one which was based upon an actual practice", is

wholly illegitimate. It is hardly surprising that after
this flight Mr. Shamasastry tells us that "Prajapati
seems to have been the first to observe for verification
3 cyclic years with 21 intercalary days in the course of

12 solar years", or that " It is thus clear that the Vedic
poets were quite familiar with the true solar year of

365? days and were adjusting the Savana year to it by
adding 21 days once in every 4 years, and that they kept
1 Srauta Sutra, iv, 6. 12.
2 xxv, 18. 1.

an account of the number of intercalations, calling it the
Gavam Ayana or ' cow's walk' ".
The fundamental error of Mr. Shamasastry as regards
the Ayanas is his view that Gavam Ayana does not denote
a form of sacrificial session of a year's duration (the exact
form of year differing in different schools) but an

intercalary period made up of any number of intercalary
clays. This sense of Gavam Ayana is not even hinted at
by any ancient authority ; it is wholly contrary to the
treatment of the rite in all the ritual textbooks, and to
the clear sense of every passage where the term occurs.
The determination to read this amazing sense into the word
leads Mr. Shamasastry to a mass of wild interpretations
of the passage with which he deals, which simply cannot
be treated seriously, for it is not as if we had before us
texts unintelligible on any other theory; on the contrary,
we have texts which make perfectly good sense on other
theories, and which on his are wholly meaningless. To

take a simple case : Saukhayana1 says in discussing a
series of elaborate, doubtless mainly theoretical, rites of
greatduration?abhydso bahusamvatsare gavdmayanasya;
it is perfectly true that samvatsara and gavam ayana
cannot be synonymous, but no one ever suggested
that they were; one is a kind of rite and one a year.

Mr. Shamasastry's next argument also begs the whole
question : " Nor can," he says, " we take the term Gavam
Ayana in the sense of a year with an intercalary period,
for in that case the Sutra would mean that when the
number of j'ears is great, all those years with these inter

calary periods should be repeated : a statement which is
unpractical." The conclusion is a pure non sequitur,

but apart from that the dilemma is imaginary. Gavam
Ayana is a rite occupying normally a Savana year, not
a year at all and this sense makes the Sutra perfectly
intelligible.
1 Srauta Sutra, xiii, 27. 5.

This form of reasoning has a sequel in the treatment of
the Niddna Sutra.1 There the author raises the question
if a man can perform the Sattras of the oaktyas of

36 years duration, or whether that is a Sattra for the
gods only. He answers that by the view that bahavas
sayinivitya sunuyuh putrdh pautrdh prapntrd iti, and
he also mentions that the 12 years' session of the
Tapascits is equal to 12 times the duration of the Gavam

Ayana. To any ordinary view this means that 12 Gavam
Ayanas = 12 years = 12 years' session of the Tapascits.
But "had these and other sessions been ordinary years,
the question raised by the author of the Niddna Sutra
about the possibility of all the sessional sacrifices being
performed by a single man would not have cropped up at
all ; for it is quite possible for a man to live for 56 or 60
years so that he may commence a sacrifice in his 20th or
24th year and bring it to a close after 36 years ". Hence
the sessional days are not ordinary consecutive days, but
periodical intercalary days; the Vedic poets know that
the solar year exceeded the synodic lunar year by

11 { days, the Savana by 5\: when the 11J made
a 12th day, as they would every fourth year, and the

5J days amounted to 21 days in the course of every
fourth year, the Vedic poets performed the session on the
12th or 21st day and counted those days apart as

Gavam Ayana; hence a Gavam Ayana of 360 days =
360 X 4 = 1,440 years. The Tapascit period was also
1,440 years ( = 12 x 360 x 4 ~- 12), because they counted
the 12 days apart (how 12 Gavam Ayanas = 12 years'

session of the Tapascits on this theory is not explicable2),
1 x, 9.
8 The simple sense of course is that 12 yearly sessions on the one hand
is equivalent to a session lasting 12 years iu time. Mr. Shamasastry
has to turn this into a declaration that the Tapascits celebrated 12 days,
not one, each four years. For this he cites Nidana Sutra, iv, 12, which
does not contain any allusion whatever to a celebration once in four
years. Nor does any other passage of that text or of Ldtyayana, or of
anyone else.

