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w^.

HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY

Preservation facsimile

printed on alkaline/buffered paper

and bound by

Acme Bookbinding

Charlestown, Massachusetts

2005

ANCIENT CALENDARS
AND CONSTELLATIONS

By the Hon. EMMELINE M. PLUNKET

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY. ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1903

PREFACE

The Papers here collected and reprinted, with
some alterations, were not originally written as a
series; but they do, in fact, form one, inasmuch
as the opinions put forward in each Paper were
arrived at, one after the other, simply by following
one leading clue.

This clue was furnished by a consideration of
statements made by Professor Sayce in an article
contributed by him in 1874 to the Transactions
of the Society of Biblical Archaology.

At page 1 50 he thus wrote : —

''The standard astrological work of the
Babylonians and Assyrians was one consisting of
seventy tablets, drawn up for the Library of Sargon,
king of Agane, in the i6th century bx.**

▼ii

Calendar, and of the origin of the Zodiacal signs
in that country."

Not many years after this sentence had been
penned, archaeologists, as the result of much
evidence, came to the firm conviction that the
date of Sargon of Agane was far earlier than
had been at first supposed ; and it was placed by
them, not "in the i6th century B.C.," but at the
high dale of 3800 b.c.

It was in endeavouring to account for the choice

PREFACE ix

by Accadian astronomers of Nisan as first month
of the year, and of Aries as first constellation of
the Zodiac, at a date when that month and con-
stellation could not have ''introduced the spring,"
that a possible solution of the difficulty presented
itself to my mind — namely, the supposition that
the Accadian calendar had been originated when
the winter solstice, not the spring equinox,
coincided with the sun's entry into the con-
stellation Aries. This coincidence took place, as
astronomy teaches us, at the date, in round numbers,
of 6000 B.C

In the first Paper here reprinted this supposition
was put forward ; and in the course of following, as
above stated, the clue afforded by it, the various
subjects discussed in successive Papers claimed
always more insistently my attention, as by degrees
detached pieces of information concerning the
calendars of ancient nations came to hand, and
fitted themselves, like the pieces of a dissected
map, into one simple chronological scheme.

duced in the scenery of nightly skies, millennium
after millennium, by the slow apparent revolution
of the "Poles of heaven" through the constella-
tions — a revolution referred to by English
astronomers as "the precession of the equinoxes,"
and more graphically and epigrammatically by
French astronomers as " le mouvement des
fixes."

In the second part of this book diagrams have
been given, made from a precessional globe, and

PREFACE xi

in the explanatory notes which accompany the
Plates attention has been directed, not only to the
chronological problems which may be discussed
with great advantage, as I believe, by the help
of such a globe, but also to various astronomical
explanations of ancient myths which occurred to
me in the course of studying the position of
Zodiacal and extra-Zodiacal constellations at
different ages of the world's history.

I can only read Classic and Oriental myths
in translations, and I feel very sure that if any
of the astronomic explanations here suggested for
ancient legends should prove to be the right
ones, scholars versed in the original languages
in which these legends were written, if they supple-
ment their linguistic knowledge by astronomic
considerations, will be able quickly and with ease
to develop the suggested explanations much further
than it has been possible for me to do; and ex-
planations of other astronomic myths — astronomic,
that is, and not merely solar myths — will doubdess

xii PREFACE

come to their minds as they follow similar lines
of enquiry.

The steps by which travellers arrive at a far-
reaching view are often very steep and arduous.
I fear that many readers of this book will find the
separate Papers in it dull and technical in them-
selves; but if they be considered only as steep
and roughly-cut steps leading up to vantage points
of chronological and historical observation, I
believe that the ruggedness of the path will soon
be forgotten in the absorbing interest of the results
to be obtained by following it.

CONTENTS

PART I

I. THS ACCADIAN CALKNDAR

II. THS CONSTBLLATION ARIES

III. GU, SLXVXNTH C0N8TKLLATI0N OP THK ZODIAC

IV. THE MEDIAN CALENDAR AND THE CONSTELLATION

TAURUS .....

V. ASTRONOMY IN THE RIG VEDA .

▼I. NOTES.— AHURA MAZDA, ETC

VII. ANaENT INDIAN ASTRONOMY

VIII. THE CHINESE CALENDAR, WITH SOME REMARKS WITH
REFERENCE TO THAT OF THE CHALDEANS

PART II

PACK
I

56
88

149
163

185

PLATES XV., XVI., XVIL, AND XVIII.

PLATES XIX., XX.
PLATE XXL

PLATE XXII.

PLATE XXIIL

PLATE XXIV.

INDEX

215
336

245
257

XIU

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATS I. .

To/iuepag* 13

PLATE 11. .

PLATB III. .

PLATE IV. .

PLATt V. .

PLATl VI. .

PLATE VII. .

PLATE VIII.

PLATE IX. .

PLATE X. .

111

PLATE XI. .

i»4

PLATE XII. .

■4>

PLATE XIIL

« 174

PLATE XIV.

198

THE OIDO dressed

Pagt 319

POETIOH OF CEILIMC AT EVBAK EL MOLOOK Tofaapagt 133

BOLL APIS .

/"WW

XVI

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

OUTLINES OF TWO CARVED SLATES DRAWN FROM

PLATES I, AND III. IN TAs Praciidings of thi
Society of Biblical Archaology FOR MAY 1900

THE CONSTELLATION PEGASUS
PLATE XV. .

