Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/844

794 ZODIAC influence somewhere near the beginning of our era. For purposes of ritual, however, the Pleiades, with Agni or "Fire" as their presiding deity, continued to be the first sign. Hindu astronomy received its first definite or ganization in the 6th century, with results embodied in the Surya-Siddhdnta. Here the "signs "and the "con stellations " of the lunar zodiac form two essentially dis tinct systems. The ecliptic is divided into twenty-seven equal parts, called bhogas or arcs, of 800 each. But the nakshatras are twenty-eight, and are represented by as many "junction stars" (yogdtdra), carefully determined by their spherical coordinates. The successive entries of the moon and planets into the nakshatras (the ascer tainment of which was of great astrological importance) were fixed by means of their conjunctions with the yogd- tdras. These, however, soon ceased to be observed, and already in the llth century Al-Biruni could meet with no Hindu astronomer capable of pointing out to him the complete series. Their successful identification by Colebrooke 1 in 1807 had a purely archaeological interest. The modern nakshatras are twenty-seven equal ecliptical divisions, the origin of which shifts, like that of the solar signs, with the vernal equinox. They are, in fact, the bhoffas of the Surya-Siddhdnta. The mean place of the moon in them, published in all Hindu almanacs, is found to serve unexceptionally the ends of astral vaticination. 2 The system upon which it is founded is of great antiquity. Belief in the power of the nakshatras evidently inspired the invocations of them in the Atharva-Veda. In the Brahmana period they were distinguished as " deva " and "yama," the fourteen lucky asterisms being probably asso ciated with the waxing, the fourteen unlucky with the waning moon. 3 A special nakshatm was appropriated to every occurrence of life. One was propitious to marriage, another to entrance upon school-life, a third to the first ploughing, a fourth to laying the foundation of a house. Festivals for the dead were appointed to be held under those that included but one star. Propitiatory abstinences were recommended when the natal asterism Avas menaced by unfavourable planetary conjunctions. The various members of the body were parcelled out among the nak shatras, and a rotation of food was prescribed as a whole some accompaniment of the moon s revolution among them. 4 Nomen- The nomenclature of the Hindu signs of the zodiac, cla ^. ire save as regards a few standard asterisms, such as Agvini signs . 11 U anc ^ Krittika, was f ar from uniform. Considerable dis crepancies occur in the lists given by different authorities. 5 Hence it is not surprising to meet in them evidence of foreign communications. Reminiscences of the Greek signs of Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Capricornus, and Pisces are obvious severally in the Hindu Two Faces, Lion s Tail, Beam of a Balance, Arrow, Gazelle s Head (figured as a marine nondescript), and Fish. The correspondence does not, however, extend to the stars ; and some coincidences adverted to by Humboldt between the nakshatras and the zodiacal animals of Central Asia are of the same nominal Connex- character. 6 Mexican loans are more remarkable. They ion with were apparently direct as well as indirect. The Aztec systems ca en( lar includes nakskatra titles borrowed, not only through the medium of the Tartar zodiac, but likewise straight from the Indian scheme, apart from any known intervention. The "three footprints of Vishnu," for ex- composed of the stars in the head of Aries, and is figured by a horse s head. 1 As. lies,, vol. ix. p. 330. 2 J. B. Biot, fitudes snr V Astronomie Indienne, p. 225. 3 A. Weber, " Die Vedischen Nachrichten von den Naxatra," in Berliner Abhandlunyen, 1861, p. 309. 4 Ibid., p. 322 ; II. Kern, Die Yogatara des Varamihim ; Weber s Jnd. Stud., vol. xv. pp. 174-181, 5 Sir William Jones, As. Hes., vol. ii. pp. 294-5. 6 Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 154. ample, unmistakably gave its name to the Mexican day Ollin, signifying the " track of the sun " ; and both series further contain a "flint weapon," a "stick," and a "house." 7 Several houses and couches were ranged along the Hindu zodiac with the naive idea of providing resting-places for the wandering moon. Relationship of a more intimate kind connects the Hindu Relative lunar mansions with those of the Arabs and Chinese, antiquity The resemblance between the three systems is indeed so close that it has been assumed, almost as axiomatic, that ^l 1 they must have been framed from a single model ; and the Arabian question of their origin has been debated with all the systems. resources of varied erudition by scholars such as Biot, Weber, Whitney, and Max Miiller. As the upshot of the controversy it appears nevertheless to have become tolerably clear that the nakshatras were both native to India, and the sieu to China, but that the mandzil were mainly of Indian derivation. The assertion, paradoxical at first Chinese sight, that the twenty-eight "hostelries" of the Chinese aster - sphere had nothing to do with the moon s daily motion ls . ms or seems to convey the actual fact. Their number, as a multiple of four, was prescribed by the quaternary partition of the heavens, fundamental in Chinese astronomy. It was considered by Biot to have been originally twenty- four, but to have been enlarged to twenty-eight about 1100 B.C., by the addition of determinants for the solstices and equinoxes of that period. 8 The essential difference, however, between the nakshatras and the sieu is that the latter were equatorial, not ecliptical, divisions. They were measured by the meridian-passages of the limiting stars, and varied in amplitude from 2 42 to 30 24 . 9 The use of the specially observed stars constituting or repre senting the sieu was as points of reference for the move ments of sun, moon, and planets. They served, in fact, and still serve (though with astrological ends in view), the precise purpose of " fundamental stars " in European as tronomy. All that is certainly known about the antiquity of the sieu is that they were well established in the 3d century B.C. Their initial point at the autumnal equinox marked by Kio (Spica Virginis) suits a still later date; and there is no valid evidence that the modem series resulted from the rectification of an older superannuated arrangement, analogous to the Krittika sequence of nak shatras. The Hindu zodiacal constellations belong then to an earlier epoch than the Chinese "stations," such as they have been transmitted to our acquaintance. Yet not only were the latter an independent invention, but it is almost demonstrable that the nakshatras, in their more recent organization, were, as far as possible, assimilated to them. The whole system of junction stars was doubt less an imitation of the sieu ; the choice of them by the Hindu astronomers of the 6th century A.D. was plainly instigated by a consideration of the Chinese list, compiled with a widely different intent Where they varied from it, some intelligible reason can generally be assigned for the change. Eight junction stars lie quite close to, seven others are actually identical with, Chinese determinants; 10 and many of these coincidences are between insignificant and, for the purposes of ecliptical division, inconveniently situated objects. The small stellar groups characterizing the Arab " man- Arabian sions of the moon " (mandzil al-kamdr) were more equably distributed than either the Hindu or Chinese series. They " presented, nevertheless, striking resemblances to both. Twenty-four out of twenty-eight were formed, at least in part, of nakshatra or sieu stars. 11 That the Arab was essen tially a copy of the Hindu lunar zodiac can scarcely admit 7 Ibid., p. 152. 8 Biot, Jour, des Savans, 1845, p. 40. 9 G. Schlegel, Ur. Chin., p. 77. 10 Biot, Etudes, p. 136.

11 Whitney, Notes to S&rya-Siddhdnta, p. 200.