and so was that of the Saktj'as, who counted 36 days in
each 4 years (why is not explained). One man could not
have accomplished such a sacrifice, but "generations

consisting of sons, grandsons, sons of grandsons, and
others" could have done so. Unhappily the Nidana
has nothing about " generations" or " others", but only

says that a 36 years' session could be carried out by sons,
grandsons, and great-grandsons assisting and carrying
on the rite. It is not surprising that Jaimini should have
failed to realize the sense now found by Mr. Shamasastry.
Nor after this are we surprised to learn that ahlna as

a form of sacrifice means the 11 full days, which are added
to the lunar to make the solar year, the name being

chosen because the 11 days were not so incomplete as the
quarter-day over at the end of the solar year.
Further conclusions from his main thesis are drawn by
Mr. Shamasastry in a series of notes on the Adityas

published in the Indian Antiquary.1 These gods, he
holds, are intercalary months of the 5 }'ears cycle. This
cycle he illustrates from the Maitrdyanl Saqihitd.2 In it
he finds mention of two sets of priests, viz., one set, the
Rtuyajins, who did not intercalate, and whose year thus
fell back by 11-J or 12 days yearly, regaining its original
position at the close of 32 or 30 months; another set, who
offered the four monthly sacrifices and who added 2 months
in 5 years, making the year of 354 daj's up to 366 ;

further he deduces that the Caturmasj'as are intercalary
periods of 4 months. Unhappily the whole structure

rests on misrenderings. The rotation of the seasons is
meant by " the expression that what was the spring
became the summer, and that what was the summer
became the autumn ". There is no such expression: the
text is yo vasanto 'bhutj)rdvrd abhut sarad abhud iti yajate
1 xii and xiii. A reprint of these articles, as of his article on the
Vedic Calendar, I owe to the author's courtesy, which I gratefully
acknowledge.
2 i, 10. 8.

sa rtuydji, which means " He who sacrifices (saying),
'It has become spring; it has become the rains; it has
become autumn/ is the sacrificer at the seasons". The
error of Mr. Shamasastry is in not realizing that yo goes
with yajaie) apart from the fact that the sentence cannot
be construed as it is taken by Mr. Shamasastry, the
accent on ydjate is decisive against him. Therefore

the rotation of the seasons disappears from view. The
intercalation is also not as stated; all that is said is
that the Caturmasya sacrificer gains a 13th month ; he

is to omit 1 (month) after 3, then 1 after 2; there are
36 months in 3 years, 24 in 2 ; then ye 'mi saltritixsaty
adhi tan asydm caturvimsatydm npasampddayati \ c$a

vdva sa trayodaso mdsah. This is rendered as " those
(days) which exceed (an intercalary month) in 36 full
moons, lie puts (in the next) 24 full moons". This
sort of supplement is wholly impossible: ye must refer

to the omitted months, not days, and the theory that
from the 36 intercalary days of the .first 3 j'ears 6 are
put in the 24 of the next 2, falls to the ground. The

13th month shows that the year of 12 months was not
recognized as disposing of all chronological possibilities,

but we are not told how the month was used or when.
But, if we may very vaguely see in the Alaiirdyain

passage a hint that the 13th month could be connected
with a 5 year cycle, then we have to do with a rude
attempt to fit in 5 years of 360 days with 5 very
roughly calculated solar years of 366 days, and even

this is open to grave doubt, as the Maitrayani does
not say so.1 The difficulty in regard to the question of
intercalation arises from the fact that when we hear
of a 13th month, as we do not rarely,2 there is normally

1 There is no evidence even in SArras for a 3(1(1 day year as actually
recognized as such, Vedic Index, ii, 150. On Nidana, v, 12, see Fleet's
note in The Vedic Calendar, p. 14, n. 21.
2 See Macdonell & Keith, Vedic Index, ii, JC1.

no hint that there is any question of a cycle of years
in question. It is perfectly possible that the 13th month
is at times merely a diverse reckoning of the year as 13
months of 27 days; this fact is quite adequate to account
for the reckoning of 13 months, and the only ground for
accepting intercalation is the fact that the 13th month in
some passages appears as vague and fugitive, and that it is
probable a priori that the sacrificial ritual rendered some
sort of intercalation needful.
Again, in Mr. Shamasastry's view the new and full

moon sacrifices are nothing more than sacrifices performed
during an intercalary month, for the gods worshipped in
them are the gods worshipped during the intercalary

month. The gods in question are Agni, Soma, and Indra,
the gods whose worship is regular and essential, and the
conclusion is wholly unfounded.
A further step is to find that the Asuras are intercalary
months, the Devas the ordinary months, and that the use
of the 4 months rite by Prajapatil to drive away the

Asuras and to create children is really the fact that by
the intercalation of 4 months in 10 years the calendar
was restored to order. From this it is an easy step to the
conclusion that Indra is a god of an intercalary month,
and that his slaying of Vrtra is an act of getting rid of
the sinful intercalary months through the worship of
Indra. Aditi,2 whose son is Indra, is the cycle of 5 luni
solar years; her sets of three twins are the three pairs of
intercalary months, and thus explain Dhatr, Aryaman,
Mitra, Varuna, Amsa, and Bhaga. Indra is the 7th in
a series of 20 years, and the dead Martanda is the broken