PLATE XVI.

PLATE XVII.

PLATE XVIII.

PLATE XIX.

PLATE XX. .

PLATE XXI.

PLATE XXII.

PLATE XXIII.

PLATE XXIV.

Pagi 237
I, 250
At End

ANCIENT CALENDARS AND
CONSTELLATIONS

PART I
I

THE ACCADIAN CALENDAR

[Reprinted from the Proaedings of the Society of Biblical

Archaohgy^ January 1892]

Epping and Strassmaier, in their book Astrano-
misches aus Babylon, have lately translated three
small documents, originally inscribed on clay tablets
in the second century B.C. From these tablets, we
learn that the Babylonians of the above date pos-
sessed a very advanced knowledge of the science
of astronomy. Into the question of the extent of
that knowledge we need not here enter further

the year, we find that the order and names of
the twelve months were as follows : Nisannu (or
Nisaii), Airu, Simannu, DCizu, Abu, Ululu, Tischritu,
Arah-samna, Kislimu, Tebitu, Sabatu, Adaru.

Of these months UKilu and Adaru could be
doubled as Ululu Sami (the second Elul), and
Adaru Arki (the last Adar). The Babylonian
years were soli-hinar : that Is to say, the year
of twelve lunar niontlis, containinfj three hundred
and fifty-four days, was bound to the solar
year of three hundred and sixty-five days by

PART I.] CALENDAR 200 B.C. 3

intercalating, as occasion required, a thirteenth
month.

Out of every eleven years there were seven
with twelve months, and four with thirteen months.
The first day of the year being, like some of our
church festivals, dependent on the time of the
new moon, was ** moveable" {sckwankende). The
year, according to the tablets before Epping and
Strassmaier, '^ began with Nisan^ hence in the
spring '^^

This is a sketch of the Babylonian calendar
in the second century B.C., as drawn from the
work of the two learned Germans above-
named.

Now we find in the British Museum a great
number of trade documents which, according to
the Catalogue, "cover a period of over two
thousand years." There are ''tablets of the
time of Rim-sin, Hammurabi, and Samsu-iluna ;
tablets of the time of the Assyrian supremacy,
of the time of the native kings, and of the time

1 " Was den Anfang des Jahres betriffl, so haben wir schon
gezeigt, das die seleucidische Aera, wie sie in unseren drei Tafeln
vorliegt, ihre Jahre mit dem Nisan, also im Friibjahr begann."
(Epping and Strassmaier^ Astronomisches aus Babylon^ p. i8x).

,S.,r, (

\ He!

1 (or Bar) itg'gtw ("the sacrifice of

righteousness ").
KiKtr-sidi (" the propitious bull "').
iAfiiii-i:,i ("of bricks"), and A'.is C'the
\

. Ainkh-tii;ikni l

u ii,/->

s").

("seiicr of seed ").
.■l/','/'-.'i/-("rirc lh:U makes tire -N
A7 t:iiiq:i--n.i ["the crrnnd of Ist.ir ">
/"/^/.v/V'iheholyahar";-
.■l/>/„-„i.: .((■■ihe bull-IJke founder:-";

(,'.(/( :,;ii//i,i ■. " (he very cloudv "'.
-JA'w ii.f.fii i."tlie fiither of li;;ht"',l
.■;>'■-, r// ("abundance of rain';.
."■V hisil ," soiiin;; of seed ' ).
•■•■,-,/.■>■ (•■ dai k [momh] of sowinj; ).
—R,;oids oj the Past, vol. i. p. [(

FAIT Ll CALENDAR 2000 B.C. 5

find in the almanacs translated by Epping and
Strassmaier, and we meet in them, and in other
historical inscriptions, with the intercalary months,
the second Elul, and the second Adar. It would
seem, then, that it was the same calendar, worked
in the same way, that held its place through these
two thousand years.^

^ As evidence of the antiquity of a fixed calendrical method
of counting the year, and of a method closely resembling, if not
identical with, that used in the latest periods of Babylonian
history, the importance and trustworthiness of these documents
can scarcely be over-rated. They were inscribed on soft clay
(which was afterwards baked either by sun or fire), many of them
four thousand years ago. No correction or erasure can have
been made in them since that date. A translation of one of
these tablets as given at p. 75 in the Guide to the Nimroud
Central SaUon^ is here given as an example of the style of many
others.

"No. 3. Tablet and outer case inscribed with a deed of
partnership or brotherhood between §ini-Innanna and Iriba"^Sin.

"Tablet §ini-Innanna and Iriba°^Sin made brotherhood;
they took a judge for the ratification, and went down to the
temple of the sun-god, and he answered the people thus in the
temple of the sun-god: 'They must give Arda-luMmar-§amaS
and Antu-liSlimam, the property of Iraba'"-§in, and Ardu-ibSinan
and Antu-am-anna-lamazi, the property of §ini-Innanna.' He
proclaimed [also] in the temple of the sun-god and the moon-
god: 'Brother studl be kind to brother; brother shall not be evil
towards, shall not injure, brother ; and brother shall not harbour
any angry thought as to anything about which a brother has
disputed.^

"They have invoked the name of Innannaki, Utu, Marduk,

documents of this class ; ' Monih Adar of the year when Ham-
murabi the king made (imnges oQ Innanna and Nana.' "

