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.”

[76] Macdonell, _Vedic Mythology_, p. 49.

[77] Macdonell, _Vedic Mythology_, p. 53.

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.”

[Illustration: PLATE XII.

The Vedic Aswins and the Indian Calendar.

[_To face p. 142._]

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.

[78] If the Hindu year were _now_ counted from the new moon

_following_ instead of that _preceding_ the sun’s arrival at

the initial point of the Zodiac, owing to the precession of the

equinoxes, the year would begin at earliest twenty-one days after the

_spring equinox_. Since 3,000 B.C. the seasons have advanced by more

than two months, as regards their position amongst the stars.

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.

[79] _Proceedings of Society of Biblical Archæology_, January 1892.

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.

[80] The winter solstice now coincides very closely with the sun’s

entry into Sagittarius. It _precedes_ the sun’s entry into Aries by

almost a third of the whole circle of the ecliptic.

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.

VI

NOTES.--AHURA MAZDA, ETC.

[Ahura Mazda, a note reprinted from the _Proceedings of the Society

of Biblical Archæology_, February 1900]

Professor Hommel in the March number for 1899 of these _Proceedings_

calls attention in his _Assyriological Notes_ to the name “Assara

Mazas” appearing in a list of Assyrian gods. The section of the list in

which this name appears contains “a number of foreign sounding names”

belonging to gods honoured, presumably, in out-lying portions of the

Assyrian dominions.

Professor Hommel claims “that this god (Assara Mazas) is no other than

the Iranian Ahura Mazda,” and he thus concludes his arguments in favour

of this opinion--“concerning _Assara-mazas_, I should like to remark in

closing this paragraph, that we have here the same older pronunciation

of Iranian words as in the Kassitic _Surias_, ‘sun’ (later _Ahura_

and _Hvarya_, but comp. Sanscrit _Asura_ and _suria_), which is of the

highest importance for the history of the Aryan languages. In the same

Kassitic period, between 1,700 and 1,200 B.C., I suppose was borrowed

by the Assyrians the Iranian god Assara-mazas.”

In a Paper entitled _The Median Calendar and the Constellation Taurus_,

printed in the June number for 1897 of these _Proceedings_, I made a

very similar claim for the derivation of the name of the great god of

the Assyrians--Assur.

The claim put forward was not based only on the resemblance in sound of

“Assur” and “Ahura,” but was in the first place founded on the virtual

identity of the emblems of Assur and Ahura Mazda. For the _origin_ of

these emblems (referring as it was suggested they did to the Zodiacal

constellation Sagittarius) a date as high as 4,000 B.C. was, on

astronomic grounds, assumed, and it was pointed out that at that date

there was no evidence of the existence of the Assyrian nation as a

nation, nor any trace of a Semitic worship of the god Assur; whereas,

on the other hand, as early as 3,800 B.C. there is evidence that a

powerful Aryan race--the Manda--rivalled the power, and threatened the

Semitic rule of Sargon of Agane.

The opinion that the symbol of Ahura Mazda, and of Assur, was of

ancient Aryan origin, naturally suggested the further thought that

the _name_ Assur, so closely resembling the earlier Indo-Iranian form

Asura, of the Iranian Ahura, had, together with the emblem of the god,

been borrowed from the Aryan ancestors of the Medo-Persians by the

Semitic settlers who, early in the second millennium B.C., established

themselves to the north of Babylonia. It may here be pointed out that

no very certain Semitic derivation at present holds the field which

the proposed Aryan derivation would occupy. According to some scholars

it comes from a word signifying “a well-watered plain.” According

to Professor Hommel, the name Assur is derived from a word which

originally meant “the heavenly host.”

Professor Hommel, quoting as his authority the opinions of the Sanscrit

scholar Oldenburg, and reinforcing Oldenburg’s opinions by arguments

from other sources, further maintains the high probability of the

Median god Ahura Mazda having been the representative of the Vedic

Varuna, and also that Varuna was the moon.

Vedic scholars are divided in opinion as to what physical phenomenon is

represented by Varuna. He is very generally supposed to personify “the

vast extent of the encompassing sky,” some say especially the sky at

night-time--others claim him as a solar divinity, whilst Oldenburg, as

we have seen, supposes him to be the moon. It is not to the question,

however, what phenomenon Varuna represented, but to that of the

probability or improbability of his original identity with the Median

Ahura Mazda, that I would now draw attention.

It is said that “the parallel in character, though not in name, of

the god Varuna is Ahura Mazda, the Wise Spirit.” But a variety of

considerations may lead us to entertain the possibility of a Vedic god

other than Varuna being the parallel in character and in _epithet_

of Ahura Mazda; a parallel which is also still more clearly to be

recognized if we adopt the view, above contended for, of the identity

of Assur, the _archer_ god of Assyria, with Ahura Mazda.

The Vedic god Rudra is, like Varuna, an Asura or Spirit. He is

described as “the wise,” and his votaries are encouraged to worship him

“for a comprehensive and sound understanding.” But in one passage the

epithet “asura maha,” so curiously recalling to our ears the name of

the Avestan “Ahura Mazda,” is actually applied to him.[81] As a wise

and great Asura, Rudra seems to be as close a parallel to Ahura Mazda

as Varuna; the resemblance of epithet in the case of Rudra makes the

parallelism closer.

[81] Wilson, _Rig Veda_, Maṇḍala ii., I, 6, Uncertainty prevails

among scholars as to the exact meaning to be given to the name

Ahura Mazda. The Rev. L. H. Mills, D.D., under the heading “Zend,”

writes thus in _Chambers’s Encyclopædia_; “The Supreme Deity Ahura

Mazdâh, the Living God or ‘Lord’ (_ahu_ = ‘the living,’ ‘life,’ or

‘spirit’--root _ah_ = ‘to be’), the Great Creator (_maz_ + _da_ =

Sansk. _mahâ_ + _dhâ_), or ‘the Wise One’ (_cf._ _su-medhâs_).”

Again, the same writer in his book on the Gàthàs, published in 1894,

gives on p. 3 in his “verbatim translation,” “O magni-donator (?)

(vel) O Sapiens (?),” as alternative meanings for Mazda. Similar

uncertainty seems to prevail as regards the meaning to be attached

to the words of the passage in the Rig Veda to which reference has

been made above, _i.e._, Maṇḍala ii., Súkta i., verse 6. In Wilson’s

translation of the Rig Veda, vol. ii., p. 211, we read:--“Thou, Agni,

art Rudra, the expeller (of foes) from the expanse of heaven”: and

in his note to this passage he says: “_Twam Rudro asuro maho divah_:

_asura_ is explained śatrúnám nirasitá, the expeller of enemies,

_divas_, from heaven; or it may mean, the giver of strength....”

Macdonell (_Vedic Mythology_, p. 75) says that Rudra is called in

this passage “the great _asura_ of heaven.”

Varuna indeed in Vedic estimation held a much higher and more

commanding position than Rudra, but considering how opposed the Avestan

was to Vedic mythology on important points, we ought not to expect that

the god elevated by the Medians above all others should have held a

very exalted place amongst the Brahmins of India.

But it is when we turn our thoughts not only to Ahura Mazda but to his

Assyrian representative Assur, that the parallelism between him and

Rudra becomes more marked.

Rudra is not only a wise and great Asura, he is above everything else

celebrated in the Rig Veda as an archer. He has “the sure arrow, the

strong bow.”[82] He is “the divine Rudra armed with the strong bow and

fast flying arrows.”[83]

[82] Wilson, _Rig Veda_, Maṇḍala v., x. (xlii.), 11.

[83] _Ib._, Maṇḍala vii., xiii. (xlvi.), 1.

In the Paper already referred to, it was suggested that an

astronomic observation of the equinoctial colure passing through the

constellations Sagittarius and Taurus was the probable origin of

Median and (as derived from Median) Assyrian symbolism concerning Ahura

Mazda and Assur. This observation could, as was pointed out, only have

been made at the date, in round numbers, of 4,000 B.C.

