422 
G. Thibaut —Contributions to the 
[No. 4, 
summer solstice, only the process being presented as additive for all cases 
the number of the days has not to be reckoned from the past summer 
solstice, but from the coming winter solstice. From this it appears that 
we have to read in the second half of the verse TT^ff^SJT instead of 
and to translate : 
“ What is passed of the northern progress and likewise what remains 
of the southern progress each (viz. the number of days in both cases) is 
to be multiplied by two, divided by sixty-one and added to twelve ; this is 
the measure of the day.” 
I think it unnecessarv to enter, after this, on a discussion of Somaka- 
ra’s explanation ; I only remark that here as in other cases he was probably 
prevented from seeing the right meaning of the rule by its very imperfec¬ 
tion. 
The estimation of the longest day at eighteen muhurtas and of the 
shortest day at twelve muhurtas, and the simple rule for finding the length 
of any day during the year appear to have generally prevailed in India, 
before the influence of Greek science began to make itself felt. We find 
them preserved in the Puranas, at a time when people very likely might 
have known better ; see, for instance, Wilson’s Vishnu Purana, ed. by F. 
Hall, Vol. 2, p. 247. Likewise we meet with them in the chief astronomi¬ 
cal treatise of the Jainas, the Surapannatti or Suryaprajnapti, a summary 
of whose contents has been given by Prof. A. Weber in the tenth volume 
of the “ Indisehe Studien”. There (pp. 264 ff.) the successive increase 
and decrease of the length of the day by muhurtas is treated at length 
and explained according to the fundamental principles of the astronomical 
system of the Jainas. 
I may add here at once, that an identical rule about the increase and 
decrease of the day is mentioned in Varaha Mihira’s Pancha Siddhantika as 
given by the Paitamaha Siddhanta. I subjoin in the following the whole 
passage referring to this Siddhanta as it is found in the only copy of the 
Pancha Siddhantika which is known up to the present time—that one dis¬ 
covered by Dr. Buhler—without attempting to emendate the text which is 
just in that place particularly incorrect. 
n ^ ii 
j 
cr^g^jT^r n ^ n 
Sjfavr ll ^ II 
SITJnf frlfiq: | 
^4% ^TcfT ^rffw: || « || 