' Sargon I, of Accad «as of Semitic race. He was established
as ruler in the city of Accad, and there reigned over a great
non-Semilic race, in ancii:nt cuneiform inscriplions styled the
Atcutfiii (Accadians). 'i'his word, as scholars tell us, carried the
meaning of " higlilandurs," or " mountaineers." PVom this fact it
is inferred they were not Jndigonous to the low plain surrounding
the city of Accad, to which tliey gave their name. Their lan-
guage contain^, few words for the produrtiozis of the almost
tropical climate of Babyl'inia, but it shows familiarity with those
of higher latitudes. At the time when Sargon, cither by peaceful
or warlike arts, was established as ruler over the Accadians,
they were alrc.idy a very highly civilized people. They possessed
a literature of their own, which embraced a wide variety of
subjects. The learning of the Accadians was highly esteemed,

PART I.] CALENDAR 8800 B.C. 7

In these ancient astrological works, the same
calendar referred to in the trade documents, and
in the late Babylonian almanacs, appears to obtain.
We find in them the same year of twelve lunar
months, reinforced at intervals by a thirteenth in-
tercalated month, and, which is very important, the
order of the months is always the same. Nisan
(Accadian Barzi|^-far), everywhere appears as
^'the first month," and is distinctly stated to be
"the beginning of the year."*

As early as the year 1874, Professor Sayce
pointed out that there was good reason for sup-
posing that the twelve Babylonian months corre-
sponded to the twelve divisions of the Zodiac. At
page 161 of his Paper, The Astronomy and

and translations into the Semitic language were made of important
religious and scientific Accadian works. These works, down to
the latest days of Babylonian power, were preserved and venerated,
and many copies of them were made and preserved in public
libraries in Babylonia and Assyria.

The Accadian after Saigon's date gradually dropped out
of general use, and became a "learned" language, holding
amongst Babylonians and Assyrians much the same position as
Latin and Greek amongst Europeans.

^ See Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaology^ 1374.
Paper entitled, The Astronomy and Astrology of the Baby-
lonians, Prof. Sayce, p. 358, W.A.I. iii. 60,

Tortoise (in lieu of the Crab), a female figure with

wings, the Scorpion, the Archer, and the Goat-fish,
are all portrayed, not only on boundary stones, but
also on cylinder seals and gems.

Again, in the old astrological works, we find
mention of the Scorpion " Gir-tab," and of the
Goat-fish " Muna-xa," and as planets are said to
"approach to." and "linger in," the stars of Gir-
tab and of Muna-xa, it may well be supposed that
they were the Zodiacal constellations still repre-
sented under the forms of Scorpion and Goat-fish.

FAIT I.] ANCIENT CALENDAR SmEREAL 9

Out of the many star-groups mentioned in the
old tablets, only a few have as yet been certainly
identified with their modern equivalents. As to
the identity of others, we may guess. For instance,
when it is said '' Mercury ^ lingered in the constella-
tion Gula," we may guess that Gula represents
Aquarius, which sign in the Epping and Strass-
maier tablets figures as *' Gu.**

From all these sources of information, we gather
that the twelve divisions of the ecliptic had been
mapped out at the time the astrological works were
drawn up, and that some (at least) of these divi-
sions corresponded exactly to those now repre-
sented on celestial globes.

The suggestion, therefore, put forward by Pro-
fessor Sayce and other scholars, that the twelve
Accadian months corresponded to the twelve
constellations of the Zodiac, and that we may
trace a resemblance in some instances between
the name of' the month in the old Accadian lan-
guage and the constellation into which the sun
at that time of the year entered, is not in itself
improbable.

^ Infra^ p. 47, note.

century, b.c., correspond with each other in order

and sequence as above suggested, and if further
research should establish the fact that they so
corresponded in Sargon's time, then as we find
Nisan (Bar zig-gar) throughout ali these ages
holding the place of "first nionlh," and marking
"the begiiming of the year," it will necessarily
follow that the Accadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian
calendars dt.'ali with a sidereal and not a tropical
year.

Ours is a tropaal year, that is to say, according

PART I.] MODERN CALENDAR TROPICAL 1 1

to the Julian calendar (afterwards amended by Pope
Gregory) it is bound to the seasons^ and its months
maintain a constant relation to the four great divi-
sions of the ecliptic, i.e. the solstices and the
equinoxes. The winter solstice always falls about
the 22nd of December, the spring equinox about
the 2 1 St of March, the summer solstice about the
2istof June, and the autumnal equinox about the
23rd of September.

But (as has been suggested) the Accadian year
was a sidereal year, and its months maintained a
constant relation to the twelve star-marked divi-
sions of the ecliptic, or, as they are called, the
constellations of the Zodiac. Nisan always cor-
responded (as closely as a lunar month might)
to the time during which the sun traversed the
constellation Aries ; Airu to the time during which
it traversed the constellation Taurus; and so on
through the twelve months of the yean

The equinoctial points are, however, always,
though slowly, changing their position amongst the
twelve constellations of the ecliptic. The months,
therefore, which in 3,800 B.C., and still in the second
century B.C., corresponded to the same star-groups,

begun without any reference to the seasons — the
four great and most easily observed divisions of
the ecliptic.