It is a very tempting enterprise to seek in the mythologies of

European nations for allusions to this same astronomic observation--an

observation made, as we may believe, when the ancestors of the Iranian

and Indian Aryans, and possibly the ancestors of the European nations,

were still, if not all dwelling together, at least within easy

intellectual touch of each other.

In Grecian fable we have the Centaur (the Bull-killer) Chiron giving

his name to the constellation Sagittarius, and in this fable we may,

as it would seem, find a better _astronomic_ explanation of the term

Bull-killer than that usually given concerning the well-mounted

Thessalian hunters of wild cattle. The constellation Sagittarius, an

archer, half man, half horse, is not a figure of Grecian invention.

It is to be met with depicted on Babylonian monuments, unmistakably

the archer of our celestial sphere; and this constellation, when it

rises in the east, always drives below the western horizon--_i.e._,

mythically exterminates, the last stars of the constellation Taurus.

To Chiron, the chief Centaur, the epithet “wise” is especially given,

and “he was renowned for his skill in hunting, medicine, music,

gymnastics, and the art of prophecy”; of these not altogether congruous

attributes Rudra the Vedic god possessed three of the most important.

He was wise, he was an archer, and he was famed as “a chief physician

among physicians.”[84] In a verse, part of which has been already

quoted,[85] worshippers are exhorted to “Praise him who has the sure

arrow, the strong bow, who presides over all sanitary drugs; worship

Rudra for a comprehensive and sound understanding, adore the powerful

divinity with prostrations.”

[84] Wilson, _Rig Veda_, Maṇḍala ii., xxxiii., 4.

[85] _Ib._, Maṇḍala v., x. (xlii.), 11.

Apollo the far-darter, Artemis the goddess of the silver bow, also

shared these same attributes, and Grecian legend would lead us to

place them in the same part of the heavens as that allotted to

Chiron--_i.e._, Sagittarius. Apollo prompted Artemis to aim a shaft

from her bow at a point on the horizon, and this point was the head of

the hunter Orion. Now the constellation Orion is exactly in opposition

to the bow stars of Sagittarius; that the legend is astronomical is

plainly to be inferred from its variant form, in which Artemis is

represented as sending a Scorpion to sting Orion to death. The stars

marking the Scorpion’s sting are in very close proximity to the bow

stars of Sagittarius.

Returning to Indian myths, the name of Siva does not occur in the

Rig Veda; but in later Sanscrit works Siva is the representative of

Rudra. In a hymn to Siva,[86] the following passages occur, and it is

difficult to read them and not be reminded of the sculptured figures of

Artemis, crescent-crowned and leading a stag by the horns. (Allowance

must be made, however, for the tendency in Hindu art to multiply the

heads, arms, and features of their gods.)

[86] Hymn to Siva, prefixed to “An Exposition of the Principles of

Sanskrit Logic,” by Bodhanundánath Swami, Calcutta.

“I worship the great _Mahesa_, who shines like ten million suns: who is

adorned with triple eyes: who is crowned with the moon: who is armed

with the trident, the bow, the mace, the discus, the goad, and the

noose:

Who is the eternal Lord;

Who is bright as the snowy summit of Mount Kailáçe; whose matted hair

is ablaze with the crescent moon;

* * * * *

Whose hands hold the head of a deer and a battle-axe;

Whose forehead is adorned with the bright half-moon;

Whose fingers are interlaced to typify a deer;

* * * * *”

For the explanation of the Roman myths of Dianus and Diana (varying

forms as the dictionary tells of Janus and Jana) we may naturally seek

for the same astronomic origin, as for those concerning the Grecian

archer divinities.

Janus indeed has not, so far as I know, ever been represented as an

archer or a Centaur. The attribute for which he is especially renowned

is that of “opener of the year,” and this attribute, on the astronomic

theory here proposed, would furnish the connecting link between the

varying forms of the Italian deities above mentioned.

The many and still imperfectly understood changes that were made in

the Roman year by successive rulers, have effaced the connexion of

that year with the stars which must have originally presided over its

opening. But Roman tradition embodied in Virgil’s lines speaks of

“the bright Bull” who “with his gilded horns opens the year.”[87] The

golden star-tipped horns of the Bull are as we know exactly opposed

to the westernmost degrees of Sagittarius; and that constellation, in

opposition to the sun, would therefore have marked the opening of just

such a vernal year as that alluded to by Virgil. Whether this vernal

year before the Julian reformation was still the calendrical year in

Rome is, however, very doubtful.

[87] Virgil, _Georg._, Lib. I., 217, 218.

Janus is represented with two heads, sometimes even with four, “to

typify the seasons of the year.” The _full moon_ in Sagittarius 4,000

B.C. marked the season of the spring equinox--the sun then being in

_conjunction_ with the stars marking the horn tips of the Bull. The

_new moon_ in Sagittarius at the same date marked the autumn equinox.

The _half waning moon_ in Sagittarius marked the season of the winter

solstice: and the half moon of the _crescent or waxing moon_ marked the

season of the summer solstice. The four heads of Janus may thus have

referred to the four seasons marked by the moon in Sagittarius.

The fact that the Indian archer Rudra (= Siva) and the Grecian archer

Artemis, were represented as crowned by the _half_, not the _full

moon_, would refer these myths to an Indo-Iranian, not to a somewhat

later Iranian source. It was not to the reformed Iranian equinoctial

year that they pointed, but to the sun’s triumph at the solstitial

season. In the Roman Janus myth we may rather detect the later Median

influence, and suppose that it referred to a year beginning with the

_full moon_ in Sagittarius, a year opening in the spring, when the

_sun_ was in conjunction with the “gilded horns” of “the bright Bull.”

All these mythological indications, derived from Median, Assyrian,

Indian, and classical sources, though each of them looked at separately

may not speak with much insistence, yet considered together seem to

point us more and more clearly as we study them, to the fact that

about 4,000 B.C. a very important and authoritative observation of the

colures (amongst the Zodiacal constellations) was made, and that upon

this observation much of the mythology of ancient nations was founded.

VII

ANCIENT INDIAN ASTRONOMY

[Reprinted from the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical

Archæology_, February 1900]

It is only on Talmudic authority, I think, that astronomy can be denied

a place, and indeed an important place, in researches connected with

Biblical Archæology.

On Talmudic authority we are told that, as a protest against the sun-,

moon-, and star-worship of surrounding nations, the Hebrews were not

permitted to calculate in any way beforehand, or by scientific methods

based on the movements of the heavenly bodies, their days, their

months, or their years.

The end of the day and beginning of the night could only be definitely

ascertained when three stars were visible to the observer. The moon

must have shown its pale sickle to some watcher of the heavens, before

the first of the month could be announced. The beginning of the year,

we are also told, was dependent on the earliness or lateness of the

agricultural season, for three ears of corn, in a sufficiently advanced

state of growth, were to be presented to the priest and waved before

the Lord _on a fixed day of the first month_ of the year.

This is what some passages of the Talmud[88] seem to teach; but from

Old Testament Scriptures, it is not possible to infer these calendrical

restrictions with any degree of certainty. On the contrary, there is

much in the Scriptures to lead us to an opposite conclusion.

[88] _Bible Educator_, edited by Rev. E. H. Plumptre, M.A., vol. iii.

pp. 239 and 240. “It may have been with a view to render astrology

impossible, that the Jews were forbidden to keep a calendar in

the Holy Land, ... as the length of the lunation, or lunar month,

is, roughly speaking, twenty-nine days and a half, it is easy to

know, from month to month, when to expect the crescent to become

visible. Six times in the year the beginning of the month was

decided by observation of the new moon.... On two months of the

year the determination of the new moon was of such importance, that

the witnesses who observed the crescent were authorized to profane

the Sabbath by travelling to give information at Jerusalem. These

occasions were the months Nisan and Tisri.... The Mishna records that

on one occasion as many as forty pairs of witnesses thus arrived on

the Sabbath at Lydda. Rabbi Akiba detained them, but was reproved for

so doing by Rabbi Gamaliel.... When the evidence was satisfactory,

the judges declared the month to be commenced, and a beacon was

lighted on Mount Olivet, from which the signal was repeated on

mountain after mountain, until the whole country was aglow with

fires.”

