names to the cycle of twelve years, as well as to 
the small period of twelve days. The twelve 
animals are used, says P. Gaubil*, to denote the 
twelve moons of the year, the twelve hours of the 
day and night, and the twelve celestial signs. 
But all these divisions into twelve parts, marked 
by different names, are, in the east of Asia, only 
abstract or imaginary divisions : they serve to 
recall to mind the motion of the Sun in the eclip- 
tic ; but the real starry zodiac, as Mr. Bailly 
very well observesd^, and as is confirmed by the 
more recent researches of Sir William Jones and 
Mr. Colebrooke, consists of the twenty-eight 
lunar mansions. It is true, they say in China, 
that the Sun enters into the Ape, or the Hare, as 
we say that it enters into the Twins or the Scor- 
pion ; but the Chinese, the Hindoos, and the 
Tartars class the stars only according to the sys- 
tem of the nacshatras. The division of the zo- 
diac into twenty-seven or twenty-eight parts, 
known from Yemen to the plains of Turfan and 
Cochinchina, belongs, as well as the small period 
of seven days, to the most ancient monuments of 
astronomy. 
Wherever we observe at the same time several 
divisions of the ecliptic, differing not in the num- 
bers of the asterisms, but in their denominations, 
* Souciet, vol. 2, p. 166, 174. 
i Astr. ind. p. 6. 
