DIVISIONS Of THE ZODIACK. 32^ 



safOahhaiima : the only work, in which the true lati- 

 tudes and longitudes of the stars are attempted to be 

 given. All the rest exhibit the longitude of the star's 

 circle of declination, and its distance from the Ecliptick 

 measured on that circle. 



I SUPPOSE the original observations, of which the 

 result is copied from Beahmegupta and the Surya 

 siddlidnta, with little variation, by successive authors, 

 to have been made about the time, when the vernal 

 cq'iinox was near the first degree of Mesha *. The 

 pole then was nearly s^eventeen degrees and a quarter 

 from its present position, and stood a little beyond the 

 star near the ear of the Camelopard. On this supposi- 

 tion, it will be accordingly found, that the assigned 

 places of the Nacshatras are easily reconcileable to the 

 positions of stars likely to be meant, 



I SHALL here remark, that the notion of a polar star, 

 common to the Indian and Grecian celestial spheres, 

 implies considerable antiquity. It cannot have been 

 taken from our present pole-star {x Ursae niinoris), 

 which, as Mons. Bailly has observed (Astronomic 

 Ancienne, p. 511), was remote from the pole, when 

 EuDoxus described the sphere; at which time, ac- 

 cording to the quotation of Hipparchus, there was a 

 star situated at the pole of the world -f-. Bailly con- 

 jectures, as the intermediate stars ot the sixth magni- ' 

 tude are too small to have designated the pole, that x 

 Draconis was the star meant by Eudoxus, which had 



^ Brahmecupta wrote soon after that period; and the Siiryti 

 Siddliaiita is probably a work of nciirly the same age. Mr. Bemt-. 

 LEY considers it as more modern (As. Res. vol. o*.) : it certainly 

 cannot be more ancient j for the equinox must have pnst the be- 

 ^"inning of Mcsha, or have been near it, when that work was corti- 

 posed. 



t HirPARCHVS. Conunent. on Aratus. V'b. 1. p. 179^. 