On the very first page of the Bible we read of “the greater and the

lesser lights,” and of “the stars also” set in the heavens, to be “for

signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.” And scarcely have we

turned this first page, when we meet the statement that “in process of

time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an

offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of

his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel

and to his offering.” In the margin the words “in process of time” are

rendered “at the end of days.” In considering this passage we seem to

be brought into touch with a definitely established year; and at once

archæology and astronomy enter into the field of Biblical research, to

tell us of a remotely old calendar--astronomic indications would date

the origin of this calendar at about 6,000 B.C.--and from this calendar

we learn that at “the end of days”--the end of the _dark_ days of the

year--there followed a month of “the sacrifice of righteousness”: a

sacrifice, we may well suppose, of the firstlings of the flock, as the

stars in conjunction with the sun during this first month were imagined

by the institutors of the calendar under the form of a lamb or ram

ready for sacrifice.

To this calendrical first month our attention is again drawn when we

read, in the book of Exodus, of the institution at God’s command of the

Hebrew festival, to be held on the 14th and 15th days of the month Abib.

This month Abib, it is generally assumed, is the equivalent of the

month Nisan, spoken of in some of the later books of the Old Testament.

Astronomy and archæology again claim a hearing on this point. The

month Nisan, the Semite equivalent of the Accadian month Bar zig-gar

(the month of the “sacrifice of righteousness”), we may gather from

the evidence of the cuneiform tablets, had been the first month of

a calendrical year in Babylon for many centuries--for millenniums,

perhaps--before the date of Moses; and therefore archæology would teach

us that the children of Israel were being recalled, from strange

Egyptian modes of reckoning, to the observance of an ancient and

patriarchal year and festival, when they were told that for them Abib

was to be the first month of the year, and that on the 14th of that

month, “a night to be much observed,” they were to sacrifice of the

firstlings of their flock, and were to hold the great festival of the

Passover on the fifteenth day.

If “Abib,” “Nisan,” and “Bar zig-gar” are names used by various nations

to designate one and the same month, Abib could not have been, as

has very generally been supposed, a month varying according to the

uncertain ripening of agricultural crops, and one taking its name from

the _ears of corn_ presented to the priest, and waved before the Lord

on some fixed day of that month; but rather it must have been (as

we know, from Babylonian sources that Nisan was) a well calculated

soli-lunar and sidereal month. Now, if we adopt this view, we must find

some alternative derivation for the month name Abib. Nor is it by any

means difficult so to do.

On the fourteenth night of the first month--Bar zig-gar, Nisan, or

Abib--“a night to be much observed,” or rather, according to the

marginal reading, “a night of observations”--the bright star Spica,

which marks the _ears of corn_ in the Virgin’s hand, rose above the

eastern horizon as the sun set in the west, and at midnight must have

shone down brilliantly on the Hebrew hosts; for Spica is so bright a

star, that even the beams of the full moon riding close at hand could

not have obscured its lustre.

The Indians of to-day name their months from the stars in their lunar

Zodiac which are in _opposition to_, not from those in _conjunction

with_, the sun. The close resemblance of the Arab and Indian lunar

Zodiacal series suggests the thought that the Arabs may have followed

the same system of month _nomenclature_ as the Indians; and if

this were the case it would furnish a reason why Moses, who had so

lately returned from his forty years’ sojourn in Arabia, should--in

recalling the Hebrews to the observance of such a year as that which

was presumably followed by their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob--have yet spoken of the first month of the year according to a

_non-Babylonian_ method of nomenclature, and should have called it

Abib, after the star in _opposition to_ the sun.

If now we adopt the opinion that an astronomic method of counting the

year did in reality obtain amongst the Hebrews, a great difficulty must

present itself to our minds in regard to the generally accepted theory

that only on a _fixed day of the first month of the year_ might the

first reaped handful of corn be waved before the Lord.

The seasons in Palestine are not more punctual than in other countries.

To restrict a husbandman to a fixed day of a year (even such a year as

ours) before which he might not begin to put his sickle into the corn,

would be felt as a hurtful and arbitrary regulation; but to restrict

the husbandman to a fixed day in a luni-solar year would be a still

more hurtful regulation. The beginning of a soli-lunar year may vary

to the extent of a whole month. A late beginning of such a year might

coincide with a very early agricultural season, and _vice versa_ an

early calendrical year might occur in a late agricultural season.

Considerations of this nature may incline us to inquire carefully

whether the “generally accepted theory” (concerning the waving of the

ears of corn before the Lord during the Passover week) rests upon

Scriptural authority or on Talmudic and traditional teaching. As

against an almost unbroken array of commentators, it is possible in

this connexion to quote from the work of a learned Hebrew scholar a

clearly expressed opinion that from the Scriptures themselves, it is

not possible to infer directly a connexion in date between the waving

of the first fruits and the Passover festival.[89]

[89] _Pentateuque_, Traduction Nouvelle, par Rabbi Wogue (Lazare),

tom. 3. Discussing an important difference of opinion which exists

amongst Jewish scholars and commentators as to the exact day of

the Passover festival, on which the priest was to wave the sheaf

before the Lord, the writer says: “Le texte porte: ‘Le Lendemain du

Sabbat,’ indication qui a donné lieu à une dissidence importante

entre les Pharisiens et les Saducéens.... Nous avons adopté le

système talmudique, qui a pour lui l’autorité des Septante, des

targoumîm, de Josephe, et l’usage immémorial de la Synagogue; mais,

à ne consulter que les textes sans parti pris, nous ne souscririons

à aucune des deux doctrines. Ni la cérémonie de l’ômer, ni le comput

des semaines, ne sont mis par nos textes en rapport avec la Pâque,

mais uniquement avec les moissons, soit ici, soit dans le Deutéronome

(xvi. 9). Dès la récolte de l’orge, le divin Législateur veut qu’on

lui fasse hommage des prémices de cette céréale; il n’indique point

de date, parceque la moisson, pas plus que la vendange, et pas plus

en Palestine qu’ailleurs, ne commence à jour fixe. Mais une fois

ouverte, elle se continue sans interruption; et comme les froments,

en Palestine, sont coupés sept semaines après, les prémices du

froment doivent être offertes au bout de sept semaines. L’Omer et

la Pentecôte sont donc mobiles par exception, mais cette dernière

est relativement fixe. Maintenant de quel ‘Sabbat’ est il question?

Puisque tout ici est subordonné à _l’ouverture de la moisson_, ce

sera naturellement le Sabbat qui suit cette ouverture.”

But if our enquiries should lead us to accept, as at least a

probability, the existence in Mosaic times of an astronomically

counted Hebrew year, and if this admission should require us to change

long-held opinions regarding the right observance of Hebrew festivals,

on the other hand, the fact that we might then trace _Arabian_ rather

than _Babylonian_ influence in the name of Abib would have its weight

on the conservative side of the controversy concerning the post or

pre-exilic _date_ of the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.

The fact that in India the months are named after the stars in

opposition to the sun suggested the above proposed explanations of

the Hebrew month name Abib as that of the month when the sun was in

conjunction with the constellation Aries, and in opposition to the star

Spica, marking the Zodiacal ears of corn. But there is a further point

of connexion to be observed between Indian astronomy and Biblical

archæology, namely, that the _first month of the Indian year_ is at

the present date the month during which the sun is in conjunction with

the constellation Aries. This month is called Chaitra, which is the

Sanscrit name of the star Spica, and it is in fact the same sidereally

marked month, which, according to the opinions here advocated, was the

first month of the ancient Accadian, Babylonian, and Hebrew years.

It must, therefore, be a question of interest to Biblical students to

determine, if possible, whether this Indian _first month_ has only

so been counted (as some scholars tell us) since about 570 A.D., or

whether it has so been counted from the same remote time as was the

Accadian month Bar zig-gar, that is, possibly, from about 6,000 B.C.

This question as to the month Chaitra forms part only of a larger

controversy which has been long waged, concerning the antiquity, or

otherwise, of the whole science of astronomy in India.

