﻿THE INDIAN ZODIAC* 29I 



r< that a mountain of gold rises and gleams ip. the 

 u centre ; but we believe the earth to be shaped like? 

 u a Cadamba fruit, or spheroidal, and admit only four 

 " oceans of salt water, all which we name from the four 

 •' cardinal points, and in which are many great pen- 

 " insulas, with innumerable islands. They will tell you 

 'J that a dragon's head swallows the moon, and thus 

 M causes an eclipse; but we know that the supposed 

 " head and tail of the dragon mean only the nodes, or 

 u points formed by intersections of the ecliptic and 

 " moon's orbit. In short, they have imagined a 

 ■' syftem which exists only in their fancy ; but wc 

 " consider nothing as true without such evidence as 

 " cannot be questioned." I could not perfectly un- 

 derstand the old Gymnosophist, when he told me 

 that the Rasichacra, or Circle of Signs (for so he call- 

 ed the Zodiac) was like a Dlmstura flower; meaning 

 the Datura, to which the Sanscrit name has been 

 softened, and the flower of which is conical, or shaped 

 like a funnel. At firft I thought that he alluded to a 

 projection of the hemisphere on the plane of the 

 colure, and to the angle formed by the ecliptic and 

 equator ; but a younger aftronomer, named Vtnayaca 3 

 who came forward to see me, assured me that they 

 meant only the circular mouth of the funnel, or the base 

 of the cone ; and that it was usual among their ancient 

 writers to borrow from fruits and flowers their appel- 

 lations of several plane and solid figures. 



From the two Brahmans, whom I have just named, 

 I learned the following curious particulars ; and you 

 may depend on my accuracy in repeating them, since 

 I wrote them in their presence, as well as corrected 

 what I had written, till they pronounced it perfect. 

 They divide a great circle, as we do* into three hun- 

 dred and sixty degrees, called by them ansas, or por* 

 tions ; of which they, like us, allot thirty to each of 

 the twelve signs, in this order : 



Vol. II. U 



