284 HINDOO ASTRONOMY. 



does not exactly agree with the above description. The 

 JBull is entire, and not cut in two, as in the Greek zodiac. 

 In the couple the damsel has no vina, nor the youth a mace, 

 — they stand embracing each other. The man who holds 

 the Balance seems to be placing something in one of the 

 scales. The zodiac, therefore, proves that the sign of the 

 Balance is of great antiquity. It appears from Ptoieme 

 ._ that it was also in the zodiac of the Chaldeans. 

 '■' It would be important to know the time in which Sri- 

 peti hved. A zodiac and twelve signs, the names and 

 figures of wliich bear so close a re^semblance, are not like 

 the heavenly bodies, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the sun's 

 semi-diameter, &c., phenomena which have been the same 

 in all ages, and would convey exactly the same notions to 

 observers of the heavens who might have no communica- 

 tion with each other. 



The Bramins divided time into periods of seven days. 

 Bailly supposed that this interval was taken as a fourth 

 part of twenty-seven days and seven hours, — the time of a 

 complete revolution of the moon through the zodiac. The 

 time of her sidereal revolution, however, was not so likely 

 to have drawn the attention of these early astronomers as 

 that of her passing through all her phases, which is twenty- 

 jiine and a half days : the latter was therefore probably 

 first observed, and its fourth part might be taken for their 

 "week as readily as that of the other. But it is more prob- 

 able that their period of seven days had a relation to the 

 number of the planets. We learn from Herodotus that the 

 Egyptians had a week of seven days, which might be de- 

 rived from a tradition of the time in which the world was 

 created, but more probably was fonned from the planets ; 

 the day was divided into twenty-four hours, and one of the 

 seven heavenly bodies, in the following order, viz. 1. The 

 Sun ; 2. Venus ; 3. Mercury ; 4. The Moon ; 5. Saturn ; 

 6. Jupiter ; 7. Mars ; was supposed to rule over the suc- 

 ceeding hours. Supposing the sun to be the presiding 

 planet over the first hour of any day, he would also govern 

 the eighth, the fifteenth, and twenty-second hours ; the 

 twenty-third hour would belong to Venus, the twenty-fourth 

 to Mercury, and the first hour of the next day vpould be 

 under the influence of the moon. In the same way the first 

 hours of the following days, in theii order, would be gov- 



