OR SACRED WRITINGS OF THE HINDUS. 493 



the Vasus ; as As'lhshd is; to the serpents. The dei- 

 ties, presiding over the twenty-seven constella- 

 tions, are enumerated in three otlier verses of tlje 

 Jydt'ish belonging to the Yajush, and in several 

 places of the Vcdcis. The Jijdtlsh of the lUch dif- 

 fers in transposing tvvo of them ; but the commen- 

 tator corrects this as a faulty reading. 



In several passages of the Jijotish, these names' 

 of deities are used for the constellations over v/hich 

 they preside; especially one, which states the si- 

 tuation of the moon, when the sun reaches the 

 tropic, in years other than the first of the cycle. 

 Every where these terms are explained, as indi- 

 cating the constellations, which that enumeration 

 allots to them*. Texts, contained in the Vedas 

 themselves, confirm the correspondence; and the 

 connexion of Aswbil and the Asxcins is indeed de- 

 cisive. 



Hence it is clear, that Uhanislitlia and A'slcshd 

 are the constellations meant ; and that when this 

 Hindu calendar was regulated, the solstitial points 

 were reckoned to be at the beginning of the one, 

 and in the middle of the other : and such was the 

 situation of those cardinal points, in the fourteenth 

 century before the Christian era. I formerly f had 

 occasion to show, from another passage of the 

 Vtdas, that tl:e correspondence of seasons with 

 months, as there stated, and as also suggested in 

 the passage now quoted from the Jyotish, agrees 

 with such a situation of the cardinal points. 



I now proceed to fulfil the promise of indicating 



* I think it ueedless to quote the oriirinal of this enunieraiion. 

 t Asiatic Reseaiches, Vol. VII. p, 2S'J. 



