That's true Dominik, but we must consider that any tradition that counts the days in a year ends up with 360 days, a good divisible number, plus 5. It happens in Mesoamerican calendars, where those "extra" days are considered negative or empty. They are called nemontemi in Nahuatl.

So a symbolical year of 360 plus days doesn't automatically mean that its origin is Mesopotamian. 360 can easily be divided by 12 to give 12 months, and this can be correlated with the 27/28 days in a lunar cycle/month. It is not a perfect fit, which is why most calendars end up being soli-lunar, with either extra months or days. But 360 is a good symbolical number in a decimal system in addition to its importance as a sexagesimal one.

Luis
_____

On 3/18/2016 12:17 PM, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:
The reference to 360 spokes is a sexagesimal number expressed in decimal.  This certainly points to the mathematical traditions of Mesopotamia.

--
Professor Dominik Wujastyk*
Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
 University of Alberta, Canada

On 18 March 2016 at 08:52, George Thompson <gthomgt@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello all,

Madhav's passage is RV 1.164.11.  By chance, I've been looking at this hymn today.

George Thompson

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 9:04 AM, Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh@umich.edu> wrote:
The idea of a rotating wheel of time goes all the way back to the Rigveda: dvādaśāraṃ na hi taj jarāya vavarti cakram pari dyām ṛtasya (don't have the textual ref at hand).  The idea of the spokes of the wheel going up and down is referred to in Sanskrit lit in many places with expressions like cakra-nemi-krama and cakrārapaṅkti.

Madhav Deshpande

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 8:42 AM, Artur Karp <karp@uw.edu.pl> wrote:
Dear List, 

Mahabharata I, 29. 2-5 and Sumangalavilasini (Buddhaghosa's commentary to Mahaparinibbana-sutta)  VI, 26  contain images of a revolving wheel (with 360? spokes), guarded by figures with swords in hands, and by two serpents. Viśvakarma/Vissakamma is mentioned as the wheel's constructor. 

Is that - or similar - image present somewhere else in the ancient Indian literature?

Thanks in advance for your comments -

Artur Karp

South Asian Studies Deptt (emeritus), University of Warsaw, Poland

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--
Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
202 South Thayer Street, Suite 6111
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608, USA

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