8th month, for as the solar year is 365J days, not 366,
to keep the seasons straight, at the end of the period, not
a full month but half only must be intercalated. Vrtra is
nothing else than this broken 8th month coming after the
7th month, Indra; and more precisely, as he is connected
1 Maitrayani Samhita, i, 10. 5. 2 lhid. i, G. 12.

with Agni and Soma, the light half of that month. Two
passages of the Taittirlya Saqihitd1 are pressed into

service to show this, but neither has anything whatever
of the kind in it. Then from the identification of
Amhaspatya and the Avestan Ameshaspenta,2 it is deduced

that as the Adityas are the Ameshaspentas and are seven,
there were seven Amhaspatyas, although this statement
is wholly unsupported by any Vedic passage. But
evidence is sought in a large number of passages where

7 occur (Atharvaveda, vii, 9. 17, 18, 21, 23 ; ix, 9. 2, 3,
13, 14, 16; x, 3. 8-10; 5. 4, 5, 7, 18; xii, 3. 16; xiii,

2. 24; xix, 53. 1, 2); or 8 (x, 8. 7, 13; xii, 4. 22); or
7? (ix, 10. 17), and an exposition of the Arunopanisad

is given on the theory that it deals with an intercalated
year. Incidentally it is shown that drapsa is a name of
100 years, a sense also found in the Atharvaveda* and the

"seven suns", which are normally conceived to be planets
and the earliest clear mention of those bodies, are reduced
to intercalary months. The 7 logs of Agni, 7 tongues,

7 Rsis are all found to be the intercalary months.4 That
Indra slew oambara in the 40th year,5 and that Vrtra

had 100 forts6 which Indra destroyed, are pressed into
the service, and if the latter notice can be taken as
a 100 times repetition of the cycle of 20 years, the

chronology of the Vedic period is fixed at 20 x 100
= 2,000 years. The laying down of 7 bricks 101 times
in the building of the fire altar7 shows that the number

of the 20 years cycles amounts to 101 in the time of the
Satapatha Brahmana, j^voving that then there had elapsed
2,020 years in the Vedic era. Another calculation based
on the same Brahmana gives 2,172 years. The latter

1 ii, 5. 2; vi, 5. 1.
2 That this identification can be accepted is inadmissible, but the
argument is, even on the identification, without value.
a xviii, 18. 29. 4 Satapatha Brahmana, vi, 1. 1. 2; ix, 2. 3. 44-5.
Rgveda, ii, 12. 11. 6 Ibid, i, 130. 7 ; iv, 30. 20.
7 Satapatha Brdhr\\ana, x, 2. 4. 7.

train of reasoning is too elaborate to reproduce l; it is
headed by the postulate that the " Vedic poets usually
represent a day by a syllable ". The evidence adduced for
this statement is a Brahmana passage of the Maitrdyanl
Samhitd;2 which merely says that there are as many days
in the year as syllables in the Samidheni verses, and has
nothing whatever about days being represented by syllables.
The importance of the question lies in the problem

of method. It is a legitimate and important object of
research to determine in so far as is possible the knowledge
of the Vedic Indian of the calendar. It is clear that by

the time of the Nidana and the Lat ydy ana Sutras that
knowledge was to some extent developed, though still
very imperfect. Intercalation was practised in certain
ways. But to deduce from this fact that we are to find
the systematic practice of intercalation in the Sanihitas
and the Brahmanas is illegitimate ; we have every reason
to suppose that the Indian mind steadily advanced in
knowledge. There is, therefore, no a iwiori ground to
find a system of a 5 year cycle in these texts, and in point
of fact no one has ever adduced a single Brahmana passage

which states that the year was of any other duration than
360 days, or that there was a 5 year cycle at all. All

that we can see is that the length of the year was
theoretically 360 days, that there was doubt if there were
to be reckoned only 12 or 13 months (of unspecified

duration or expressly stated at 30 days),3 and we can deduce
thence that the need was felt of assimilating the con
ventional year to the real movement of the seasons. That
any further advance had been made we have not the
slightest ground for believing. To turn to the large mass

of scattered references to numbers and mystic allusions of
the texts and to read into them references to intercalation
is to abandon all sure ground. Iii one sense it is
advantageous, for if it is asserted that 7 Rsis are an

1 Satapatha Brahmana, xi, 5. 2. 10. 2 i, 7. 3. * Atharvaveda, xiii, 3. 8.

equivalent for 7 intercalary months and 21 streams for
21 intercalary days, then one rises superior to the ordinary
canons of logic and common sense. The only real reply is
that this view has never suo-cjested itself to the Occidental
commentators as a possible meaning of the terms used, or
to the Oriental commentators as the mystic meaning of the
texts, and that it is open to any other ingenious person to
show, doubtless with equal conviction, that something

quite, different is implied. It may further be added that
where the argument rests on actual renderings of Vedic
texts it is possible to show that serious misapprehensions
have occurred.
It is unnecessary in considering the Vedic Calendar to
deal in detail with the interpretations of the Niddna

