Verse 15

Glance

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Days, fortnights, and the five-year round· Verses 10–15

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Four watches and four make both halves of a mortal's day. A fortnight is fifteen days, and there is a bright one and a dark one, giver of honour. The two together make a month, and that month is a day and a night for the fathers. Two months are a season, and six of them are a course of the sky, the southern and the northern. The two courses they call a day and a night. Twelve months are handed down as a year. A hundred years is set down as the utmost span of men. Set in the wheel of planets and lunar houses and stars, the unblinking one who pervades all goes round the world by measures that begin with the atom and end with the year.

Samvatsara, parivatsara, idavatsara, anuvatsara and vatsara: Vidura, that is how it is spoken of. He who by his own power makes the power of what is to be made breathe out in many ways, and runs across the sky so that a man may not be deluded; who is the parting of beings, and who under the name of time spreads out through the rites what is made of the strands: bring your offering to him, the five-year round.