567th OEDINAEY GENERAL MEETING, 



HELD IN THE SMALL HALL, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, APRIL 12th, 1915, 

 AT 4.30 p.m. 



Professor D. S. Margoliouth, D.Litt., m the Chair, 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed. 



The Secretary announced the election of the Rev. D. H. D. Wilkin- 

 son as an Associate of the Institute. 



The Chairman called upon the Secretary to read the paper for the 

 Meeting on "Astronomical Allusions in Sacred Books of the East," on 

 behalf of the authoress, Mrs. Walter Maunder. 



ASTRONOMICAL ALLUSIONS IN SACRED BOOKS OF 

 THE EAST. By Mrs. Walter Maunder. 



I AM no Oriental scholar, and of the books with which I 

 deal I can read no one in the language in which it w as 

 writ ten. Nevertheless, within the narrow limits that I have 

 set myself, this disability may even be a recommendation ; for, 

 since I accept the best translations available and cannot amend 

 them, they will not be affected by any bias and preconceived 

 notion on my part. Further, I leave on one side all issues, no 

 matter what their interest and importance, which do not depend 

 on astronomy or on considerations of time and place deduced 

 from astronomy. 



The heavenly bodies were the same for our forefathers as 

 they are for us ; we can make the self-same simple first 

 observations of the sun, moon and stars as they did ; so far 

 there is no difference between the astronomy of primitive times 

 and that of to-day. But there is a great difference between our 

 deductive powers and those of the first observers. The laws 

 governing the relations between the earth and the heavenly 

 bodies are far-reaching and precise, and we have gradually 



