335 



who were no doubt ignorant of the position of the 

 stars of which the divisions of the ecliptic were 

 composed. It is possible, that nations relapsed 

 into barbarism had preserved but a confused re- 

 membrance of the names of the nacshatras ; and 

 that in reforming their calender, they might 

 have chosen among the names those of the signs 

 of the solar zodiac, without following the order 

 anciently adopted. It is possible also, and I am 

 inclined to give the preference to this latter 

 opinion, that the zodiac composed of twelve signs 

 may have had its origin from an ancient lunar 

 zodiac, in which the nacshatras were arranged in 

 an order more analogous to that which we ob- 

 serve at present in the dodecatemoria of the 

 people of Thibet and Tartary. In fact, the divi- 

 sions of the ecliptic, which Sir William Jones, 

 Colebrooke, and Sonnerat, have published, differ 

 essentially from each other. The arrow, which 

 according to one Indian writer is the eighth 

 nacshatra, is only the twenty-third according to 

 another. We shall see presently, in speaking of 

 a Roman bas relief described by Bianchini, that 

 in the East^solar zodiacs formerly existed, which 

 had the same signs, though placed in a different 

 order. Moreover, the return of the Sun from the 

 tropics toward the equator, and the phenomenon 

 of the equal duration of the days and the nights, 

 must have led to great changes in the figures 