It is difficult to imagine that the astronomers
who so skilfully divided the ecli[)tic into its twelve
parts, and who originated the wonderful Accadian
calendar — a calendar so well thought out that, as
we have seen reason to believe, it resisted all the
shocks of time for nearly four thousand years — it
is difficult to imagine that such astronomers should
have taken no note of the four prominent divi-

The first anii lasl months of the Accadi.in, sidereal, year, cor7:p:ired u
months of the Gregorian, tropical, year ; at 6,ocx) is.c. and at 600 .'

PAiT I.] SOLSnCE IN ARIES 6000 B.C. 13

sions of the year and of the ecliptic, i.e. the
solstices and the equinoxes.

There is, however, a way to account for this
anomaly, or, rather, there is a supposition which,
if adopted, will allow these astronomers of old to
have taken note, not only of the months, but also of
the seasons of the year, when first they drew up
their mighty scheme.

Let us suppose that the calendar which, as we
may learn from the astrological tablets, was already
in Sargon's time a well known and venerated
institution, had been originally drawn up at a date
much earlier than Sargon's, when the first month
(Bar zig-gar), was not the first spring month, but
when it was the first winter month of the year.
This date (see Plate I., fig. would have been about
6,000 B.C. ; for then the sun entered the constella-
tion Aries at the winter solstice — a season equally
well, if not better suited than the spring equinox
to hold the first place in the calendar. ^ Under this

' After this paper had appeared in the Proceedings of the
Sadiiy of Biblical Archceolagy, a corroboration of this opinion
occurred to the writer's mind, suggested by a further study of the
month names in the Accadian calendar. It is as follows : —

The twelfth month is named " sowing of seed." Seed may be

the concluding days of March and some of the firat days of April ;

and those days are certainly much lighltr, not darker than those
of the preceding month, covering parts of February and March,
whereas, the thirteenth intercalary month in a luni-solar year, whose
beginning should be bound to the winlcr solstice, must always
cover the concluding days of December and those at the begin-
ning of January ; and might well be distinguished by the epithtt
dark, not only from the days of the [(receding uiontli, but indeed
from those of any other month of the yoar (see Plate I., figs, i, 2.)
It is of interest here to note that this insistence in Accadian
month nomenclature on the darkness of the thirteenth month,
tends to confirm the already formed opiiiion of scholars, that the
Accadians we/e nut indigenous to Habyloiiia, but had dcscendid
into it from more northern latitudes, where darkmss is a more
marked concomitant of winter than in the nearly tropical lati-
tude of liabylonia.

PAET L] STARS RECEDE FROM SEASONS 1$

calendar makers 6,000 b.c, if we take for granted
that they were not acquainted with the fact that
slowly but inevitably the seasons must change their
position amongst the stars, and that, not knowing
this, they believed that in making the beginning of
the year dependent on the sun's entry into the
constellation Aries^ they were also binding it to the
season of the winter solstice.

As centuries rolled by, however, and slowly the
stars of Aries receded from the winter solstice,
Bar zig-gar was no longer the first month in the
sense of being the first winter month. Still, the
authority of the originators of the calendar held
sway ; provision had been only made for counting
the year as a sidereal year; and Bar zig-gar, or
the month in which the sun entered Aries, was
still called the first month, and looked on as the
beginning of the year.

To carry out the reformation of any long estab-
lished calendar is, we know, not a trifling under-
taking. Even on secular grounds, any proposed
reform encounters strong opposition. But the
calendar in Babylonia was not only a civil, it was also
a religious, institution. Its origin was attributed

changing ages.

' Records of thi Past. New series. Vo). i. p. 145.

- In modern works we find the terms "useless," "fanciful,"
and " inconvenient," applied to llie Zodiac and its constellations ;
and for regulating a tropical year the constellations nrt " useless "
and "inconvenient," but the theory that the reckoning of the
year and all its religious festivals depended on the observance
of the Zodiacal star-groups, would help to accoujil for the widely
spread VL-neration in which they were held throughout so many
ages and by so many nations.

^ TranSiUtioris of the Sodcly of Bibliml Aniucolog}-, 1874,
Pi'. '5°. 'S'-

' Epping and Slrnssmaier, Ailronomisches nus Balnloii,
p. 161, {Auf Gehfiss von Bel und Bcllii ineinir Hcrrin, lim
Sntscheidiing.)

PART I.] EQUINOX IN ARIES 200 B.C. i?

But during all the ages the winter solstice
moved on steadily through almost a quarter of
the great circle of the ecliptic,* and in the second
century B.C., the spring" equinox was not far from
the same point of the star-marked ecliptic where

^ This moving of the equinoctial point through a quarter of
the great circle may perhaps explain the tradition to which
Syncellus twice alludes, once when he states that Eusebius was
aware of the Greek opinion that many ages, or rather myriads
of years had passed since the creation of the world, during the
mythical retrograde movement of the Zodiac^ from the beginning of
Aries^ and its return again to the same point (jChronographia^ p. 1 7.)

And again at p. 5a, he refers to " the return of the Zodiac to
its original position, according to the stories of the Greeks and
Egyptians, that is to say, the revolution from one point back again
to the same point, which is the first minute of the first division
of the equinoctial sign of the 2^odiac, which is called KpOb^
(Aries) by them, as has been stated in the Genica of Hermes
and in the Cyrannid books."

He goes on to say that this is the ground of the chronological
division of Claudius Ptolemy.

