Rest Days; A Sociological Study loi 



obscure and difficult problems. The fact that the hebdomadal 

 cycle, though naturally suggested by the four lunar phases, is 

 possibly absent from the lower culture except as a borrowed 

 institution, itself requires explanation. Here it may be suffi- 

 cient to observe that a period of seven days, in comparison with 

 other cycles which might be chosen, furnishes an unsatisfactory 

 divisor of the lunation, falling short of a quarter of a month 

 by more than nine hours. The five- and ten-day periods provide 

 better lunar weeks, a circumstance which may be taken to account 

 for their wide diffusion (supra). 



There is no certain evidence of a seven-day week which cannot 

 be traced back ultimately to Semitic antiquity. Thus in India it 

 appears to have been introduced probably as late as the sixth 

 century of our era, by Greek astronomers to whom the planetary 

 week (infra) was already a familiar institution. The modern 

 Tamil and Urdu names of the week days are derived from the 

 names of the sun, moon, and five planets. *''° The hebdomadal 

 cycle employed in Burma, Siam, Annam and Cambodia was no 

 doubt introduced by Indian Buddhists.'"'^ The seven-day week in 

 China was also taken over from India, probably by the Buddhist 

 missionaries.'^- The Mohammedan conquest of India, beginning 

 with the invasion of the Punjaub in the seventh century, must 

 have introduced the same septenary period into regions wdiere it 

 had not previously found entrance ; in Malaysia, it is certainly 



""E. Balfour, Cyclopaedia of India^ London, 1885, s. vv. "Month," 

 " Week." 



"^ Pinkerton, op. cit., ix. 506 (Burma) ; ideiiij ix. 583 (Siam) ; Hastings, 

 op. cit., iii. 113, 350 (Cambodia and Annam). 



®^In the 8th century A.D., a Chinese document, kieu-ch'i-li, based on an 

 Hindu original, apportions the days of the week to the sun, moon, and five 

 planets in the well known astrological order. In some Chinese almanacs, 

 Sunday is called the day of Mit = Mithra, the Sun. See Alexander 

 Wylie, " On the Knowledge of the Weekly Sabbath in China," Chinese 

 Researches, Shanghai, 1897, PP- 86-101 ; J. Edkins, Chinese Buddhism,' 

 London, 1893, p. 211. In old Japan the week was unknown, the present 

 seven-day week, with Sunday as an official holiday, being only recently 

 introduced (Hastings, iii. 115). 



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