To this larger controversy I have drawn attention in my Paper,

_Astronomy in the Rig Veda_, read before the Congress of Orientalists

assembled at Rome in 1899. In that Paper, arguments are put forward in

support of the opinion that the Vedic bards possessed an acquaintance

with the science of astronomy, and that much of the imagery of the

hymns bore reference to the constellations of the Zodiac. For the

gods Indra, Soma, Agni, and the Aswins, astronomic interpretations

are proposed; and finally the question, which as it seems to me is

one specially deserving the attention of the Society of Biblical

Archæology--the question of the position of the month Chaitra as first

month of the Indian year in Vedic and pre-Vedic times is discussed,

and the claim that it was, and throughout remote ages had ever been,

virtually the same month as the Accadian Bar zig-gar is insisted upon.

Pursuing further the controversy concerning the antiquity of astronomy

amongst the Aryan races, in the note on “Ahura Mazda” (p. 152),

I proposed an identification of the Vedic Rudra with the Median

god--the god who presided over the Median equinoctial year, marked by

observation of the full moon in the constellation Sagittarius.

Continuing then our enquiries into the astronomic myths of ancient

India, let us turn our attention to the sons of Rudra--the _Maruts_.

They are a group of gods very prominent among Vedic deities, and it

is to be noted that Rudra is oftener alluded to in the Rig Veda as

the father of the Maruts than in almost any other capacity. Now the

Maruts--the stormy troop of Maruts--are celebrated as the companions

and friends of Indra. They are “associated with him in innumerable

passages.” Here, at first sight, it might seem that the proposed

astronomical identification of Indra and Rudra as solstitial and

equinoctial personifications must break down; for how should the sons

of the equinoctial Rudra always appear as the devoted companions of the

solstitial Indra?

On further examination, however, a very interesting explanation of this

difficulty presents itself. From a hymn (quoted at p. 157) to Siva, the

Hindu representative of the Vedic Rudra, we learn that the crescent

half-moon blazes on the forehead of Siva. Now the crescent half-moon,

in the western degrees of the constellation Sagittarius, would, 4,500

B.C., have marked the month of the summer solstice; for the moon,

in its “first quarter” in the first degrees of Sagittarius, must

attain to “full moon” seven days later, either in the constellation

Aquarius or Pisces, and the full moon in one or other of those two

constellations marked the season of the summer solstice somewhat

earlier than 4,000 B.C. The Maruts are often spoken of in the Veda as a

troop, seven in number, or as seven troops of seven, or as three times

seven in number. The astronomical thought therefore suggests itself,

that the seven Maruts represent the seven days that elapsed between

the crescent half-moon, blazing on the brow of Rudra, and the full

moon of the summer solstice, or Soma pavamana--Soma purified in the

celestial waters (see Plate XIII.). And this explanation of the Maruts

does not contradict, but rather agrees with and includes the usual

non-astronomic explanations held regarding them, namely, that they are

_storm winds_; for we know that the days which accompany the setting

in of the solstitial rainy season in India are the days in which the

fierce tropical hurricanes or monsoons prevail.

[Illustration: PLATE XIII.

Outer circle divided into 360 degrees.

2nd circle. The names and extent of the twenty-seven Indian

“Nakshatras” or divisions of the Lunar Zodiac.

3rd circle. Names and extent of the twelve Indian “Rashis” or

divisions of the Solar Zodiac.

4th circle. Proposed three-fold division of the Vedic Lunar Month at

Season of Summer Solstice.

Section of 5th circle. Proposed identification of “Maruts” with

Moon’s course through seven “Nakshatras” at Season of Summer Solstice.

The Constellations here appear as drawn on the celestial globe;

they have not been reversed as in the other illustrations, hence an

apparent, though not real, contradiction ensues.

[_To face p. 174._]

Now let us turn from the Maruts to another, as it seems to me, lunar

and solstitial myth, namely, that of Trita Aptya.

Trita Aptya is a friend of the Maruts, and is said to have appeared on

the same car with them. He is constantly, in the hymns, associated with

Indra, and feats recorded in one passage as performed by Indra, are in

another passage of the same hymn attributed to Trita.

Trita is also often spoken of together with Soma; and in the ninth

Maṇḍala, again and again we read of the ten “maidens, or fingers,” of

Trita preparing the Soma juice for Indra.

All these attributes of Trita, and others to be mentioned later, are

easily explainable on the astronomic theory already propounded in the

identifications of Indra, of Soma, and of the Maruts.

In the name Trita there is certainly a suggestion of the number

_three_, and Macdonell, in his _Vedic Mythology_,[90] brings proof to

show “that it was felt to have the meaning of the third”--that is, in

order of sequence.

[90] P. 69.

But though the third, in this sense, does not actually carry with it

the meaning of _third of a whole_; yet, to any one in search of an

astronomical explanation of the Trita myth, the reiterated mention

of the ten fingers of Trita quickly suggests the thought of a whole

divided into three chief parts, each part containing ten lesser

divisions--a whole therefore of thirty parts.

Now the lunar month--in reality consisting of twenty-nine and a half

solar days (with some fractions over)--is in Hindu calendrical usage

divided into thirty equal portions of time called “tithis,” which are

considered as lunar days; and here, as it would seem, we arrive at the

physical basis of the Trita myth. Trita Aptya, or Trita in the waters

(or of the waters), appears as the third part of the lunar month--the

part during which the moon is to be seen in the celestial waters; and

as Trita is so closely connected with Indra and Soma pavamana, that

third part must have been the ten lunar days (five before and five

after “the full”) during which the moon is at its brightest, and in the

constellation Aquarius.

If we think of Trita Aptya as a personification of the triumphant third

of the moon’s course through the constellations of the Zodiac at the

season of the summer solstice (see Plate XIII.), and if we remember

that the moon during the ten lunar days contained in that “third”

came to its full in Aquarius or in Pisces, sometimes indeed at the

juncture of these constellations, we shall be able to understand much

of the figurative language of the Veda, which associates Trita with the

stormy Maruts, with the victories of Indra over Vritra, and with the

effulgence of Soma pavamana.

There is a legend concerning Trita not related but alluded to in the

Rig Veda. This legend tells us that Trita was one of three brothers

(Ekata, Dvita, and Trita), and that he was pushed into a well by his

brothers, and over the mouth of the well a circular covering was placed

with intent to keep Trita down and drown him. But through the circular

covering the ever-triumphant Trita burst. Here there can be little

doubt is a mythic description of the temporary disaster of eclipse

overtaking the full moon of the summer solstice in the celestial waters

of Aquarius or Pisces. The circular covering can be nothing else than

the circular shadow of the earth covering the disc of the full moon,

and Trita’s triumph may well remind us of the serene victoriousness of

the moon when it has emerged from eclipse and rides unharmed along the

sky.

In the Zend Avesta Thrita corresponds in many points with the Vedic

Trita. Thraetona also represents Trita under some of his other aspects,

and mention is made of Thraetona’s “two brothers who seek to slay him

on the way.”[91] From these facts it may be inferred that the Trita

myth is pre-Vedic. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find traces

of it in European mythologies. The name of Trita, with only a change

of termination, appears as the Greek Triton, and we may guess at an

allusion in the sculptured forms of Greek and Roman Tritons--half men

and half fish--to the two watery constellations, Aquarius and Pisces,

in which the Vedic Trita Aptya (son of waters) made his abode. The

Roman rendering of these composite figures, especially, may recall

to our minds the Zodiacal basis of the myth--the two fish of Pisces

appearing in Italian art, as the two fish-tails which terminate the

human-headed figure of the Triton. Again Hecate, as has been pointed

out by scholars, bears a close resemblance in name to Ekata. Hecate was

a lunar divinity; she was worshipped and sacrificed to at the close of

the month. We may therefore suppose she represented the waning moon.

She is further said to have been the daughter of Perseus and Asteria.

Looking at the figures of the celestial sphere (see Plate), we may

trace the third part of the moon’s course--the ten days of its waning

appropriated to Ekata--and observe how this portion of its course began

close to the _constellation Perseus_. Thus the Sanscrit Trita myth may

explain the name and parentage of the Grecian Hecate.[92]

[91] Macdonell, _Vedic Mythology_, p. 69.

