Artic Home of the Aryans by Lokamanya Bal ... - Mandhata Global

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February were the last two months in the ancient calendar of the
Romans, we should have to assume that the numerical order from
Quintilis to December was abruptly given up after December which
does not seem probable. It is, therefore, more reasonable to hold that
Numa actually added two months to the old year, and that the story of
the transposition of the two months of January and February from the
end to the beginning of the year was a later suggestion put forward
by those who knew not how to account for a year of ten months, or
304 days only. But besides Plutarch, we have also the testimony of
Macrobius, who, as stated before, tells us that Romulus had a year of
ten months only. There can, therefore, be little doubt about the
existence of a tradition of the ancient Roman year of ten months and
we now see that it is thoroughly intelligible by comparison with the
annual sacrificial sattras of ten months mentioned in the Vedic
literature. The names of the Roman months from Quintilis to
December further show that the months of the year had no special
names in ancient times, but were named simply in their numerical
order, a fact which accounts for the absence of common names for
the months of the year in different Aryan languages.
The evidence regarding the ancient year of Celts, Teutons and
Greeks is not however so definite, though it may be clearly shown
that in each case the year was marked by a certain period of cold and
darkness, indicating the Arctic, origin of the ancient calendar.
Speaking of the ancient Celtic year Prof. Rhys observes, “Now as the
Celts were in the habit formerly of counting winters, and of giving
precedence in their reckoning to night and winter over day and
summer, I should argue that the last day of the year in the Irish story
of Diarmait’s death meant the eve of November of All-Halloween, the
night before the Irish Samhain, and known in Welsh as Nos Galangaeaf,
or the Night of the winter Calends. But there is no occasion to
rest on this alone, for we have the evidence of Cormac’s Glossary
that the month before the be ginning of winter was the last month, so
that the first day of