Sanscrit Writing and Language. 135 



names In question from the Greeks. After describing the Indian division of the 

 zodiac into twenty-seven portions corresponding nearly with the arches described 

 by the Moon in the several days of her sidereal revolution, those days exceeding 

 twenty-seven only by a few hours, he observes : " The Hindus have likewise 

 adopted the division of the Ecliptic and Zodiac into twelve signs or constellations, 

 agreeing in figure and designation with those of the Greeks ; and differing merely 

 in the place of the constellations, which are carried on the Indian sphere a few 

 degrees farther west than on the Grecian.* That the Hindus took the hint of 



this paper he clings to the notion of the extravagant antiquity of a correct celestial sphere which he 

 supposes to have been formerly in use among the Hindoos, and expresses himself inclined to believe 

 that the pole star in that sphere was x Draconis, " which had been at its greatest approximation 

 to the pole, little more than four degrees from it, about 1236 years before Christ." — As. Res. 

 vol. ix, p. 330. In the same paper he endeavours to throw a slur upon the value of the articles in ques- 

 tion ; as appears from the following passage, — the only one in it in which I can find that he has taken 

 any notice of either of them, — " Brahmegupta wrote soon after that period [when the vernal 

 equinox was near the first degree of Mesha] ; and the Surya Sidd'hanta is probably a work of nearly 

 the same age. Mr. Bentley considers it as more modern (As. Res. vol. vi.) ;" — As. Res. vol. ix, p. 329. 

 Of course, then, Mr. Bentley was mistaken, and his discovery is of no use ! Here, however, our author 

 admits the Surya Sidd'hanta to be less than 1300 years old ; and yet, a little farther on, he undertakes 

 to prove another treatise of Varaha, — an astrological one, entitled the Varahi Sanhita, — to have been 

 written as long ago as the time of Eudoxus. This treatise contains a chapter on the motions (un- 

 connected with the precession of the equinoxes, and, therefore, quite imaginary) of seven stars in Ursa 

 Major, called the Rishis ; and from an astrological method given by a commentator for determining 

 these imaginary motions, Mr. Colebrook draws his inference, by steps through which I will not 

 attempt to follow him ; but if the reader should lay any stress upon reasoning which rests upon such 

 a foundation, he will find it in the place already mentioned, pp. 363-4. The whole is wound up with 

 the following observation. " In corroboration of this inference respecting the age of Varaha Mihira's 

 astrological treatise, it may be added, that he is cited by name in the Pancha iantra, the original of 

 the fables oi Pilpay, which were translated (or Nushirvan more than 1200 years ago." — lb. p. 364. 

 The weakness of this indirect attack upon Bentley's method of determining the ages of the different 

 systems of Indian astronomy, is quite on a par with the fallacy of the previous insinuation, and 

 requires but little refutation. A deduction from imaginary motions obviously proves nothing ; and 

 the appearance of Varaha's name in the work just specified, only proves, — no matter what antiquity 

 may be claimed for that work, — that it must have been written within the last eight hundred years. 

 * Mr. Colebrook here alludes to an older Indian sphere than that now in use, which, from his 

 account of the position of the colures in it, would appear to be of great antiquity. It is barely pos- 

 sible that the Hindoos may have had a rude instrument of the kind long before they arrived at any 

 accurate information on the subject of astronomy ; but, from the circumstance of Mr. Bentley's 