Sutra put forward by Mr. Shamasastry. So far as these
are based on the theory that the sacrifices were made on
intercalary days in series of years, they are wholly

implausible and run counter to the language of the text.
But it is essential to remember that the Niddna Sutra

is not an authority for the Vedic period of the Samhitas
and the Brahmanas. It is a late work of the Sutra period
of undetermined and probably undeterminate date, and
has little better title to be cited in this connexion than
the Jyotisa itself. The Latyayana Srauta Sutra is of

greater value and antiquity, but it also is not an authority
for the period of the Samhitas and the Brahmanas, though
in point of fact it gives very little of his material to
Mr. Shamasastry, the reason for this being doubtless that

its wording is in the main too plain to allow even of the
appearance of supporting his theory of intercalation.

Dr. Fleet has already1 pointed out that Mr. Shamasastiy
in the Niddna, without ground, introduces the idea of
intercalary months to the expression sambhdrya, which
denotes " capable of contraction", being an appropriate
term for months from which days are omitted.
1 The Vedic Calendar, pp. 13, n. 18; 14, n. 24 ; see also Weber,
Naxatra, ii, 281 sqq.

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The Vedic Calendar

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The Vedic Calendar

Author(s): A. Berriedale Keith

I N an article in the Indian Antiquary l Mr. R. Shama

sastry has made a new attempt to prove the

existence in Vedic India in the period of the Samhitas

and from the fact that in the Yajurveda and the

Atharvaveda we find the Ekastaka, traditionally identified

with the 8th day of the dark half of Magha, treated

Vedic Indian, for whatever ground, regarded the year

did take place. But it is sufficient for all the notices of

628 THE VEDIC CALENDAR

assume that the Indians knew the true length of any

But before the practice of intercalary months was

a Brahmana, having wiped off (their sin) on him, thej'

of adding 12 days to the synodic lunar year of 354 days

to adjust it to the sidereal solar year of 366 days, the

sins of the sacrifice. But the Katha says not a word

about (1) a 354 day year, (2) an intercalation of

12 days, (3) an intercalation after 2i years; and the

whole interpretation is purely visionary.

THE VEDIC CALENDAR 629

regarded as an indefinite one; anayatana, " having no

and destructive; and he points out that in the Aitareya

therefore regarded as sacrificially undesirable. But

of sin or Varuna's fetters at the close of a period of

Diksa and 12 Upasad days (they are not the same

12 days, as apparently held by Mr. Shamasastry); the

for a moment hinted at. As little is there any mention

1 p. 778. 2 i, 12. 3 iv, 24.

vii, 103. 1). fi iv, 10. 0.

6 i, 500 (=ii, 773); Aranya Samhitd, iii, 5 (as cows); Samaveda,

ii, 173 (as streams).

630 THE VEDIC CALENDAR

of the first Kanda of the rTaittiriya Sar}ihita should

calves or the consecutive days of the subsequent year

with the calendar, interpret the passage in a wholly

different manner, at once consonant with the text and in

represent a deliberate attempt to bring the synodic lunar

Brahmanas; and that even in the Niddna Sutra and the

Dhanamjayya (Dhanamjapya is a mere misprint of the

urdhvam dvddasdhdt sdi]ivatsarikdniti, and what pre

* See Nidana Sutra, vi, 6.

THE VEDIC CALENDAR 631

A further question is raised as to the knowledge of a

days. It would not indeed carry us much beyond the

na vydvartanta; it is rendered by Mr. Shamasastry as

ndbhavan elcarupd eva sarve 'py rtavo 'bhavan; the

from his rival; the sense of the verb is not completely

changed as it has to be in Mr. Shamasastry's version

case.3 The 5 night rite is appropriately explained by the

panca vd rtavas sanivatsarah, just as because they are

2 vii, 1. 10. 3 See Delbriick, Altind. Synt. p. 131.

632 THE VEDIC CALENDAR

the 21 kine or 21 fetters of Varuna he considers as

representing an intercalation of 21 days in the last of

Now the fact is that in one form of the Gavam Ayana,

and it is undoubtedly so understood by Agnisvamin.

next he thinks that the 12 days are added to a year

was intended to make up the correspondence of the

Savana and the solar year is not hinted, and to conclude

is one which was based upon an actual practice", is

3 cyclic years with 21 intercalary days in the course of

poets were quite familiar with the true solar year of

THE VEDIC CALENDAR 633