[92] It is not to be supposed that only the month of the summer

solstice was divided into the three parts, personified by Ekata,

Dvita, and Trita: the legend of Trita Aptya, that is, Trita in the

waters (or, of the waters), is necessarily restricted to that season

in which the moon came to its full in the constellations Aquarius or

Pisces. Some interesting indications in Indian and Greek mythology

seem to point to a similar division of other months, but the subject

is surrounded with uncertainties and difficulties.

A study of ancient European calendars may, on the other hand, eke out

our knowledge concerning the astronomic scheme in which Trita and his

brothers played such important parts. We read that in the Attic year

“each month was divided into three decades,” and the statement may

confirm us in the opinion that, following an almost too mathematically

imagined calendrical method, the ancestors of the Aryan race in remote

ages counted their months, not as containing twenty-nine-and-a-half

solar days, but as a portion of time containing three great equal

divisions, the first, the second, and the third--Ekata, Dvita,

Trita--each of these three parts being again subdivided into ten equal

tithis. If this should have been the case, it would be interesting to

note that the Greeks (and the Romans also, as shown by their cumbrous

system of Kalends, Nones, and Ides) retained the plan of a threefold

division of the months, but lost the originally concomitant arrangement

of the ten equal divisions of each part into tithis, whence much

difficulty ensued for Greeks and Romans alike in counting lunar months

of alternately thirty and twenty-nine days. Indian astronomers, on

the other hand, who retain the accurate and elaborate division of the

month into equal tithis, must have long ago lost the thought of its

originally threefold partition, for the Indians count each month as

composed not of three periods of time, but of _a light and a dark

half_.[93]

[93] “The Luni-Solar year is used for the regulation of festivals

and domestic arrangements; it commences at present at the instant

of conjunction of the Sun and Moon in the Sidereal month Chaitra.

The Hindu Lunar months invariably consist of thirty Tithis, or Lunar

days; and the whole month is divided into two equal parts of fifteen

Tithis each, the one called Shukla or Shuddh Paksha--the bright half

or increase of the Moon; the other Krishna or Vadya Paksha--the dark

half or decrease of the Moon.” (_The Indian Calendar_ for the year

1892.)

To one more lunar Vedic personage let us direct our attention: namely,

to Atri--Atri who, unlike the conquering and ever-victorious Trita, is

chiefly celebrated for his misfortunes. Agni, Indra, and especially

the Aswins, moved by his misfortunes, come to the help of Atri, and

by means of a hundred acts, a hundred devices, they extricate him

from captivity, whether from a dark cavern or from a burning chasm.

They make the time of his captivity even pleasant to him, giving him

refreshing drink.

One of our own poets may help us to understand the Vedic metaphor of

Atri’s darksome cave. In the _Samson Agonistes_ of Milton, the hero,

describing his blindness, says--

“The sun to me is dark

And silent as the moon

When she deserts the night,

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.”

Atri is, I believe, a personification of the _New Moon_, and thus we

may understand how he is sometimes described as hidden in a dark cave,

while at other times he is spoken of as in a fiery chasm, when the

uppermost thought in the Vedic poet’s mind is the close conjunction

of the moon at that time with the burning sun. From his dark cave, or

burning chasm, Atri is delivered by the “hundred acts” of worship and

sacrifice which it was the custom in India, as in many other countries,

to offer up at the time of New Moon, especially at the marked festivals

of the winter and summer solstice, or the beginning of the calendrical

year. On one occasion[94] we hear of Atri coming to the assistance of

the sun, which had been hidden by the demon Swarbhānu. This darkening

of the sun is generally understood to refer to a solar eclipse. A solar

eclipse can only take place at the time of new moon. It is a little

puzzling to find Atri, if Atri personifies the new moon, saving the sun

from eclipse instead of being the cause of the disaster; but as in the

Rig Veda Atri always appears as a friend, not an enemy, of the gods of

light--Agni, Indra, and the Aswins--we may suppose that the Vedic bard

chose to represent him as being present at, rather than causing the

sun’s eclipse. It may also be that a certain number of divisions of

lunar time were considered as personified by Atri, and that an eclipse

terminated in the third or fourth of those divisions; so that it could

be said that Atri “by his fourth sacred prayer” discovered the sun.

The passage is no doubt a difficult one; still the fact that Atri was

present at the eclipse of the sun seems to tell rather in favour of

than against the supposition that Atri was a personification of the

time of new moon.

[94] Wilson’s _Rig Veda_, vol. iii. p. 297, _Maṇḍala_, V. xl. “5.

When, Súrya, the son of the _Asura_ Swarbhánu overspread thee with

darkness, the worlds were beheld like one bewildered, knowing not

his place. 6. When, Indra, thou wast dissipating those illusions of

Swarbhánu which were spread below the Sun, then Atri, by his fourth

sacred prayer, discovered the Sun concealed by the darkness impeding

his functions. 7. (Súrya speaks) Let not the violator, Atri, through

hunger swallow with fearful (darkness) me who am thine; thou art

Mitra, whose wealth is truth; do thou and the royal Varuna both

protect me. 8. Then the Brahman (Atri), applying the stones together,

propitiating the gods with praise, and adoring them with reverence,

placed the eye of Súrya in the sky; he dispersed the delusions of

Swarbhánu. 9. The Sun, whom the _Asura_, Swarbhánu, had enveloped

with darkness, the sons of Atri subsequently recovered; no others

were able (to effect his release).”

The four astronomical interpretations here proposed for Rudra, the

Maruts, Trita Aptya, and Atri, are all harmonious with and supplemental

to the four discussed in my Paper read at Rome, and entitled

_Astronomy in the Rig Veda_. They must to a great extent all stand or

fall together. They have been very briefly stated, but if indeed an

astronomic basis does, as suggested, underlie Vedic imagery, Sanscrit

scholars, with the science of etymology at their command, will easily

be able to follow up and pronounce upon the value of the clues here

hazarded.

VIII

THE CHINESE CALENDAR, WITH SOME REMARKS WITH REFERENCE TO THAT OF THE

CHALDEANS

[Reprinted from the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical

Archæology, December 1901_]

The Chinese Lunar Zodiac is divided into 28 star groups named Siou.

Gustav Schlegel in his _Uranographie Chinoise_ having enumerated

these 28 siou--or as he translates that term, “domiciles”--says: “La

première chose qui nous frappe en voyant la liste des 28 domiciles,

c’est qu’elle commence par le domicile _Kio_, ou la _Vierge_, preuve

positive que c’était avec ce domicile que l’année a dû commencer

primitivement,”[95] and further on he quotes from “le _Eul-ya_ cette

antique dictionnaire,” as follows: “_L’Ancien des constellations_,

c’est _Kio_ et _Kang_ ... ils sont les chefs des domiciles, et à

cause de cela on les nomme _l’ancien des constellations_: et ‘le signe

d’Ancien des constellations’ est exactement les domiciles _Kio_ et

_Kang_.”[96] Schlegel adds: “Ce nom de _Ancien des constellations_

répond exactement à celui de _Princeps Signorum_ que les astrologues

romains donnerent au _bélier_; à l’époque où cette constellation

était signe de l’équinoxe du printemps. C’est-à-dire que le signe qui

annonçait le commencement de l’année était le premier, le Princeps

signorum, l’Ancien, le Chef, des constellations. Mais ces étoiles de

la Vierge portent encore d’autres noms qui tous out rapport au fait

astronomique que l’astérisme _Kio_ ouvrait l’année. Le ‘Sing-king’ les

nomme les _Chefs des quatre régions_, les _Légions célestes_.... _Elles

président aux métamorphoses de la création: elles sont traversées

par l’écliptique et les sept clartés (7 planets) commencent (leur

révolution) par elles._”

[95] _Uranographie Chinoise_, p. 79.

[96] _Uranographie Chinoise_, p. 87.

The concluding words from the Sing-king which I have marked in

italics--giving as they do the opinions held by ancient _Chinese_

writers respecting the first divisions of their Lunar Zodiac--may

remind us of the opinions held by _Indian_ astronomers as to their

first division of the Zodiac.

