he date implied by the position of the
solstitial points mentioned in a little treatise, the _G_yotisha, a
date which has been accurately fixed by the Rev. E. Main at 1186
B.C.[43] Dr. Haug fully admits that such an observation was an
absolute necessity for the Brahmans in regulating their calendar:

'The proper time [he writes] of commencing and ending their
sacrifices, principally the so-called Sattras or sacrificial
sessions, could not be known without an accurate knowledge
of the time of the sun's northern and southern progress. The
knowledge of the calendar forms such an essential part of
the ritual, that many important conditions of the latter
cannot be carried out without the former. The sacrifices are
allowed to commence only at certain lucky constellations,
and in certain months. So, for instance, as a rule, no great
sacrifice can commence during the sun's southern progress;
for this is regarded up to the present day as an unlucky
period by the Brahmans, in which even to die is believed to
be a misfortune. The great sacrifices generally take place
in spring in the months of _K_aitra and Vai_s_akha (April
and May). The Sattras, which lasted for one year, were, as
one may learn from a careful perusal of the fourth book of
the Aitareya-brahma_n_a, nothing but an imitation of the
sun's yearly course. They were divided into two distinct
parts, each consisting of six months of thirty days each; in
the midst of both was the Vishuvat, i. e. equator or central
day, cutting the whole Sattra into two halves. The
ceremonies were in both halves exactly the same, but they
were in the latter half performed in an inverted order.'

[Footnote 43: See preface to the fourth volume of my edition of the
Rig-veda.]

This argument of Dr. Haug's seems correct as far as the date of the
establishment of the ceremonial is concerned, and it is curious that
several scholars who have lately written on the origin of the Vedic
calendar, and the possibility of its foreign origin, should not have
perceived the intimate relation between that calendar and the whole
ceremonial system of the Brahmans. Dr. Haug is, no doubt, perfectly
right when he claims the invention of the Nakshatras, or the Lunar
Zodiac of the Brahmans, if we may so call it, for India; he may be
right also when he assigns the twelfth century as the earliest date