330 



of the nacshatras, when a part only was employed 

 to form the solar zodiac. 



This intimate connexion between the lunar 

 mansions and the signs of the zodiac is moreover 

 evident in the names given by the Hindoos to the 

 months and the years. These names, according 

 to the curious investigations of Mr. Davis *, are 

 not those of the dodecatemoria of the solar zo- 

 diac ; they are taken from the nacshatras them- 

 selves, each month bearing the name of the 

 lunar mansion, in which the full moon occurs. 

 We have seen farther back, that at Thibet, in 

 China, and among* the Tartar nations, each year 

 of the five indictions of the great cycle bears the 

 name of one of the 12 animals of the solar zo- 

 diac. Among the Hindoos, the years take the 

 name of the nacshatras in which Jupiter is at his 

 heliacal rising. It is thus that Aswini (horse) 

 or Magha (house) is the name of a year, of a 

 month, and of a tithy, or lunar day ; as at Mexico 

 the sign tochtli (rabbit) or colli (house) presides 

 at the same time over the year, the half lunation, 

 and the day. 



From the whole of these considerations it 

 follows, that the division of the ecliptic into 

 twelve signs probably had its origin from the 

 division into 27 or 28 lunar mansions ; and that 



* On the cycle of sixty years, xisiat. Res. vol. 3, p. 217 — 

 261. 



