Ritual Calendar. Change in the Conceptions of Time and Space
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RITUAL CALENDAR. CHANGE IN THE CONCEPTIONS OF TIME AND SPACE BY SHINGO EINOO 1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Between the Vedic and the post-Vedic rituals we can observe a num- ber of changes. The whole system of the Vedic srauta rituals almost dis- appeared and instead of them there emerged a new ritual calendar according to which many Hindu annual ceremonies were performed (Kane 1974b: 81-462; Einoo 1994: 137-140). The method of worship- ping gods is shifted from offering oblations into the sacred fire usually called ahavaniya to presenting oblations like flowers etc. before the image of a deity, this method being usually called puja (Einoo 1996). The daily morning and evening offering of heated milk which is called agnihotra, one of the srauta rituals, was replaced by the daily ceremony called saµdhyopasana which had been, in the Vedic period, performed only by the young students of the Vedas but in the post-Vedic period became the duty of the householder (Einoo 1992; 1993). As is well known, the Vedic rituals are described by two groups of the ritual texts, namely the srautasutras and the g®hyasutras. The srautasutras lay down detailed rules for performing a number of the srauta rituals, that is, solemn sacrificial rites in which many officiating priests partici- pated to worship the gods in order to obtain, for the sake of the patron of the ritual, benefits such as offspring, increase of cattle etc. These works are closely connected with the older Vedic literature in the way that most of the srauta rituals are interpreted in the saµhitas and the brahma∞as, and that most of the ritual formulas originated again from these latter texts. The g®hyasutras, on the other hand, are ritual manuals of the head of the family who performs many kinds of simpler domestic Journal Asiatique 293.1 (2005): 99-124 100 S. EINOO rites and ceremonies, such as, e.g. the marriage ceremony, the rite for a new-born child, the house construction, some rites concerning agricul- ture and cattle feeding, and so on. It is hardly possible, however, to date each srauta- and g®hyasutra exactly, but compositions of the srautrasu- tras are roughly assigned to several centuries before the middle of the first millennium B.C. and the g®hyasutras are usually regarded as later than the srautasutras1. On the other hand, the post-Vedic rituals or Hindu rituals are mostly described in the pura∞as which, according to R. C. Hazra, belong to the second stage of their development and are supposedly composed from about the beginning of the sixth century A.D. (Hazra 1940: 188-189). The proposed dates of the srauta- and the g®hyasutras on the one hand and the pura∞as on the other show a gap of time of less than one thou- sand years. From my earlier studies of the formation and the develop- ment of the post-Vedic rituals I came to know a group of ritual texts that seem to have played an important roles in the formation of the Hindu rit- uals. They are mostly the supplementary texts (parisiÒ†as) to the several g®hyasutras and in this article I sometimes call them the texts belonging to the g®hyaparisiÒ†a level. Among them there are two texts that are espe- cially to be mentioned; they are the Vaikhanasa G®hyasutra and the Agnivesya G®hyasutra. Even if they are titled G®hyasutra, they contain many elements which are clearly post-Vedic2. It is impossible for me to date these texts exactly, but most of them can presumably be assigned to any time between the latest date of the g®hyasutras and the beginning of the sixth century A.D. In this article I examine the changes which occurred between the Vedic and the post-Vedic rituals by selecting two instances which con- cern the conceptions of time and space, namely the correlation between the tithis and their deities on the one hand and the idea of presiding deities of the eight directions which are usually known as guardians of the directions (dikpalas) or guardians of the worlds (lokapalas) mainly by consulting the texts belonging to the g®hyaparisiÒ†a level. 1 For the general survey of both the srauta- and the g®hyasutras see Gonda 1977. 