21 6 ON T H E I N D I A N C Y C L E 



mentator, there were fome who erroneoufly fuppofed the folar and Vrihaf- 

 pati years, to be of the fame length : a memorial Jloca known to moll: Pan- 

 dits t furnifhing a coneife rule to find the Vrihafpati year, mentions aftrono- 

 mers in countries fouth of the Nermadd to be in their reckoning of.it ten 

 years behind thofe fituated north of that river ; by the foregoing cornparifon 

 of the date in the Aiiatick Refearches with a computation by the §ii ya 

 Siddbdnta, the difference is found to be 2 years ; and the Bandres almanack 

 for the prefent year mentions that fouth of the Nermadd the 45th year of 

 the cycle named Vir6dhacrit^z% accounted to begin in laft Mdg/i, in which 

 month, it is further obferved, began at Bandres the prefent year Dundubhz t 

 which is the 56th of the cycle. This difference then increafes, and from 

 thzfaca year 939 when it was 2 years, it had to laft Mdgh become 1 1 years. 

 Now, in the interval of 773 folar years between thofe points of time, the 

 Vrihafpati reckoning muft have gained upon the folar reckoning about 9 

 years, which, added to the former difference of 2 years, is equal to the dif- 

 ference now actually noticed in the Banares almanack j and we may thence 

 conclude, that the erroneous notion mentioned and refuted by Vara'ha- 

 mihira's commentator, frill prevails to the fouth of the Nermadd, from 

 which part of India Mr. Marsden's information on the fubjeeT: feems to 

 have been originally procured. But there is no reafon to fuppofe, that the 

 ¥rihafpatljtzt is any where confidered as " commencing on the fame day 

 " with the years of Vicrama'ditya and Sa'liva'han," nor is it poffi- 

 b!e, Ml it fliould; becaufe the latter, which is folar-fidereal, commences 

 with the fun's entrance of Aries in the Hindu ecliptick, and the former, 

 which is luni-folar, whh the preceding new moon in the month oiCbattra. 



It may not be deemed fuperfluous here to add Vara'hamihir \ 

 Sanation oi Jupiter s two cycles of 12 and 60 ; more especially as he cites 



s ex- 



