110 



G. Tliibaut — On ilie Suryafrajanapti. 



[No. 3, 



nate days south and north of Meru." These words scarcely require anything 

 added to be to them in the way of comment. The Jainas hold (as will be 

 seen in detail further on) the old Indian idea of sun, moon and stars 

 revolving round Mount Meru. To anybody holding this opinion, the ques- 

 tion must have suggested itself " In what time is one such complete revo- 

 lution performed ?" The prevailing opinion, represented for instance by 

 the Puraiias, was that the whole revolution is performed in twenty-four 

 hours, so that the sun describes during the time when it is day in Bharata- 

 varsha the southern half of his circle, and during the time when it is night 

 to the south of Mount Meru, and day in the countries north of it, the northern 

 half. The Jainas, however, took a different view of the matter. To them it 

 seems to have appeared more appropriate that as there are four directions — 

 south, west, north and east — the sun's circle should be divided into four 

 quarters cori'esponding to the four directions, and that he should bring day 

 in succession to the countries to the south, west, north and east of Meru 

 But then, as it must be supposed that his passing through each of the four 

 quarters occupies the same time, how can it come about that he again 

 appears to rise to the Bharatavarsha after the lajose of a period only suf- 

 iicient to advance his place by one quarter of the circle ? Out of this 

 difficulty the Jainas extricated themselves by simply assuming that the 

 sun rising on a certain morning is not the same sun which bad set on the 

 preceding evening, but a second sun similar in every way to the first one. 

 The whole circle is thus described by two suns separated from each other 

 by half the circumference, each of which appears in the Bharatavarsha on 

 alternate days. The same reasoning lead to the assumption of two moons 

 and two sets of stars. 



Great as appears to be the difference produced by this hypothesis 

 between the system of the Jainas and the commonly received opinions, it 

 practically is of small importance and may — as will be done in the 

 following — as a rule be left altogether out of account whenever we have 

 to consider the motions of sun and moon. When for instance the sun having 

 started from Asvini has passed through the twenty-eight nakshati-as, he 

 enters, according to the generally received o^^inion, again into the same 

 nakshatra Asvini, according to the Jaina opinion into a second nakshatra 

 called Asvini too ; but as this second nakshatra has the same name, the 

 same extent, and the same relative position as its namesake, as like the 

 latter it is preceded by Eevati and followed by Bharani, and as at the same 

 time when the sun has entered into the second Asvini, another sun the 

 exact and indistinguishable counterpart of the former one has entered into 

 the former Asvini, it is clear that we may, when speaking of the motion 

 of the heavenly bodies, save ourselves the trouble of continually referring 

 to two suns, two moons and two sets of nakshatras and, remembering 



