Figure 17.
But we have already seen that the lunar asterisms, each of 13° 20´, are divided into four padams or quarters each of 3° 20´, and as there are 27 asterisms we have again the 108 amshas or subdivisions of the ecliptic, which undoubtedly were originally associated with the 108 sounds. The fact that these sounds have come to be connected with the signs of the zodiac is due to the affinity which exists between the asterisms and the signs through their respective planetary rulers. For it will be shown that the Ashtottaradasha system of Planetary Periods (which see) recognizes the procession of planetary influence through the 108 padams in the course of 108 years, so that each year comes under the influence of one of these sections of the ecliptic, and the count in each case is made from the position held by the Moon at the time of birth.
This subject of Planetary Sounds is of immense interest, but inasmuch as it has been developed solely along Oriental lines and has its basis in a system which did not recognize the Vernal Equinox as a starting-point, but found its yogatara in the first point of As’wini (Zeta Piscium), I advise my readers to accept with extreme caution the statement that specific sounds are identified with particular planets or signs of the zodiac, and more particularly would I caution the reader not to rely upon the application of these Initial Sounds to the problems of speculation. I have merely shown in this place how they are derived, and thus have no doubt satisfied the curiosity of those who have seen them in other books where they are given without explanation, authority or warning, and stated as if they had been experimentally proved.
CHAPTER XVI
PLANETARY HOURS
No records that are available to us serve to determine at what period in the course of social evolution the need for a week of seven days first made itself felt, nor can we discover who it was first invented it.
Newton believed that Chiron was the first to define the constellations of the heavens, and this also was the opinion of the Greeks. But that is to give to the mythical centaur a personal reality. It is true that we may find him, along with his contemporary Hercules, by whose arrow he met his death, among the constellations, and if it be the fact that the Greeks exalted their heroes to the stars and shaped the constellations so as to record their fame for ever, then we can only conclude that Chiron did not define the constellations of either Sagittarius or Hercules, whatever may have been his part in the matter so far as the rest are concerned.
It is further to be observed that long before the period ascribed to the famous centaur we have mention of the constellations in the Book of Job, where Arcturus, the Pleiades, Orion and the Mazzaroth are mentioned. Both Homer and Hesiod mention some of the constellations, but it is known that Hipparchus, about 150 B.C., defined the limits of forty-eight of the asterisms, while Ptolemy gave us a complete catalogue. Some constellations have since been added by Tycho, Helvetius and others. But from what has already been said on this subject it will be evident that the mythology and astronomy of the Greeks was closely connected, but this does not of necessity prove a Greek origin, for we have yet to determine the origin of the myths. That many of these are shared by the Assyfians, Aryans, Persians and Egyptians, seems to show that they had a Chaldean origin. The Chinese have an astronomy which appears to be unique and without parallel among other nations.
If we go back to the earliest record, the Chinese, we shall find that they had no week of days, but a cycle of sixty days, and also one of sixty years. But the days of the month were reckoned from the Moon’s age, the day of the New Moon being called the first day. Thus we find in the earliest record such expressions as “the first day of the first moon he brought things to a conclusion in the temple of his ancestors,” and “on the first day of the twelfth moon,” etc. Even the great Confucius gives no hint of any week of seven days. In his Chun-Tsiu he makes such entries as the following: “In the fifty-eighth year of the cycle and the third year of the reign of Prince Yiu Kung, in the Spring, on the first day of the Second Moon, the day being the sixth of the cycle (of sixty days), the sun was eclipsed.” All his entries are of the same careful and explicit nature, and expressed in the same terms, that is to say, in reference to the Cyclic year, the number of the month, the year of the reigning Prince of Lu, and the day of the cycle of sixty days.
The earliest divisions of time among the Aryans also follow the Sixty-year period, and the use of the Tithi or Moon day is also to be found in the earliest astronomical records. Nothing more, indeed, is needed for an accurate record of time than an Epoch, a cycle of years counted from that epoch, the number of the last lunation, and the day of the month counted from that lunation. The introduction of a week of days is an adjunct that has no special value in a time sense, and could only have been the invention of a state of civilization in which ceremonies and institutions of a weekly recurrence were required to be indicated and fixed. We find mention of the week, however, in Sanskrit writings, as Somavar (Monday), Kujavar (Tuesday), Buddhavar (Wednesday), Brihaspativar (Thursday), Sukravar (Friday), Sanivar (Saturday) and Suryavar (Sunday), but there do not appear to be sufficient grounds for fixing an epoch at which they came into use.