SAN 
SAN 
651 
all things with irresistible violence; even Sani, “ the slow- 
moving son of Surya, dressed in a blue robe, crowned with 
a diadem, having four arms, holding a bow, a spiked weapon 
and a scimitar.” Thus, according to Mr. Wilford, Asiat. 
Res. vol. iii., he is described in the Brahmanda Purana. 
The astrologers add, that Mangala, or Mars, the child of 
Prithvi, has also been prevented from traversing the wain 
of Rohini; but that Vrihaspati, Sukra, and Budha, or 
Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury, pass it freely And innocently 
while it is the constant path of Soma, of whom the beautiful 
Rohini is the favourite consort. 
This astronomical fable, in which maybe discovered traces 
of scientific facts, is perhaps too loosely related in the Puranas 
to admit of any useful calculus being grounded on it: other¬ 
wise, as it refers to a particular position of certain celestial 
bodies in the reign of Dasaratha, that did not occur again till 
about the year 1796, the times of these coincidences might 
possibly lead us to nearly the era of Ramachandra ; a very 
important point in respect both to the history and chronology 
of the Hindoos. 
The planet Sani, or Sauturn, is appropriated more espe¬ 
cially by Hindoo astrologers to Brahma, who is said to direct 
its motions; as Vishnu is feigned to shine in the sun, and 
Siva in Vrihaspati, or Jupiter. With the Egyptians, Saturn 
was an object of abhorrence and dread, they not daring to 
pronounce his true name, and abominating all animals with 
red hair, because it was his colour; so in India red is the 
colour of Brahma, he being physically a personification of 
the earth or matter; and symbolized in the skies by the slow- 
moving heavy Sani, and below by the sluggish goose, his 
vahan or vehicle. Some enthusiastic individuals, among the 
Hindoos will not eat carrots, which appear indigenous all 
over India, and have a distinct name in many languages, 
because, as it said, they look red like beef; but possibly the 
objection may have a more remote origin. 
The day of Saturn, or Sani, is of course very inauspicious 
in India, where most people, Hindoo or Mahommedan, are 
very superstitious on the point of lucky and unlucky days. 
This feeling has been, and in some degree is still felt in all 
parts of the world. It cannot be said to be extinct in 
England, Not only would an Hindoo avoid marrying, com¬ 
mencing a journey or a building, naming a child, &c., on 
Saturday, but dates are altered to avoid naming the unlucky 
day, and records of events chronologically falsified with the 
like view. 
SANICLE, in Botany; see Sanicula. Sanicle, bas¬ 
tard American ; see Mitella. Sanicle, bear’s ear; see 
Cortusa. Sanicle, water; see Geum. Sanicle, York¬ 
shire ; see Pinguicula. 
SANICULA - [Dimin. a sanando vulnera. From its 
supposed quality of healing wounds], in Botany, a genus 
of the class pentandria, order digynia, natural order of 
umbellate or umbelliferae.—Generic Character. Calyx : 
umbel universal with very few rays (often four); partial with 
very many, clustered, sub-capitate. Involucre universal 
halved, placed outwardly; partial surrounding, shorter than 
the floscules. Perianth scarcely observable. Corolla: uni¬ 
versal uniform; floscules of the disk abortive. Proper of; 
five compressed indexed petals, closing the flower. Stamina: 
filaments five, simple, twice as long as the corollets, erect. 
Anthers roundish. Pistil: germ hispid, inferior. Styles 
two, awl-shaped, reflexed. Stigmas acute. Pericarp none. 
Fruit ovate acute, rugged, bipartile. Seeds two, convex, 
and muricate on one side, flat on the other.— Essential 
Character. Umbels clustered, sub-capitate. Fruit rugged. 
Flowers of the'disk abortive. 
1. Sanicula Europsea, common or European sanicle.— 
Root perennial, with long branched fleshy fibres. Stem 
from twelve to eighteen inches high, upright, round, 
grooved, smooth; the: leaflets lanceolate acute, entire. 
