Chronology of the Hindoos. 565 
1 - — 
moons fall within the fame month, they naturally take the fame 
name, and no irregularity is obfervable. This opportunity of en- 
creafing the number of lunar months, without embarraffing the 
reckoning, prefents itfelf, on a medium of a few years, juft as 
often as is requisite to effect the compenfation. It cannot hap- 
pen in all the folar months indifferently, their lengths being 
unequal, and fome of them Ihorter than the fynodical lunar 
month. 
The commencement of the folar day is ufually eftimated 
from funrife, and the fpace between that and the fun rife of 
the following day is divided into Jixty parts, the length of 
which muft vary with the fun’s unequal courfe through the 
ecliptic ; but for the purpofes of calculation it is fuppofed to 
be afcertained at the folftices, and is equal to twenty-four of 
our minutes. The fubdivifions, in like manner, follow the 
fexagefimal fcale. There is alfo a mechanical divilion of the 
day and night into eight parts, of which four are allowed to 
the interval from funrife to funfet, and four to that from 
funfet to funrife. The proportion of length of thefe parts 
refpeftively depends therefore upon the fpafon of the year and 
the latitude of the place, and the divifion is confequently 
inapplicable to general aftronomy. 
The days of the week are denominated from the feven pla- 
nets, and their arrangement is the fame with that adopted in 
the weftern parts of the world, proceeding from the fun and 
moon to Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn ( h ). 
Friday, or the day of Venus, appears as the firft of the week 
in their calculations, and probaoly becaufe the Kalee Toog 
began on that day ; but, in common, the week is confidered 
by the Hindoos as beginning with Sunday,. 
Having 