Jean Silvain BaiUy, speaking of the Indian Zodiac, the begin-
ning of which is placed by the Brahmins at the first point of
Aries, suggests that a similar tradition may have prevailed amongst
the Indians and other ancient nations to account for the pre-
eminence so generally accorded to Aries. He says :

"Mais pourquoi ont-ils choisi cette constellation pour la
premiire? II est evident ^ue c'est une afbire de prtf jugtf et de super-
stition ; le choix du premier point dans un cercle est arbitraire. lis
auront €x€ dfeid^ par quelque ancienne tradition, telle par
example que celle que Muradi rapporte d'apris Albumassar et
deux anciens livres ^gyptiens, od on lisoit que le monde avoit €Xii

out and originated at a date not later than 6,000 b.c.

The first proposition is founded on the opinion,

rcnouvellii apres le deluge lorsque le soleil etoit au 1° du bclier,
njgulus ijtant dans le colure dts sohlkes. D'Herbelol ne parle
point di; rcgulus; mais il dit (]iic selon Albumassar les sept
planetes ctoient un conjoiiction au premier point du belief lors
dc la cri-ation du iiionde. Cettc tradition, sans doute fabuleusc,
qui venoit des nii-mes pri^jugcs que celle de Bi^rose, etoit asiatique.
Ellc a pu suffire, ou telle autre du meme genre, pour fonder la
prijference que les brames, ou les anciens en general, ont donn^e
k la constellation du belief, en i'etablissant la premiere de leur
zodiaque, lis onl cru que cc |ioint du zodiaque etoit une
source de renouvellement, et ils ont dil que le zodiaque et
I'ann^e se renouvelloienl au menie point oil le monde s'^loit
riginiii." (Bailly, Ilistoire dt fAstronomie Ancienne, pp. 481,

PiutT I.] ARIES, LEADER OF THE SIGNS 19

long ago expressed by many Oriental scholars, that
the Accadian months corresponded in very early
ages with the constellations of the Zodiac, Nisan
— the month during which the sun was in conjunc-
tion with the constellation Aries — holding the first
place then, as also in the latest times of Babylonian
history, and, presumably, through the intervening
period.

But even if the first proposition is granted, the
second, it must be confessed, is only an opinion
based on the unlikelihood that the old Accadian
and sidereal year, otherwise so skilfully dealt with
in the calendar, should have begun, in what would
appear to be a haphazard manner, at no definite
season of the year.

It may seem that too much weight has been
attached in this Paper to what can only be called
a guess; but where there is so much that we
desire to know, and so little as yet absolutely
known of the early history of astronomy, the
temptation to make such guesses is great

It is to their earliest heroes and to their gods
that the ancient heathen nations attributed the
invention of astronomy, and amongst the Jews

eminent astronomer) have contended for the view

that not by any one nation were the chief advances
in astronomy made, but that before the great races
of mankind separated from the parent stock, and
spread themselves over the globe, the phenomena
of astronomy had been closely observed, and
scientific methods for measuring time had been
adopted. Bailly speaks of " une astronomic per-
fectionnde," of wliich only " les debris" are to be
met with in possession of the civilized races of

PART I.] ANTEDILUVIAN ASTRONOMY 21

antiquity. He claims an antediluvian race as the
originators of astronomic science.

It may seem a bold suggestion to place the
formation of the calendar at a date so high as
6,000 B.C., a date exceeding as it does by 2,000
years that given to us in the margin of our Bibles
for the story of the fall of man and his expulsion
from Eden. It was in following Archbishop
Usher's calculations that the date of 4,004 was
adopted and placed, where it still remains, in
our English Bibles. But the difficulty of determin-
ing the early dates of Bible history has always
been felt to be very great, and " it is quite possible
to believe that Genesis gives us no certain data for
pronouncing on the time of man's existence on the
earth." ^ Scholars, in basing their calculations on the
authority of Scripture, have arrived at very different
conclusions. Some only demand 3,616, others 6,984
years, as required from Scriptural sources for ** the
years of the world to the birth of Christ"*

^ Introduction to the Pentateuch, by E. Harold Browne, D.D.,
Bishop of Ely. Holy Bible, with Commentary, edited by F. C.
Cook, M.A., Canon of Exeter.

' The following extracts are taken from the Preface to An
Universal History from the Earliest Account of Time to the Present :

tion of the antiquities of nations, and the records that have been
left us, those of the Jews, exclusive of their divine authority, will
evidently appear to be the most certain and autlicntick. . . . How-
ever it must be confessed that there is no certain uniformity in the
Jewish computation, and that the several copies of their records,
it'z., the Hebrew, h^amnritan IVntatruch, and Scptuagint differ
very much from one .Tiioihcr. . . . This variety of computations
hath k-ft room fur flirnnologer^ to enlarge or tontr^rt the space
ofliiiii- bet«i.\t the flood and ilie Liirih of Christ, i>y adhfring to
one cojiy rather than .iihiiIkt; or by rLjectinj; or retaining the
whole numbers, or the ]iarncul.irs, just as it suiifd iheir humour
of makiny the Sacred History agree "iih the I'mphane ; or other-
wise of reducing the !'io]ihane to the Sacred, and as the disagreu-
nienl aniony the bcaiben writers is ^rcat also, and every author
hath followed the historian he liked best, hence a wide difference

PAET L] " KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL;* 23

rather may open up for us fresh lines of thought,
when we read of that transgression in which the
pride of intellect played so important a part.

hath arisen amongst modem Chronologers as appears by the
various computations . . . which we here Rive as collected by
Strauchius, Chevreau, and others. It would be endless as well as
unnecessary here to examine into the particular causes of this
great difference amongst authors, every one still pretending to
ground his system on the authority of the Scripture.