2 See Einoo 1993: 62-64. Journal Asiatique 293.1 (2005): 99-124 CHANGE IN THE CONCEPTIONS OF TIME AND SPACE 101 2. TITHIS AND THEIR DEITIES There is a unit of time called tithi or the lunar day. This corresponds to one-thirtieth of a lunar month or one-fifteenth of a half lunar month3. One month is divided into two fortnights, the bright fortnight (sukla pakÒa) or the half month of the waxing moon and the dark fortnight (k®Ò∞a pakÒa) or the half month of waning moon. Each fortnight is fur- ther divided into fifteen tithis. The first tithi of both fortnights are usu- ally called pratipad or the beginning day. The fifteenth tithi of the bright fortnight is pur∞ima or the day of full moon and that of the dark fort- night is amavasya or the day of new moon. The rest of the thirteen tithis are named with the ordinal numbers like the second (dvitiya), the third (t®tiya) etc. In the post-Vedic periods continuing into even today there are a number of religious festivals and ceremonies which are named after the names of the tithis adding before them the names of the deities to be worshipped. They are, for example, the k®Ò∞ajanmaÒ†ami or the eight (tithi) of the birth of K®Ò∞a (Kane 1974b: 128-143), the ga∞e- sacaturthi or the fourth (tithi) of Ga∞esa (Kane 1974b: 145-149), the nagapancami or the fifth (tithi) of the Serpents (Kane 1974b: 124-125; Einoo 1994b), and so on. So it is clear that in the post-Vedic rituals the use of the various tithis for determining the day of performance of deities is common phenomenon. But the situation in the Vedic ritual is very different. In the srauta rituals the day of the performance of a rite is in principle limited to the full moon or new moon day, with the exception of the agnihotra which should be performed twice daily, in the morning and evening4. Apart from the full moon and the new moon days, from the 3 The tithi is a unit of time, astronomically defined as a period ‘during which the elon- gation of the Moon from the Sun increases by 12 degrees' (Pingree 1981: 44). 4 In the srautasutras I could find only several places where reference to the tithis is made, viz., BaudhSS 24.20 [205,4-8] where it is said that the half month consists of 15 parts, ManSS 5.1.1.1 where the ninth tithi is excluded from the days of performance of the simple sacrifices of the srauta ritual (iÒ†is) and KatySS 15.10.2 where the fourth tithi of the bright half month of asvina is prescribed as the day of the performance of an animal sacri- fice. I must naturally admit that there must be other occurrences of the word tithi in the cor- pus of the srautasutras. There is another rather indefinite expression of the day of the per- formance such as ‘on an auspicious day in the half year from the winter to summer solstice, in the half month from the new moon to full moon day' (udagayana apuryama∞apakÒasya Journal Asiatique 293.1 (2005): 99-124 102 S. EINOO time of the Taittiriya Saµhita, an older Vedic text belonging to the black Yajurveda, a certain importance has been attached to the aÒ†aka, namely the eighth or the middle day of the half month, in that on the aÒ†aka days in the dark fortnight of the months in winter a rite named after this day has to be performed according to the g®hyasutras5, and these three or four aÒ†aka rites can be reduced to one day which is called ekaÒ†aka and coincides with the winter solstice6. It is worth noticing that this eighth day is called aÒ†aka, not aÒ†ami as in the post-Vedic period. In the g®hyasutras we come across more cases in which the word tithi or an ordinal number indicating a certain tithi is employed to denote the day of performance of a rite. For the day of setting up of the fire for the g®hya ritual, GobhGS 1.1.13 prescribes as follows: «In this way, on the coincidence of an (auspicious) tithi and an (auspi- cious) lunar mansion (nakÒatra), (or of such a lunar mansion) and the day of new or full moon (parvan).»7 The date of the performance of the ceremony of the tonsure (cu∂akar- man) is prescribed in the ManGS 1.21.1 as follows: «When the third year (after the birth of the child) is almost over, he should cut (the hair of the boy) so that a single lock of the crown of the head remains; (this ceremony of the tonsure takes place) during the northern course of the sun, in the bright half of the month, under an auspicious lunar mansion, except on the ninth tithi.»8 There are other cases of the ritual employment of the tithi in which the tithi itself or the presiding deity of a tithi becomes the object of the pu∞yahe) (BaudhSS 5.1 [128,2-3]). For the same or similar expressions see, e.g.