THE PLANETS. 409 



of sun was strangely enough applied to Saturn, the outermost 

 of the then known planets, as is proved by several passages 

 in the Commentary of Simplicius (p. 122), to the eighth 



because it brought prosperity). According to Diodorus, the 

 name refers to the opinion "that Saturn was that planet 

 which principally and most clearly foretold the future." 

 Letronne, Sur I'Oriyine clu Zodiaque grec, p. 33, and in the 

 Journal des Savants, 1836, p. 17; compare also Carteron, 

 Analyse de Rechcrches Zodiacales, p. 97. Names which are 

 transmitted as equivalents from one people to another, cer- 

 tainly depend in many cases, in addition to their origin, 

 upon accidental circumstances, which cannot be investi- 

 gated; however, it is necessary to remark here, that etymo- 

 logically, faiivetv expresses a mere shining, a fainter evolu- 

 tion of light which is continuous or constant in intensity, 

 while ff-ri\lBcii> refers to an intermittent scintillating light of 

 greater brilliancy. The descriptive names: (fralvwv for the 

 remote Saturn, cni\/3wv for the nearer planet Mercury, appear 

 the more appropriate, as I have before pointed out (Cosmos, 

 vol. iii. p. 95), from the circumstance that as seen by day in 

 the great refractor of Frauenhofer, Saturn and Jupiter appear 

 feebly luminous in comparison with the scintillating Mercury. 

 There is, therefore, as Professor Franz remarks, a succession 

 of increasing brilliancy indicated from Saturn ((fauvttiv) to 

 Jupiter, from Jupiter (0ae'6W) to the coloured glowing Mars 

 (TTvpociv), to Venus ($w<j<j)opo$\ and to Mercury (0r/\/Ju;i/). 



My acquaintance with the Indian name of Saturn (sanaist- 

 schara) the slowly icamlermg^ induced me to ask my cele- 

 brated friend Bopp, whether, upon the whole, a distinction 

 between names of deities and descriptive names, was also to 

 be made in the Indian planetary names, as in those of the 

 Greeks, and probably the Chaldeans. I here insert the 

 opinion, for which I am indebted to this great philologist, 

 arranging the planets, however, according to their actual 

 distances from the Sun, as the above table (commencing with 

 the greatest distance), not as they stand in Amarakoscha (by 

 Colebrooke, pp. 17 and 18). There are, in fact, among the 

 five Sanscrit names, three descriptive ones: Saturn, Mars, 

 and Venus. 



