CHAP. IX.] 



ASTRONOMY. 



503 



ledge, 3. grammar, 4. poetry, 5. languages, 6. astro- 

 nomy, 7. the art of giving counsel, 8. the means of 

 attaining nirwana l , 9. the discrimination of good and evil, 

 10. shooting with the bow, 11. management of the ele- 

 phant, 12. penetration of thoughts, 13. discernment of 

 invisible beings, 14. etymology, 15. history, 16. law, 17. 

 rhetoric, 18. physic." 2 



Astronomy. Although the Singhalese derived from the 

 Hindus their acquaintance, such as it was, with the 

 heavenly bodies and their movements, together with their 

 method of taking observations, and calculating eclipses 3 , 

 yet in this list the term " astrology " would describe 

 better than " astronomy " the science practically cul- 

 tivated in Ceylon, which then, as now, had its professors 

 in every village to construct horoscopes, and cast the 

 nativities of the peasantry. Dutugaimunu, in the 

 second century before Christ, after his victory over 

 Elala, commended himself to his new subjects by his 

 fatherly care in providing " a doctor, an astronomer, 

 and a priest, for each group of sixteen villages through- 

 out the kingdom ; " 4 and he availed himself of the 

 services of the astrologer to name the proper day of the 

 moon on which to lay the foundation of his great religious 

 structures. 5 



King Bujas Eaja,A.D. 339, increased his claim to popular 

 acknowledgment by adding " an astrologer, a devil-dancer, 

 and a preacher." 6 At the. present day the astronomical 

 treatises possessed by the Singhalese are, generally speak- 

 ing, borrowed, but with considerable variation, from the 

 Sanskrit. 7 



1 a Ni rW ana " is the state of sus- 

 pended sensation, which constitutes 

 the eternal bliss of the Buddhist in 

 a future state. 



2 Rdjaratnacari, p. 100. 



3 A summary 01 the knowledge 

 possessed by the early Hindus of 

 astronomy and mathematical science 

 will be found in MOUNTSIITART EL- 



PHINSTOKE'S History of India during 

 the Hindu and Mahomedan Periods, 

 book iii. ch. i. p. 127. 



4 Rajaratnacari, p. 40. 



5 Mahaivanso, ch. xxix. p. 169 



6 TtTBJfOun's Epitome, p. 27. 



7 HABBY'S Buddhism, ch. i. p. 22. 



K K 4 



