c64- AJfr. Marsden /£<? 
with the aflual phenomena of the heaven?, and advances wit!i 
the apparent motion of the ftars, from eaft to weft, leaving 
gradually behind it the equinoctial points, and is not, like our 
zodiac, an ab (tract divifion of fpace, attached to thofe points, 
and independent of the ftarry fyftem. Calculating on their 
principles, the difference of the two zodiacs, or the accumu- 
lated amount of the annual preceftion, fince the coincidence 
fuppofed to be in the year of the Chriftian era 499, is in the 
the prefent year 19 0 2i / 54T 
The length of their months is determined by the time which 
the fun employs in pafling each fign, and they are accordingly 
longer in the apogee , and fliorter in the perigee \ that w hich 
correfponds with the higher apjis being 31 d. 1 4 h. 39', and 
that with the lower 29 d. 8 h. 2i 7 only. It does not appear, 
that the Hindoos are accuftomed to enumerate, for civil pur- 
pofes, the days* of the folar month, but to date from the age 
of the moon that happens to fall within that month, or fre- 
quently from the fimple phafe of the moon (?). 
Their feftivals and fafts, like thofe of the Jews and Chrif- 
tians, being regulated, for the moft part, by the lunar revolu- 
tions, they employ on this account, exclufively of the folar, 
aftronomical reckoning, a lunar year (/)« This they make to 
confift ordinarily of twelve months, and each femi-lunation is 
diftinguifhed into fifteen equal portions, or lunar days, which 
are fomewhat fliorter than the natural day. In order to preferve 
its general correfpondence with the folar year, 6 6 they reckon 
twice that lunation during which the fun does not enter upon 
any new fign 93 (g*), or, in other words, which falls completely 
within a folar month ; and the obvious peafon for this mode of 
intercalating is, that as the lunar months take their denomination 
from the folar month in which the change happens, if two new 
moons 
