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In a liturgical calendar of the Vedic corpus the months are reckoned from the new moon as in Mesopotamia and intercalation is employed by adding an extra month before the first month of the year, as in the Babylonian calendar. The date of the consecration of a priest is stated to be the day after the new moon of the month Taiṣa (= Pauṣa) or of the month Māgha. This is the month in which the moon is full near Tiṣa/Puṣya, which lies in the Babylonian constellation al.lul, and Māgha is the month in which it is full near Maghās, the Babylonian constellation lugal. The situation is described thus:
‘They should consecrate themselves on one day after the new moon of Taiṣa or of Māgha,’ they say; both of these views are current, but that as to Taiṣa is, as it were, the more current. They obtain this thirteenth, additional month; the year is as great as this thirteenth month; in it verily the whole year is obtained. (Kauṣītakibrāhmaṇa 19.2)
Presumably this means that the consecration is intended to occur on the day after the new moon of the last month of the year. Since Māgha is the first month of the year in this text, the last is normally Taiṣa; but when a month is intercalated, it is called the additional Māgha and is added after Taiṣa. In this case the consecration takes place on the day after the new moon of this additional Māgha. In the Babylonian calendar the intercalary month was usually after one of just two months, the sixth and the twelfth, though allowing one also after the first month (Mul Apin 2.218-220). The authors of the Indian source refer only to the second possibility, but that is the only one that could be mentioned within the context of the date of this consecration ceremony.
Sources (list of abbreviations)
Kauṣītakibrāhmaṇa 19.2
Mul Apin 2.218-220
Bibliography
| Keith 1920, 451-452 | Keith, A. B. Rigveda Brahmanas. The Aitareya and Kausitaki Brhamanas of the Rigveda. Translated from the original Sanskrit. Harvard Oriental Series 25. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1920. |
| Pingree 1989, 443 | Pingree, David. “MUL.APIN and Vedic Astronomy.” In: Hermann Behrens, Darlene Loding and Martha T. Roth (eds.). DUMU-É-DUB-BA-BA. Studies in Honor of Åke W. Sjöberg. Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 11. Philadelphia: Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 1989, 439-445. |
| Pingree 1998, 128 | Pingree, David. “Legacies in Astronomy and Celestial Omens.” In: S. Dalley (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 125-137. |
Amar Annus
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