!8 The Mahabharata : A Criticism.
wrongly assigned this date to this event in order that it
may not be possible to contend that the Rashis were
borrowed from the Greeks, with whom India came into
contact in 323 B.C., for the first time, and whose con-
nection with this country lasted for about three centuries.
How far Indian astronomy is indebted to the Greeks, is
a subject on which much has been written on both sides.
This much cannot, however, be denied that Indian
astronomy derived a fresh impetus and received a new
direction from its contact with Greek astronomy. All
the Siddhantas, which give methods for calculating the
exact positions of the planets, date subsequent to 300
B.C., as, Dixit himself has admitted. Now these
methods are based on the division of the ecliptic into
Rashis and degrees, and not on the division of the
ecliptic into Nakshatras hitherto prevalent in India. The
conclusion is thus very strong that the Rashis must have
been borrowed from the Greeks. Dixit in denying this
conclusion relies on two arguments chiefly. (P. 515-16.)
He says that the Rashis have Sanskrit names, and
secondly, that as Aries or Mesha is made to begin with
the constellation Ashwini, this connection must have been
established, according to his calculation, about 471 B.C.
Now Dixit has forgotten to notice the fact that the
Sanskrit names of the Rashis are the exact equivalents
of their Greek names. The figures (the Ram, the Bull,
&c.) which are supposed to be formed by the constella-
tions (Ashwini, &c.) are all imaginary ones, a fact also
admitted by Dixit himself. How can it be possible,
then, that two nations independently imagined the same
figures ? The names of the Rashis, though in Sanskrit,