The first of these questions has assumed great prominence, as it naturally should, in the data provided in a poem included in one of the ancient collections, called Paripadal, generally regarded as a Sangam collection. This has reference to an eclipse of the moon of which the author gives some details. These partake of the character of fixing the position of the planets leading to the casting of a horoscope of the occurrence of this eclipse, thus making it possible for calculations to be made as to the particular eclipse of the moon to which this has reference. My esteemed friend, Dewan Bahadur L. D. Swamikkannu Pillai, in his valuable work on the Indian Ephemeris, published by the Government of Madras, has investigated this question with sufficient elaboration and has offered his conclusion that the actual date of the eclipse is June 17, A.D. 634. If this conclusion should be acceptable without question, it will make a fundamental change in the angle of vision in regard to the literary and cultural development of South India, and therefore has to be examined with care. In this examination I do not propose to go into the mathematical part of his work for which I have none of the qualifications that my friend has. But the data upon which he bases his conclusions seem capable of re-examination with a view to considering whether the available data would justify his inference.

Poem 11 of the collection, generally described as a Sangam collection, Paripadal, is a work by the author Nallanduvanar, a Sangam celebrity, by all known literary tradition. The object of the poem is to celebrate the river Vaigai which flows by Madura, and the poet chooses two annual features of the river for special description. The one is a description of the river when the monsoon bursts on the Western Ghats and the river is in full freshes when people go to it in large numbers to take a bath in the fresh water. The other has reference to the river in low water in the cold weather when people, particularly unmarried women folk, go to bathe in it in the month of Margali (Margasiras), December-January, in celebration of a bathing festival generally described as Tai-Nlr, the bath of Tai (the month of Pushya). The second does not concern us at present. The first part of it is what actually does describe the eclipse. In the first three lines the poet describes that the starry heaven has a road falling into three divisions beginning with Krttika, Ardra, and Bharani, standing respectively as the commentator explains, for Rishabha, Mithuna, and Mesha. This kind of division is described also in the Tamil Nighantu Pingalandai. Then follows the position of the planets. Sukra was in Bishabha, Angaraka was in Mesha, Budha was in Mithuna, Guru was in Mina, Sanaischara was in Makara, when Rahu appeared and shut off the moon from view. So far the statements of the poet are direct and may be taken not to admit of any doubt. The position of the Sun and the Moon, and of Rahu and Ketu are so far not indicated; but there is an expression after fixing the position of Budha which merely states that at dawn or break of day "Krttika was on high." This statement, the commentator takes to mean that Krttika was at the zenith at daybreak, and explains it as having been put in there to indicate that the sun was in the house of the zodiac, Simha or Leo, at daybreak. The fixing of the position of the Sun in Leo would naturally give us the position of the Moon, and since Rahu is described as being with the Moon, Ketu will naturally occupy the house opposite. Thus the poet would have supplied the position of all the planets in the zodiac. Objection is taken to this interpretation of the commentator, and the expression equivalent to 'on high' is rendered somewhat more loosely so as to indicate that the commentator was responsible for giving it the interpretation to fix the position of the Sun, thus releasing the author from that responsibility. If the expression could be interpreted as the Krttika being merely high up in the heavens, not necessarily at or near the zenith, the position of the Sun could be fixed elsewhere and the position of the Moon, Rahu, and Ketu would therefore be altered also.

Proceeding on these data and rejecting such of the lunar eclipses as are necessarily to be rejected as not satisfying these, there seem to be two possible dates which satisfy the conditions more or less. The first, according to Mr. Swamikkannu Pillai, is the lunar eclipse on the 27th July, A.D. 17, and the other is that on the 17th June, A.D. 634. As against the first date there are two objections: it necessitates, first of all, the complete abandonment of the position of Mercury (Budha) as given by the poet, and the position of Venus (Sukra) is only approximate. The second and perhaps a still more valid objection is that the eclipse took place an hour after sunset, whereas the poem requires an eclipse in the early morning of the day. Rejecting this on these grounds the other alternative is considered, and that alternative falls short of the data in the poem in that it makes the position of Saturn fall 130 short of Makara, the position ostensibly given to the planet in the poem, and the eclipse is in the month of Ashada instead of Sravana as the commentator takes it. To explain the first inaccuracy, Mr. Swamikkannu Pillai has re= course to finding the commentator wrong in his explanation of the phrase describing the position of Saturn, and giving a new explanation suggested to him by another Tamil scholar Mr. Manikka Nayagar. The text has in regard to Saturn, 'villirkadai Makaram meva,' reaching Makaram adjacent to the house of the bow (vil). The first term 'villirku' breaks into, vil il ku The last of these is the dative affix, the second means house, the first means a bow, to the house of the bow. That would make the commentator quite correct; while the interpretation actually given by my friend takes the whole of the first part of the term to mean "from the end of the bow passing on to Makara," taking the second part il meaning house and the third hartal meaning end. It seems unusual to express in this fashion the transit of Saturn from Dhanus to Makara. It would make no difference in meaning if il, the middle word be omitted. The inaccuracy of statement in regard to Saturn according to calculation will still remain. The second point of defect in this date is that it rejects the commentator's position of the Sun in Leo. This would'make the poet give a horoscope without indicating the position of the Sun, Moon, Rahu and Ketu. This is hardly satisfactory if the data are to be gives a chronological interpretation. It may be that the commentator is wrong as the poem leaves the matter open to differences of interpretation. What we feel bound to consider is that each of the two dates, the two most satisfactory ones, according to my friend, falls short of being satisfactory from the point of view of the poem itself. It seems open therefore to question whether the author had astronomy enough in him either of the practical observational kind, or of the more scientific, to give us astronomical data for chronological purposes. Since an elaborate investigation does not yield correct results, it would be quite justifiable if we consider that the horoscopic details in the poem had other objects in view than the chronological. The point that the author wishes to indicate seems to be the commencement of the rains.