Flowers sessile, heaped, white or reddish: the petals all 
nearly equal, entire. The central ones are male, having no 
style, but in its place a concave glandular nectary, similar 
to what crowns the germ in the fertile florets. The female 
florets have elongated, acute ealycine teeth, but no petals.— 
Native of Europe, in woods and thickets, flowering in May. 
2. Sanicula Canadensis, or Canadian sanicle.—Root- 
leaves compound, leaflets ovate.—This is so similar in 
structure to the preceding, that there is. scarcely any dif¬ 
ference except that it is frequently ten times as large in all its 
parts.—Native of Virginia. 
3. Sanicula Marilandica, or Maryland sanicle.—Male 
flowers peduncled, hermaphrodites sessile.—Root perennial. 
The whole plant smooth. Stem annual, erect, about two 
feet high, the thickness of a quill, with alternate branches, 
trichotomous at top.—Native of Virginia and Maryland. 
Propagation and Culture. —Part the roots, any time 
from September to March ; but the best time is in autumn. 
In a moist soil, and a shady situation they will thrive ex¬ 
ceedingly. 
SANIDIUM, the name of a genus of fossils, of the class 
of the selenitae, but neither of the rhomboidal nor columnar 
kinds, nor any other way distinguishable by its external 
figure, being made up of several plain flat plates. 
The word is derived from the Greek caviSiov, tabella, a 
flat thin plate or table, and expresses a body made up only 
of such plates. And the selenite of this genus are of no- 
determinate form, nor consist of any regular number of 
planes or angles, but are merely flat, broad, and thin plates 
or tables, composed of other yet thinner plates, like the talcs, 
but distinguished from those bodies by this, that these plates 
are made up of arrangements of slender fibres, disposed ob¬ 
liquely, but in uninterrupted lines across the body. 
The selenite having been always esteemed (when meant of 
this class of bodies, for some have applied the word to cer¬ 
tain spars and other substances) regularly figured fossils, this 
genus has been overlooked by authors, and the specimens of 
it which occurred, looked on as bodies of a different class, 
as spars or talcs. Their not fermenting with acids, however, 
determines them not to be spars; and their obliquely striated 
structure, their want of elasticity, and their ready calcining 
in the fire, distinguish them from the talcs, and shew them 
to be the true and genuine selenitae. 
Of this genus, there are only two known species; the one 
colourless and pellucid, the other whitish and opaque. The 
first is found pretty frequently about Oxford, as also in North¬ 
amptonshire, Yorkshire, and other counties; the other is very 
common in all parts of Germany, and is found also in Leices¬ 
tershire, and some other parts of England, but with us it is 
not common. Hill's Hist, of Fossils. 
SA'NIES, s. [Lat.] Thin matter; serous excretion.—It 
began with a round crack in the skin, without other matter 
than a little sanies. Wiseman. 
SA'NIOUS, adj. [from sanies, Lat.] Running a thin serous 
matter, not a well digested pus.—Observing the ulcer sanious, 
I proposed digestion as the only way to remove the pain. 
Wiseman. 
SANIS, 'Zavi;, among the Greeks, a kind of punishment, 
inflicted by binding the malefactor fast to a piece of wood. 
SA'NITY, s. [sanitas, Lat.] Soundness of mind.—How 
pregnant, sometimes, his replies are ! a happiness that often 
madness hits on, which sanity and reason could not be so 
prosperously delivered of. Shakspeare. 
SANJORE, a town of Hindostan, province of Ajmeer, 
district of Sarowy, tributary to the rajah of Joudpore. It is 
situated on the east side of the Bah river. Lat. 25. 3. N. 
long. 72. 16. E. 
SANK. The preterit of sink. —As if the opening of her 
mouth to Zelmane had opened some great floodgate of sor¬ 
row, whereof her heart could not abide the violent issue, she 
sank to the ground. Sidney. 
SANKAN, a town of Yemen, in Arabia, near the coast 
of the Red* Sea; 35 miles north-north-west of Abu-Arisch. 
SANKARACHARYA, a very celebrated Sanscrit author, 
whose excellent works on theology and philosophy are much 
admired by many sects of Hindoos, particularly those of the 
sect 
