The Brahmins of India claim a high antiquity for the science of astronomy in their country, and their observations and calculations profess to date back to the fourth millennium B.C. The names of the Indian constellations are preserved to us in the Sanscrit language, and these names are, so to speak, identical with those that we use at the present day when we speak of the figures of the Zodiac. Many scholars of to-day believe that only after Alexander’s conquests in India did the knowledge of the twelve-fold division of the Zodiac penetrate into that country. Some, on the other hand, maintain the opposite opinion, namely, “that the names of the signs can be proved to have existed in India at as early a period as in any other country.”[17]
Jean Silvain Bailly, whose opinions as to the antiquity of the science of astronomy have been already quoted in the foregoing Paper, in his work on the history of ancient astronomy, speaking of the Brahmins of India, the initial point of whose Zodiac is at the first star in the constellation Aries, writes as follows:[18]—
“Mais pourquoi ont-ils choisi cette constellation pour la première? Il est évident que c’est une affaire de préjugé et de superstition; le choix du premier point dans un cercle est arbitraire. Ils auront été décidés par quelque ancienne tradition.”
[18] The initial point of the Hindu Zodiac (see [Plate III.]) is about 9½ degrees to the west of the boundary line of the constellation Aries, as it is drawn on our celestial globes. One foot of Aries, however, extends beyond the boundary line, and touches a line drawn through the initial point of the Hindu Zodiac and the poles of the ecliptic. At [page 132], the question of the date of the fixation of this initial point is discussed, and a high antiquity for it is claimed. There are many considerations which may lead us to the opinion that not only in India, but amongst the ancients generally, the first degree of the constellation coincided with the Hindu initial point, and not with the boundary line of the constellation, as it is now drawn. Greek and Latin authors, writing in the first century B.C., speak of the solstitial and equinoctial colures, as being “at the eighth degree of the Zodiac,” and these statements, which have caused modern commentators much perplexity (see Handbuch der Klassischen Alterthumswissenschaft; Zeitrechnung der Griechen und Römer, Unger), may be easily explained, if we realize that they, in all likelihood, counted the degrees of the Zodiac from the same initial point as that in use amongst Hindu astronomers, which in the first century B.C. was eight degrees to the west of the equinoctial point.
Dupuis, writing at nearly the same date as Bailly, about a hundred years ago, and in conflict with him on many points relating to the Zodiac, was also struck by the choice of this same inconspicuous point in the great circle of the ecliptic, not only by the Brahmins of India, but also by other ancient nations. He further explains that the difference in the choice of initial point by the Chinese, and by the other nations, is only an apparent, and not a real difference. On the wonderful agreement shown by so many nations, in their choice of the stars by which they marked the beginning of their Zodiacs, Dupuis relied to support his views concerning the unity of the astronomical and religious myths of all nations.
At the end of his work, Mémoire Explicatif du Zodiaque, Dupuis gives in a diagram several Zodiacs in concentric circles; some divided into twelve, some into twenty-seven or twenty-eight parts. He represents the colures by a cross which quarters these concentric Zodiacs, and speaking of the twenty-seven- and twenty-eight-fold divisions, he observes as follows:
“On remarque d’abord, que ces divers systèmes lunaires, tirés de l’Astronomie de différens peuples, s’accordent tous à placer dans les cases correspondantes à-peu-près les mêmes étoiles. Il suffit, pour s’en assurer, de comparer les étoiles designées dans la même case de la division de chaque peuple. On remarque aussi qu’ils ont pris tous, excepté les Chinois, les mêmes étoiles, pour point initial de la division, savoir, celles de la tête du Bélier. Les Chinois, au contraire, ont fixé le point initial dans la partie du ciel diamétralement opposée, vers les pieds de la Vierge et près l’Epi” (p. 4).
Dupuis’ arguments, drawn from the choice by several nations of the first division of Aries as the initial point of the Zodiac and year, are of equal cogency in support of a calendar such as he suggests, drawn up more than 12,000 B.C., for a year beginning at the autumn equinox; or for a calendar, as suggested in this Paper, drawn up about 6,000 B.C., and dealing with a year beginning at the winter solstice; and it may be claimed that the facts brought to light by the study of the ancient Accadian calendar, while greatly strengthening the ground for Dupuis’ opinion concerning the early acceptance by many nations of the stars of Aries as a mark for the beginning of the year in prehistoric times, seem more in favour of the first month of that year having been counted from the winter solstice than from the autumn equinox.
Quotations from authors like Bailly and Dupuis may seem nowadays somewhat out of date; for though they were amongst the foremost scholars of their time, they were necessarily ignorant of all the archæological discoveries that have succeeded each other with such rapidity during the last century. Unless, therefore, the brilliant guesses and astronomical speculations of these writers can find confirmation in the results of modern researches, their theories may well be disregarded. But it seems to me that many of their theories are meeting with such confirmation.