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hind6 astronomicai. methods. 727
fact that this month was announced by the rising or setting of the constellation in
question.
But what is even more decisive as showing that the Hindus observed the stars,
and in the same way that we do, marking their position by their longitude, is a fact
mentioned by Augustinus Riccius that, according to observations attributed to
Hermes, and made 1,985 years before Ptolemy, the brilliant star in the Lyre and that
in the heart of the Hydra were each seven degrees in advance of their respective
•positions as determined by Ptolemy. This determination seems very extraordinary.
The stars advance regularl)^ with respect to the equinox; and Ptolemy ought to have
found the longitudes 28 degrees in excess of what they were 1,985 years before his
time. Besides, there is a remarkable peculiarity about this fact, the same error or
difference being found in the positions of both stars ;
therefore the error was due to
some cause affecting both stars equally. It was to explain this peculiarity that the
Arab Thebith imagined the stars to have an oscillatory movement, causing them to
advance and recede alternately. This hypothesis was easily disproved; but the
observations attributed to Hermes remained unexplained. Their explanation, however,
is found in Hindu Astronomy. At the date fixed for these observations, 1,985
3'ears before Ptolemy, the first point of the Hindu Zodiac was 35 degrees in advance
of the equinox; therefore the longitudes reckoned for this point are 35 degrees in
excess of those reckoned from the equinox.
But after the lapse of 1,985 years the
stars would have advanced 28 degrees, and there would remain a difference of only
7 degrees between the longitudes of Hermes and those of Ptolemy, and the difference
would be the same for the two stars, since it is due to the difference between
the starting-points of the Hindu Zodiac and that of Ptolemj', which reckons
from the equinox. This explanation is so simple and natural that it must be true.
"We do not know whether Hermes, so celebrated in antiquity, was a Hindu, but we
see that the observations attributed to him are reckoned in the Hindu manner, and
we conclude that they were made by the Hindus, who, therefore, were able to make
all the observations we have enumerated, and which we find noted in their Tables.
6th. The observation of the year 3102, which seems to have fixed their epoch,
was not a difficult one. We see that the Hindfis, having once determined the
moon's daily motion of 13° 10' 35", made use of it to divide the Zodiac into 27 constellations,
related to the period of the moon, which takes about 27 days to
describe it.
It was by this method that they determined the positions of the stars in this
Zodiac; it was thus they found that a certain star of the Lyre was in 8^ 24°, the
Heart of the Hydra in 4*" 7", longitudes which are ascribed to Hermes, but which are
calculated on the Hindu Zodiac. Similarly, they discovered that the Wheat-ear