Note 476 — Chapter V · LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS

The eighth day of the waning moon (áṣṭakā) is distinctly mentioned in the Vedas, as forming with new moon and full moon the regular festival periods. Compare Atharva-Veda, xv, 16, 2 (transl. W. D. Whitney, p. 790); Zimmer, op. cit., p. 365; H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, Berlin, 1894, p. 439. Of these, the full-moon day seems to have enjoyed most importance (Oldenberg, loc. cit.), and similarly in Buddhism. Compare Mahâ-Sudassana Sutta, i, 11: “On the Sabbath day, on the day of full moon” (S. B. E., xi, 251 sq.). Elsewhere the uposatha service is referred particularly to the fifteenth day of the month, “it being full moon” (Sutta Nipâta, iii, 12), prœm. (S. B. E., x, pt. ii, 131 sq.). In very early times the Hindus had named and deified as goddesses the four phases of the moon. See Rig-Veda, ii, 32 (transl. H. Grassmann, i, 41); Satapatha-Brâhmana, ix, 5, 1, 38 (S. B. E., xliii, 264); C. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde,² Leipzig and London, 1867-1874, i, 986.