A Table of the years of the world to the birth of Christ,
according to th^ computations of several chronologers.

Alphonsus, King of Castile, in Mulleins Tables . 6,984

The same, in Strauchius 6,484 9 months

Onuphrius Panvinius 6,310

Suidas 6,000

Lactantius, Philastrius 5,801

Nicephorus 5»7oo

Clemens Alexandrinus 5,624

The author of the Fasti Siculi .... 5,608 9 months

Isaac Vossius, and the Greeks .... 5,598

Etc. etc." „

THE CONSTELLATION ARIES

[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical

Archceology^ March 1893]

In the January number of the Proceedings of
the Society of Biblical Archcsology for last year,
under the title The Accadian Calendar, two pro-
positions were advanced : —

I. The Accadian year was counted as a
sidereal year.

II. The Accadian calendar was first thought
out and originated at a date not later than 6,000

B.C.

The fact that the sun's entry into the con-
stellation Aries appears to have marked through
many millenniums the beginning of the Accadian
year, was cited in support of the first proposition,
and the fact that the sun s entry into Aries coin-
cided about 6,000 B.C. with the winter solstice,
was relied on to support the probability of the

PAtT I.) ARIES NOT CONSPICUOUS 2$

second proposition, namely, that at the above date
the calendar, which so honoured the inconspicuous
constellation Aries, was first drawn up.

If we now find this inconspicuous part of the
heavens equally honoured by several nations in
very ancient times, we shall be led to think either
that these nations, independently of each other,
happened to observe and mark out the sun's
annual course through the heavens at exactly the
same date, and therefore chose the same point as
marking the winter solstice ; or we must suppose
that they derived their calendar and knowledge of
the Zodiac from observations originally made by
some one civilized race.

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 know-

= The initial point of tlie HinJu Zodiac (^ee Plate III.) is, about
9A degrees 10 the west of tlie boundary line of the constellation
Aries, as it is drawn on our celestial globes. One foot of Arieb,
however, extends beyond the boundary liiie, and touches a line
drawn through tlie initial point of the Hindu Zodiac and the
poles of the ecliptic. At page 131, the question of the date of the
fixation of this initial point i.s di^>cussed, 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 con-.lellation coincided with the
Hindu initial point, and not with ilie boundary line of the con-
stellation, as it is now drawn. Oeek and I^tin authors, writing in
the first century u.c, speak of the solstitial and equinoctial
colures, as being "at the eighth degree of the Zodiac," and these

PAiT 1.1 ARIES WTOELY HONOURED 27

" Mais pourquoi ont-ils choisi cette constellation
pour la premiere? II est Evident que c'est une
affaire de pr6jug6 et de superstition ; le choix
du premier point dans un cercle est arbitraire.
lis auront ^t^ d^cid^s par quelque ancienne
tradition."

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 incon-
spicuous 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 ap-
parent, and not a real difference. On the wonder-
ful agreement shown by so many nations, in their
choice of the stars by which they marked the
beginning of their Zodiacs, Dupuis relied to

statements, which have caused modern commentators much
perplexity (see Handhuch der Klassischen Alterthumswissen-
schaft; Zeitrtchnung der GrUchen und Romer^ 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.

antes d-peu-pr^s les memes ^toiles. II suffit, pour
sen assurer, de comparer les ^toiles designees dans
ia meme case de la division de chaque peuple.
On remarque aussi qu'ils ont pris tous, excepte
les Chinois, les memes etoiles, pour point initial de
la division, savoir, celles de la tcte du Belier. Les
Chinois, au contrairc, ont fixe le point initial dans
la partie du ciel dianietralemcnt op[)osee, vers les
pieds de la V'ierge et prcs YEp'i " (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

PART I.] ARIES MARKED A SEASON 29

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 con-
cerning 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 archaeological discoveries that have suc-
ceeded 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 re-
searches, their theories may well be disregarded.

to scholars. It is, however, admitted that they
were a people much given to the observation and
worship of the heavenly bodies, and that their
astronomy and mythology were very closely
interwoven wiih each other.

In the time of the Middle Empire, it seems,
the months in the civil year were not counted
as lunar months, but as months of thirty days
each. The year was not counted as a sidereal
year, but as one of three hundred and si.\ty days
— twelve months of thirty days — with five days

PAET I.] TWO CALENDARS IN EGYPT 31

added at the end of each year to bring up the
number to three hundred and sixty-five days. No
attention was paid to the odd hours and minutes
over and above the three hundred and sixty-five
days, which are occupied by the sun in completing
his annual course.

Mr Griffiths has remarked in the number of
the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical
Archaology for March 1892, that the hieroglyph
for month points to an originally lunar month,
and I would suggest that the star under the
first crescent seems to point also to a month
originally counted sidereally, i.e,, dependent upon
the conjunction of the sun and moon in some
particular star-group of the ecliptic. As a matter
of fact, the Egyptians made use not only of a civil
year such as has been above described, but also of
a sidereal year, counted from the heliacal rising of
Sirius, and it is perhaps possible that the months
in this sidereal year were counted as lunar months,
and the year treated as soli-lunar and sidereal.