In Whitney’s comments on the _Sûrya Siddhânta_ he observes:--“The

initial point of the fixed Hindu sphere, from which longitudes are

reckoned, _and at which the planetary motions are held by all schools

of Hindu astronomy to have commenced at the creation_, is the end of

the asterism Revatî, or the beginning of Açvinî.”[97]

[97] V. p. 93.

It is impossible to read of these two traditions concerning the

initial point of the Chinese and of the Hindu ecliptic series of

constellations, without suspecting some underlying cause common to both

traditions.

The Chinese and Hindu initial points are diametrically opposite to each

other on the ecliptic. Calendrically speaking, such opposite points may

be taken to mark the same season and the same month--as for instance,

in the old Accadian calendar the month names referred to the stars in

_conjunction_ with the sun. The month of the sacrifice of righteousness

corresponded to the month during which the sun was in conjunction with

the sacrificial Ram. This same month counted (theoretically) from the

arrival of the sun at the end of Revati and beginning of Aswinī--the

initial point of the Indian Zodiac--is in India called, after the star

group in _opposition_, Chaitra.

Spica (α Virginis) is the chief star of the Nakshatra Chaitra, and

Spica also is the chief star of the Chinese siou Kio, “l’astérisme,”

which, according to the tradition above recorded, “ouvrait l’année,”

and which (together with the neighbouring “siou Kang), président aux

métamorphoses de la création,” “sont traversées par l’écliptique, et

les sept clartés commencent leur révolution par elles.”

To any interested in the history of the Chinese calendar, or rather to

any interested in the history of the human race, the question as to

the reason for the choice of this point and for the equal honour in

which it was held (as we have seen) by the Accadian, the Hindu, and the

Chinese nations, is a question worthy of close attention.

In former Papers contributed to these _Proceedings_, I have drawn

attention to the many indications in ancient cuneiform and Indian

literature, which seem to point to the conclusion that about 6,000

B.C., in some part of Asia and in a latitude probably as far north

as 40 degrees, a calendar was instituted by “some ancient race of

men,” that this calendar dealt with a year beginning at the season

of the _winter solstice_, and that the stars which at that date were

chosen to mark the solstitial year were those in the first degrees of

the constellation Aries in _conjunction_ with--and the bright star

Spica in _opposition_ to--the sun. I suggested that the Accadians and

later Babylonians, as also the Aryans of India, continued to follow as

star-marks for their years the constellations chosen by the institutors

of this ancient calendar, and that therefore in the course of ages

the beginning of the years of these peoples moved gradually away from

the season of the _winter solstice_, approaching always nearer to

the _vernal equinox_, close to which point we find it “bound” at the

time of the fall of the Babylonian power; while in India, where the

star-mark Spica is still followed, the year now begins about twenty

days after the spring equinox.

Indications in Mesopotamian and Indian literature have seemed to me to

point to the above conclusions. The opposed view, held by most writers

on the subject, is that only at the late date (about the beginning of

our era) when the stars of Aries in conjunction, and the star of Spica

in opposition, marked the _equinoctial_ season, were they adopted

as marks for the beginning of the year by Babylonians and Hindus

respectively.

I think that the position held by the star Spica in Chinese ancient

astronomical tradition may be claimed as telling strongly in favour of

an originally _solstitial_ as opposed to an originally _equinoctial_

beginning of the sidereal years of the Accadian, Hindu, and Chinese

nations, for never has the claim been made that the _Chinese_ years

were counted from the vernal equinox; but on the contrary the opinion

has been very generally held and expressed by Chinese scholars that

at some remote date the new year’s festival was held in China at the

season of the winter solstice.

Gustav Schlegel, one of the latest writers on the subject of Chinese

astronomy, though he admits that, “selon l’opinion générale l’année

chinoise commence toujours avec le solstice d’hiver,” has put forward

a view entirely opposed to this generally held opinion: according to

his theory, the Chinese have from the most remote times counted their

years, as they count them at present--_i.e._, from the new moon nearest

to _the season mid-way between the winter solstice and the spring

equinox_: and as he is convinced--as we have seen--that the beginning

of the Chinese year was originally marked by the asterism Kio, he

demands as the lowest possible date for this origin of the Chinese

calendar, that of 16,916 B.C., when the constellation Kio marked, by

its heliacal rising, the mid-season between solstice and equinox.

Schlegel brings forward many learned and ingenious arguments drawn from

Chinese literature to support this theory. It would be impossible at

second hand, and in a small space, to state fairly his arguments with

a view to rebutting them. His volumes are full of valuable information

concerning the “Uranographie Chinoise,” but it has not seemed to me

when reading and re-reading his work, that the grounds on which he

relies are sufficiently established to support the high claims to

antiquity which he puts forward for the origin of the modern Chinese

method of counting the year from the mid-season between solstice and

equinox.

It has on the contrary seemed to me that on historical grounds a theory

may be arrived at which will furnish a reasonable explanation of the

present somewhat exceptional Chinese calendrical methods, and which

will, if it is accepted, strongly reinforce the grounds for holding the

already general opinion that the year in ancient times in China was

solstitial. That opinion once established must lead us with increased

confidence to attribute the honour traditionally paid by Hindus and

Chinese alike to the initial point of their respective ecliptic series

of star groups to, as I have said, their common acquaintance with a

calendar established on high authority at the date in round numbers of

6,000 B.C.

The year in China is luni-solar, and it is, as has been pointed out,

counted from the season exactly midway between the winter solstice and

the spring equinox.

It is counted from this mid-season and not from the sun’s opposition

to, or conjunction with, any particular star or star group. It is

therefore not a _sidereal_ but a _tropical_ year; and it is estimated

at exactly the same length as is our European Gregorian year.

We here in Europe are not yet tired of congratulating ourselves on the

scientific success attained by Pope Gregory XIII., when in 1582 he,

with the help of many learned men and astronomers, established, as a

reform of the earlier Julian calendar, a method of securely binding all

recurring anniversaries--civil and ecclesiastical--to the exact same

_season_ of the year.

Calculations for the arrangement of the Julian calendar had strained

the scientific powers of the astronomers of Greece and Rome in Cæsar’s

time, but the length of the year estimated by them was twelve minutes

greater than that arrived at by the astronomers of Gregory’s later date.

To find, as we do, in the far east of Asia a people counting the

length of their luni-solar year with the same accurate exactness as

that only attained to as late as 1582 A.D. in Europe, might well

cause us surprise, were it not that history furnishes us with an easy

explanation of this exact identity of Chinese and European calendrical

calculations, by teaching us that the calendar by which the Chinese now

count their years, and by which they have counted them for nearly three

hundred years, was really compiled at Peking by Roman ecclesiastics,

to whom the Gregorian methods were well known, and for whom, indeed,

the study of these methods must have possessed the charm of novelty

added to its intrinsic utility and scientific interest.

Two learned Jesuit Fathers obtained in the 17th century great influence

at the Chinese Court. In 1600 A.D., Matteo Ricci was allowed with his

companions to settle at Peking, where he spent the remainder of his

life in teaching mathematics and other sciences.

In 1610, Johann Adam von Schall, another learned Jesuit Father, “was

sent out partly in consequence of his knowledge of mathematics and

astronomy to China,” and was ultimately “invited to the Imperial

Court at Peking, where _he was entrusted with the reformation of the

calendar_ and the direction of the public mathematical school.”[98]

[98] _Chambers’s Encyclopædia_, 1901.

Under these circumstances, when we read that “according to the Chinese

work, _Wan-nian-shu_, or ‘Ten thousand-year Calendar,’ in which the

elements of the Chinese calendar from 1624 A.D. until 1921 A.D. are

calculated by the Astronomical Board at Peking, the earliest date of

the Chinese New Year’s Day is January 21st, and the latest February

20th”[99]--when we read this and remember that Johann Adam von Schall

was in 1624 in charge of the reformation of the calendar at Peking, we

need feel no surprise to find “the elements of the Chinese calendar”

calculated in advance for 279 tropical, that is Gregorian, years.

