202 



Dr. G. Thibaut — On the Suryaprajnapti. 



[No. 4, 



served, for instance, in a beautiful fragment of Stesichorus, of Helios when 

 he has reached Okeanos in the west embarking in a golden cup which car- 

 ries him during the night round half the earth back to the east whence he 

 rises again. Under these circumstances we must admit that the old Indian 

 idea of the constitution of the world, according to which the rising and 

 setting of sun, moon and stars is only apparent, cannot by any means be called 

 an unnatural one, and it is interesting to consider the counterparts it finds 

 among what is known of the opinions of the oldest Greek philosophers.* 

 So it is reported of Anasimenes that he supposed the sun not to descend 

 below the earth, but to describe circles above it and to pass during the night 

 behind high mountains situated in the north ; an exact parallel to the 

 Indian conception. Of Xenophanes we hear that he declared the sun, moon 

 and stars to be only accumulations of burning vapour, fiery clouds kindling 

 and extinguishing themselves by turns, that these clouds move in reality in 

 straight lines and only appear to us to rise and to set in consequence of 

 their varying distance, in the same way as the common clouds seem to rise 

 from the horizon when they first become visible to us and seem to sink 

 under the horizon when they pass out of our field of vision. These opinions 

 too find their exact counterpart in the Siiryaprajiiapti and kindred works 

 where the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies is declared to be an 

 appearance caused by their consecutive approaching and receding, and where 

 their movement is said to take place not indeed in a straight line but at 

 any rate in a plane parallel to the plane of the earth. The first mentioned 

 opinion of Xenophanes about the constitution of the heavenly bodies finds 

 its analogon in one of the different pratipattis, mentioned in the Siirya- 

 prajiiapti, according to which the sun is nothing but a " kiranasamghata," 

 an accumulation of rays forming itself every morning in the east and dis- 

 solving itself in the evening in the west. The cognate views held by 

 Heraclitus concerning the nature of the sun are well known. Of Xeno- 

 phanes it is further reported that he supposed different climes and zones of the 

 earth, far distant from each other, to have different suns and moons ; which 

 is another striking parallel to the view held by the Jainas with reference to 

 the different suns, moons and stars illuminating the different concentric 

 dvipas of which the earth consists. In both cases the assumption of the 

 rising and setting of the heavenly bodies being an appearance, caused by 

 their becoming visible and invisible in turns when having approached us 

 or receded from us by a certain amount, seems to have lead to the conclu- 

 sion that the light of the one sun and the one moon appearing to us can- 

 not illumine the whole vast earth, since it only reaches to a certain limited 



* For the particulars mentioned in the following : comp. Mullach's collection of the 

 fragments of the Greek philosophers, Zeller's history of Greek philosophy, Lewis's 

 historical sui-vey of the Astronomy of the Ancients. 