In these two Egyptian calendars — so far as
they are at present understood — no reference to
the constellation Aries seems to be discernible.

ally strike the student of Egyptian symbolism.

Amen, the great god of the Theban triad
(Amen. Maut, and Chons), is sometimes represented
as ram-headed — his boat and his sceptre are always
adorned with a ram's head, and the great temple
to him, in conjunction with the sun, i.e. to
Amen-Ra. is approached through an avenue of
gigantic ram-headed sphinxes, and this is also
the case as regards the temple of Chons — the

PAET I.] AMEN'S RAM-HEADED SYMBOLS 33

moon-god — at right angles, and in close proximity,
to the great temple of Amen-Ra.

Scholars tell us that Horus, Isis, and Osiris,
— the Memphian triad — ^symbolized the diurnal
motion of the sun and other heavenly bodies,
and it need not appear improbable that the great
Theban triad, Amen, Maut, and Chons, should
have originally symbolized the annual course
of those same bodies through the constellations
of the Zodiac This would account for the pro-
minence of the Ram in connexion with the worship
of this triad — the Ram, which, as I have argued,
in many countries, and possibly in Egypt also,
marked the first division of the Zodiac and year.

A prayer to Amen is translated by G. Maspero
in the April number for 1891 of the Proceedings
of the Society of Biblical Archaology ; ^ from this
translation it would appear that Amen is implored
to bring the calendar into touch with the real
seasons of the year. If Amen represented a

^ " II ne me reste plus qu'i donner la traduction suivie du texte
(Pi4>yru8 Anastasi, iv., p. 10. L 1-5), dont je viens d'expliquer le
sens et le d^veloppement litt^raire.

"Viens k moi, Amon, me dilivrer de Tann^ f&cheuse, od le
dieu Shou (Shou tftait, i T^poque des Ramessides et plus tard,
le dieu du soleil solstitial, du soleil d'6t^ comme Brugsch Ta

light from any star of the constellation Aries
ever shining into the shrine of the god ; but it is
perhaps possible that the ceremony of " the great

montr^ fort ingenieusement) ne se liive plus, oil vient I'hiver oil
(■tait IV't^, 01! les mois s'tn vont hors leur place, oii les heiires
se brouillenl, oil les grands t'apjjellcnt, 6 Anion, oil les petils te
cherchent, oil ceux meme qui sont encore dans les bras de leur
nourrice, ceux-lii (crient) ; 'Donne les souffles 1 ' — Anion trouve
Amon dcoule, Amon e.il le sain devant qui marchent les souffles
agrt'ables ; il me donne d'etre comme I'aile du vautour, comme
la palette chargee des discours des Esptits pour les bergers dans
les champs, pour les lavfurs sur la bcrjje, pour les garde-chassc
qui sortent an tcrritoire des gazelles afin de lacer {le gibier)."

M. Maspero states that the latter lines of the text are injured
and difficult to decipher or to understand.

PAET I.] AMEN AND EGYPTIAN YEAR 35

feast-day of Amon Father," described by Ebers,
may have been devised by the votaries of Amen
as a means whereby they could honour the god,
as one presiding over the most propitious season
of the year, and also recall the sidereal connexion
of the god of the year with the, from times im-
memorial highly reverenced, constellation Aries.

At pp. 277 and 278 of Egypt, Descriptive,
Historical, and Picturesque, vol. ii., Ebers, having
referred to some figures represented on the walls
of a Memnonium in the Nekropolis erected by
Rameses II., exactly opposite to the Great Temple
of Karnak, observes : —

"Of these figures the inscription says: — *As
they approach the king their arms are filled with
choice produce and stores, and all the good things
that the earth brings forth are gathered by them
to add to the joy on the great feast-day of Amon,
the father.'"

"These words refer to the great 'feast of the
Valley' (heb en-ant), when, on the 29th day of the
second month of the inundation, the statue of Amon
was brought forth from the sanctuary with much
magnificence and solemnity, and conveyed across
the Nile to the Nekropolis, that the god might there

of their parents and forefathers ; and as, day after

day, millions of sans had gone to rest — as men do
— behind the realm of tombs in the Libyan hills,
the god himself was brought to do honour to his
departed ancestry, and to sacrifice to them."

The rising of the Nile in Egypt coincides very
closely with the season of the summer sohlice.
At the date of Rameses 11.- — a date not yet
unanimously agreed on by scholars, but which
may be safely placed between 1,400 and 1,100 B.C.
— the sun at the season of the summer solstice was
in the constellation Cancer (see Plate II.), and

p
II

ft!

''J

U
i
i

•5

PART I.] AMEN AND ARIES 37

two months later its place in the ecliptic was a
few degrees to the west of a point exactly op-
posed to the first stars of Aries and to the initial
point of the Indian Zodiac On the evening,
therefore, of the 29th day of the second month
of the inundation, when the sun had now sunk
behind the Libyan hills, and daylight had faded
sufficiently to allow them to show their light,^
the first stars of Aries rose above the eastern
horizon, and at midnight attained to the southern
meridian.

Thus at the season of all the year, when
Aries specially dominated the ecliptic, the statue
of the god Amen was, as we learn, brought
out of his dark temple shrine and carried in
procession to the Nekropolis, from whence the
constellation Aries — not hidden by obstructing
walls and columns — was fully visible ; and there
honour was done and sacrifice offered to ''Amon
Father."