Indeed the influence of the European ecclesiastic in these calculations

is clearly to be recognized in their very form, for we are easily

reminded by it of the “Table to find Easter from the present time

to--such and such a year--A.D. inclusive,” prefixed to our English

Books of Common Prayer. And we may be tempted to smile when we see

the jealously conservative Chinese nation so peaceably--perhaps

unwittingly--accepting a reformation of their calendar at the hands of

foreigners, and contrast with this acceptance the turbulent opposition

with which for so long the introduction of the Gregorian calendar into

many European countries was resisted.

[99] _On Chronology and the Construction of the Calendar, with

special regard to the Chinese Computation of Time compared with the

European._ By Dr. K. Fritsche.

It may well be that the Jesuit Fathers to whom the Emperor entrusted

the reformation of the calendar were themselves not aware of the

magnitude of the reformation they were introducing into Chinese

methods, for they found the luni-solar festival of the new year, as we

may learn from the Chinese literature of that date, occurring close

to that _season_ to which they then so scientifically bound it. But,

according to the theory which in this Paper I am anxious to advocate,

this _season_ midway between solstice and equinox had not been chosen

with definite intention as the first of the year by the Chinese, but

had only been arrived at, in consequence of an age-long following on

their part of a star group, chosen thousands of years earlier, by one

of their ancient emperors, as that from which the beginning of their

year was to be counted. This star group was the Siou (domicile) Hiu,

the eleventh division of their Lunar Zodiac, and it is marked by the

stars β Aquarii and α Equulei. (See diagram.)[100]

[100] The 28 Siou are not of equal extent, and there are many

discrepancies in the Chinese tables which profess to give the number

of degrees attributed to each. In the diagram, therefore, only the

stars which compose the three adjoining domiciles, Niu, Hiu, and Wei

are noted, and they are connected by straight lines, according to

Chinese astronomical custom.

There is in the great History of China a description given of a

reformation of the calendar carried out by the Emperor Tchuen-Hio,

whose date is placed at 2510-2431 B.C. The conjunction of the sun and

moon close to the Siou Hiu is in this description clearly referred to

as a mark given for the beginning of the year. But the fact of this

choice of the star mark Hiu has, for European scholars, been obscured

by a most unfortunate paraphrase made use of by Père de Mailla, the

translator into French of the _Histoire Générale de la Chine_. He gives

us in the passage describing Tchuen-Hio’s reformation the phrase, “15°

du Verseau,” instead of the Chinese expression, “the Siou Hiu.”[101]

[101] The fact that P. de Mailla has so paraphrased the Chinese

original has thus plainly been attested by the late Professor Legge.

In answer to a question addressed to him on the subject, he wrote,

in December 1894, to Mr. H. W. Greene, Fellow of Magdalen College,

Oxford, as follows: “In the passage from P. de Mailla’s History, that

writer is both translating and paraphrasing ‘the star group Hiu.’”

[Illustration: PLATE XIV.

Domiciles Niu, Hiu and Wei, of the Chinese Lunar Zodiac.]

The Siou Hiu extends over some eight or ten degrees of the ecliptic in

the constellation Aquarius; to restrict to _one_ degree the given star

mark was an inaccuracy serious enough in an astronomical statement, but

this inaccuracy is as nothing when compared with the further entire

distortion of facts occasioned by P. de Mailla’s use of the ambiguous

phrase, “15° du Verseau,” ambiguous because it can be taken to refer

either to the fifteenth degree of the _sign_, or of the _constellation_

“du Verseau” (Aquarius).

The Siou Hiu is situated, as stated above, in the _constellation_

Aquarius (see diagram), but astronomers reading P. de Mailla’s

translation have understood the phrase in its technical sense, and have

therefore been led to believe that the Emperor Tchuen-Hio fixed the

beginning of the Chinese year to the 15° of the _sign_ Aquarius; and

as, astronomically and technically speaking, the 15° Aquarius (sign)

has no reference to any star or constellation, but is only that point

of the ecliptic to which the sun attains exactly at the mid-season

between winter solstice and spring equinox, they have taken for granted

that 2,500 B.C. the Chinese year began at that point, and therefore at

the same season as it does at the present time.

But as we now learn on the high authority of Professor Legge that it

was to the _star group Hiu_ that Tchuen-Hio is recorded to have bound

the beginning of the year, we know that if the record is true, the year

in Tchuen-Hio’s time must have begun at the _winter solstice_, and not

at the _mid-season_, between it and the equinox.

When due correction of P. de Mailla’s paraphrase has been made in the

passage recording Tchuen-Hio’s reform, there remains still a difficulty

to be overcome in the account of this event given in the _Histoire

Générale de la Chine_, or rather I should say that it is when we have

corrected P. de Mailla’s paraphrase that this difficulty appears.

For in the history it is stated that it was from the new moon at the

beginning of spring, and near to the star group Hiu, that the year

was then and henceforth to be counted, and this statement contains an

astronomical contradiction. Our knowledge of the precession of the

equinoxes teaches us that the star group Hiu in Tchuen-Hio’s time did

not mark the _beginning of spring_, but rather the very _middle of

winter_. Unless, then, we throw aside as worthless the whole record of

Tchuen-Hio’s reform of the calendar, we are driven to suppose that some

Chinese historian, ignorant of the precession of the equinoxes, and

writing at a date when, owing to that precession, the first new moon of

spring was indeed close to the star group Hiu, and that of the winter

solstice far distant from it--that this historian made what he may well

have considered a necessary correction in the record with which he was

dealing, and substituted the “first day of spring” for the “mid-winter

season.” Nor need we much blame him for making such a correction,

when we find ourselves driven by stress of modern enlightenment to

correct his correction, and to read “mid-winter” where he has written

“beginning of spring.”

Let us now read with due corrections, between square brackets, the

record of Tchuen-Hio’s reformation of the calendar as given in the

_Histoire Générale de la Chine_.

“Tchuen-Hio ... profitant de la paix dont jouissoit l’empire, transféra

sa cour à Kao-yang. Ce fut dans cette ville, que toujours passionné

pour la connoissance des astres, il établit une espèce d’académie,

composée des Lettrés les plus habiles en cette science. On recueillit

toutes les observations anciennes qu’on compara avec les modernes, et

on poussa l’astronomie à un degré de perfection surprenant. Les règles

sûres qu’ils établirent pour supputer les mouvements du soleil, de

la lune, des planettes, et des étoiles fixes, acquirent à Tchuen-Hio

le titre glorieux de restaurateur, et même de fondateur de la vraie

astronomie. C’est une perte que ces règles ne soient pas venues jusqu’à

nous.

“Après plusieurs années de travail, Tchuen-Hio détermina qu’à l’avenir

l’année commenceroit à la lune la plus proche du premier jour du

printems [proche du solstice d’hiver] qui vient vers le 15° du

_Verseau_; [vers le Siou Hiu] et comme il savoit par le calcul qu’il en

avoit fait, que dans une des années de son règne les planettes devoient

se joindre dans la constellation _Che_ (constellation qui occupe 17°

dans le ciel, dont le milieu est vers le 6° des _Poissons_) il choisit

cette année-là pour la première de son calendrier, d’autant plus que

cette même année le soleil et la lune se trouvoient en conjonction, le

premier jour du printems [le jour du solstice d’hiver].”[102]

[102] Vol. I. p. 33.

It may, of course, be objected to the proposed correction of the

_season_ in this passage as follows: granting that either the star mark

Hiu, or the _spring season_ said to have been chosen by Tchuen-Hio,

must have been erroneously recorded in the _Histoire Générale_, the

probabilities are equal as to which element in the statement is or is

not true. Tchuen-Hio may have chosen the moon nearest to the first day

of spring, and may have named some constellation other than Hiu near to

which this first moon was in conjunction with the sun. The late Chinese

historian, instead of tampering as above supposed with the recorded

_season_, may have substituted the name of the star group Hiu, which

at his date marked the beginning of spring, for that “other” chosen by

Tchuen-Hio.

