224:17 The five years forming this Yuga, or cycle, differ only in denomination, being composed of the months above described, with such Malamásas, or intercalary months, as may be necessary to complete the period, according to Vriddha Garga. The cycle comprehends, therefore, sixty solar- sydereal months of 1800 days; sixty-one solar months, or 1830 days; sixty-two lunar months, or 1860 lunations; and sixty-seven lunar-asterismal months, or 1809 such days. Col. Warren, in his Kála Sankalitá, considers these years to be severally cycles. "In the cycle of sixty," he observes, "are contained five cycles of twelve years, each supposed equal to one year of the planet (Jupiter). I only mention this cycle because I found it mentioned in some books; but I know of no nation nor tribe that reckons time after that account. The names of the five cycles, or Yugs, are, 1. Samvatsara, 2. Parivatsara, 3. Idvatsara, 4. Anuvatsara, 5. Udravatsara. The name of each year is determined from the Nákshatra, in which Vrihaspati sets and rises heliacally, and they follow in the order of the lunar months." K. S. 212. It may be reasonably doubted, however, if this view be correct; and the only connexion between the cycle of five years and that of Vrihaspati may be the multiplication of the former by the latter (5 x 12), so as to form the cycle of sixty years: a cycle based, the commentator remarks, upon the conjunction (Yuga) of the sun and moon in every sixtieth year. The original and properly Indian cycle, however, is that of five years, as Bentley remarks. "The astronomers of this period (1181 B. C.) framed a cycle of five years for civil and religious ceremonies." Ancient and modern Hindu Astronomy. It is in fact, as Mr. Colebrooke states, the cycle of the Vedas, described in the Jyotish, or astronomical sections, and specified in the institutes of Paráśara as the basis of calculation for larger cycles. As. Res. VIII. 470.
225:18 Reference is here made apparently, though indistinctly, to those positions of the planets which indicate, according to Bentley, the formation of the lunar mansions by Hindu astronomers, about 1424 B. C. Hindu Astronomy, p. 3 and 4. The Váyu and Linga Puráńas specify the positions of the other planets at the same time, or the end, according to the former, of the Chákshusha Manwantara. At that time the sun was in Viśákhá, the moon in Krittiká, Venus in Pushyá, Jupiter in Púrvaphalguní, Mars in Áshád́há, Budha in Dhanisht́há, Śani in Revatí, Ketu in Ásleshá, and Ráhu in Bharaní. There are differences between some of these and the positions cited by Bentley, but most of them are the same. He considers them to have been observations of the occultations of the moon by the planets, in the respective lunar mansions, 1424-5 B. C. According to the Váyu, these positions or origins of the planets are from the Vedas: ###. The Linga, less accurately perhaps, reads ### referring it to the works of law.