But the probabilities on this point are in reality not equally

balanced. For, in the first instance, we must take into consideration

the very general opinion that the year in China anciently began at the

winter solstice, and the fact that this season was in Tchuen-Hio’s

time so accurately marked by the junction of the star groups Wei and

Hiu (see diagram), and we must further take into consideration the

many references to the star group Hiu in ancient Chinese literature,

which connect it very specially with traditions concerning the Emperor

Tchuen-Hio. Many passages in the works of the Père Gaubil are to be

met with to this effect, as for instance where he thus quotes and

comments on a statement in the Eul-ya. “On désigne _Hiuen-hiao_ par la

Constellation Hui (_sic_); on appelle encore ce Signe _Tchouen-Hio_.”

Gaubil adds, “Le Signe Hiuen-Hiao est celui que nous appelons Amphora.

Le dictionnaire [Eul-ya] met dans ce Signe la Constellation _Hiu_;

c’est-à-dire que le Signe commençoit par quelque degré de cette

Constellation. L’Histoire Chinoise asseure que l’eau est le symbole

du régne de Tchouen-Hiu (_sic_). L’Eul-ya dit formellement que

Hiuen-hiao Signe Celeste du Zodiaque désigne l’Empereur _Tchouen-Hiu_

(_sic_).”[103] Schlegel also tells us that the Chinese placed the soul

of Tchuen-Hio in the constellation Hiu.

[103] _Observations Mathématiques, Astronomiques_, &c., redigées et

publiées par le P. Étienne Souciet, tome iii. pp. 31-33.

But not only is Hiu in Chinese literature closely associated with the

Emperor Tchuen-Hio: it is also closely bracketed with the season of the

winter solstice. Schlegel gives many quotations to this effect from

Chinese authorities, but he would refer all such allusions to the far

back time between 14,000 and 13,000 B.C., when Hiu was in opposition to

the sun at that season, not in conjunction with it as at Tchuen-Hio’s

date.

Of Hiu he writes:--

_Hiu, ou Tertre funéraire._[104]

“C’est cet astérisme dont la culmination à l’heure _tsze_ (11^{h} de

la nuit) annonçait le solstice d’hiver.... ‘Au solstice d’hiver,’

dit le Mémoire sur la divination par la tortue, ‘la course du soleil

et des astres n’est pas encore complète, et ils sont conséquemment

délaissés comme des orphelins (_Kou_) et vides (_Hiu_).’ Le solstice

d’hiver était donc considéré par les Chinois comme la position d’un

‘orphelin au tombeau de ses parents.’ ... Le père Noël à traduit

(_Hiu_) par Vacuum, Vide; mais nous préférons traduire litéralement

par Tertre funéraire.”[105]

[104] _Uranographie Chinoise_, p. 214.

[105] _Ibid._ p. 217.

Taking these various passages into consideration, we are, I think, led

to feel that the probabilities in favour of Tchuen-Hio having chosen

the star group Hiu to mark, in conjunction with the sun, the winter

solstice, are greater than those in favour of a comparatively modern

choice of that star group as a mark for the beginning of spring.

Reading the passage of the _Histoire Générale_ as corrected above,

we may assume that Tchuen-Hio intended to establish sure rules by

which the Chinese were for the future to count their years from the

_solstice_, and from the conjunction of sun and moon close to the star

group Hiu. But we also know that the following of these sure rules was

an impossibility. Either the season or the star mark must in the long

course of ages have been abandoned. It would be a difficult, perhaps an

impossible, task to ascertain how far, or in what manner, the attempt

was made under successive dynasties to carry out the injunctions of

Tchuen-Hio. We read in the _Confucian Analects_ that in answer to his

“disciple,” who had asked him, “how the government of a country should

be administered,” the Master said--as the first of five rules--“Follow

the seasons of Hsiâ.” And in his note on this text the commentator

says, “Confucius approved the rule of the Hsiâ dynasty. His decision

has been the law of all the dynasties since the Ch’in.”[106] During

all the centuries in which the Hea or Hsiâ dynasty held sway, _i.e._,

from 2205 to 1766 B.C., the sure rules of Tchuen-Hio might have been

carried out without much difficulty, for at the _new moon nearest to

the winter solstice_ the sun would still have been in or _near to the

constellation Hiu_ (see diagram), though at the date of Confucius,

551-479 B.C., this was no longer the case. Judging from the final

result, we may, I think, take it for granted that the Chinese followed

the _star mark_ and not the _season_ appointed for the beginning of the

year by Tchuen-Hio. And thus following the star mark, the beginning of

their year imperceptibly receded from the solstice, and approached the

spring equinox, so that in 1600 A.D. the Jesuit fathers found the year

still beginning at the new moon, “vers le Siou Hiu,” _and hence at the

season midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox._

[106] Legge, _Chinese Classics_, vol. i., _Confucian Analects_, book

xv., ch. x.

In a former Paper contributed to these _Proceedings_,[107] I suggested

that in the inscription engraved on Gudea’s diorite statue we had

evidence of a reform of the already existing Accadian calendar--in use

from a date much earlier than Gudea’s in the neighbouring Babylonian

kingdom.

[107] February 1896, V. p. 54.

Gudea’s date is placed by scholars at about 2800 B.C.--not much earlier

than at that claimed in the Chinese History for Tchuen-Hio.

Much honour is given by this priestly ruler of Lagash “to Ningirsu, and

to the goddess Bau, his beloved consort,” and the concluding lines of

the inscription run as follows:--

“On the day of the beginning of the year, the day of the festival of

Bau, on which offerings were made: one calf, one fat sheep, three

lambs, six full grown sheep, two rams, seven _pat_ of dates, seven

_sab_ of cream, seven palm buds.

“Such were the offerings made to the goddess Bau, in the ancient temple

on that day.”

The generally received opinion as to Ningirsu (Ninib) is, that he was

the god of the “southern sun”; and, as I contended in my Paper, the

_southern sun_, if we think of the sun in its _yearly_, not merely in

its daily course, may fitly represent the sun of the winter solstice,

while the goddess Bau = Gula is the goddess by whose very name the

constellation Aquarius, as we may assume, was designated in the

Accadian astrological texts.

If from Gudea’s inscription concerning the new year’s festival a reform

in the calendar of Lagash may be inferred, by which the beginning of

the year was transferred from the stars of Aries to those of Aquarius,

we should find that the Lagash inscription, and the great History of

China, tell us the same story--the Lagash inscription supplementing

the Chinese History in this important point--that whereas the account

of Tchuen-Hio’s reform has been manifestly more or less garbled in its

long descent through human hands: that of Gudea’s new year’s festival

is a contemporaneous and utterly untampered-with account. It is also

of some moment to note one curious point of resemblance in the idea

connected with the stars of Aquarius, by the astronomers of countries

so far distant from each other as China and Mesopotamia. Hiu, as we

have learnt, may be translated as “Vacuum,” and the name of the

goddess Bau or Bahu bears the same signification as the Hebrew word

translated in Genesis i. 2 by “void.”[108]

[108] Sayce, _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_,

February 1874.

If we now accept Tchuen-Hio’s reformation as a re-adjustment of a

previously-existing sidereal and originally solstitial calendar, we

are at once given the clue to the two so similar Hindu and Chinese

traditions quoted above, concerning the initial point of their

Lunar Zodiacs: and we shall recognise that Kio--containing the star

Spica--_in opposition to_, and the first degrees of Aswinī, _in

conjunction with_, the sun, obtained the posts of leaders of the lunar

series for the same reason--namely, _that they marked the beginning of

the year at the winter solstice_ 6000 B.C.

To this same cause I have here, and elsewhere, attributed the fact that

in the Accadian calendar the stars of Aries held the same position, and

marked the _first_ month of the year, as the month of the “sacrifice of

righteousness.”

In thus tracing back the history of the calendars of the ancient

nations of the East, in observing the identity of their earliest

astronomical traditions, and noting the curious points of contact

and divergence in their later scientific and mythological ideas, the

impression seems to force itself upon us more and more definitely,

that before the races of mankind were “scattered abroad upon the face

of the whole earth,” their ancestors were capable of great scientific

achievements, and possessed in common high intellectual aspirations.

We in these later days, so picturing to ourselves the past, may be

freshly struck by the words of the ancient history, which tell us of

the time when “the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.”