But it may be said that we should under-
stand ''the second month of the inundation"

^ When the sun is about 7^ below the western horizon, stars in
the opposite quarter of the heavens begin to be visible.

of the Valley " was held at the end of the
second month of the actual inundation, or of
the second month of the sidereal year, the
stars of Aries presided over its "nocturnal"
solemnities.

Some scholars claim, however, that all Egyptian
festivals were swept round throuorh the seasons,
and the stars that marked those seasons, in the
course of fourteen or fifteen hundred years, inas-
much as they were firmly bound to the va^iie
calcndrical year of 365 days. If this was indeed

PART I.] FIXED AND VAGUE YEARS 39

so, it v^ould be difficult to imagine that Seti I. or
Rameses II. could have established the festival
in question as in any way connected with honour
to be paid to the constellation Aries ; for though
during the reign of Seti, and perhaps during the
early part of that of Rameses, the vague and
fixed years coincided more or less closely (see
Plate II.), yet before the death of Rameses they
were already so far apart that the ist Thoth
(vague) fell, not a fortnight later than the summer
solstice, but about a fortnight earlier; and there-
fore on the 29th day of the second month of the
vague year the stars of Aries would not have
risen until long after sunset, nor would any one
of them have culminated on the meridian at
midnight

If now we turn our attention to the temple
to Amen-Ra at Aboo Simbel, we may observe
that, unlike that to the same god at Karnak,
it is not oriented to any definite season of the
year. The rising sun shines into it now, and
must always have shone into the Holy of Holies
of that rock-hewn temple on the morning of a
day somewhat more than two months distant

both halts till it falls on the shrine itself in the very Holy of
Holies. Many theories are based on the orientation of the

temples, and Captain Johnston wished lo find on which day
in the spring of the year the phenomenon took place; so he
took his instruments, and we all went up to the temple before
dawn. It was the 36th February, The great hall, with its
tight Osiride pillars, was wrapped in semi-darknc-s. Still darker
were the inner hal! nnd shrine. Hehind the altar sat the four
gods, Amen, Horus, I'tafi, and Ramcses himself, now deified.
All the East «as a deep rosy flush; then that paled, and
a hard white light filled the sky. Clearer and whiter it grew,
(ill, with a sudden joyous rush, the siin swung up over the
low ridge of hill, and in an instant, like an arrow from the
bow of Phrebus Ai^ollo, one level shaft of light pierced
the great hall and fell in living glory straight upon the shrine
itself."— A. F. [Extract from the Pall .Vull Ga-MU, loth
April, 1892.]

PARTI.] TEMPLE ORIENTED TO ARIES 41

Amen-Ra, the sun when it penetrated into the
shrine of the temple at Aboo Simbel was in
conjunction with the first stars of the constella-
tion Aries^ and this fact must, it would seem,
encourage us to adopt the opinion put forward
above concerning the desire of Rameses II. to
honour that constellation in connexion with the
god Amen.

It would seem then that there are indications
in the mythology and in the history of the
Egyptians, of honour paid to the constellation
Aries, and as we further study the records of
antiquity, now within our reach, it will, I believe,
become evident that not only the Egyptians, but
also all the great civilized nations of the East,
had traditions of a year beginning when the sun
and moon entered the constellation Aries — such a
year as that in use amongst the Babylonians during
their long existence as a nation, and such as that
which is used by the Hindus in India to this
present day.

If we allow weight to these considerations, it
will be difficult to think that such a method of
reckoning the year — involving, as it did, the recog-

of the Zodiac, and of the first degree of Aries

as its initial point, their separation from the parent
stock must have been subsequent to the formation
of the scheme that dealt with a calendar based on
an observation of the colure of the winter solstice
at that point, and under this supposition the date of
6,000 B.C. becomes a foothold for the chronology of
ancient history. We should also be led to think of
the common ancestors of the civilized races not as
ignorant barbarians, but rather as men graced with
high intellectual gifts — men whose teachings have

PART I.] ZODIAC rUEHISTORIC 43

been handed down through all the ages to this
present day, and of whose imaginings the Zodiac
remains as the most ancient monument of the work
of intelligent man.

10. l,i^I (""•') = caper.

'1- l^* a-") = ampboM

[aq..ri. = ].

iz. ^ {z,b) = i>,bces.

Afilschn'jl fur Aifyrwhf^-ie, v B.iiiJ. 4 Hefl, 0.1

■ 1890, p. 35

PART I.] MEANING OF GU UNCERTAIN 45

Also in Epping and Strassmaier's work,
Astronomisches aus Babylon, under the heading
Die Zeichen des Thterkreises, pp. 170, 171,
and Namen der Sterne, pp. 174, 175, the
twelve abbreviations met with in the tablets are
discussed at some length.

From a study of the list here given and of
the passages referred to, we learn that it has been
found possible to suggest for some of the abbre-
viations suitable terminations, and in the completed
words thus obtained, the familiar constellations of
the Zodiac, as we know them, are easily to be
recognized.

As regards other of the abbreviations, and
amongst them that of {^* (Gu) for the eleventh
sign (Amphora or Aquarius), no termination has
been suggested ; and of it Strassmaier thus writes -}
p. 171: — ''Gu ist sonst fast ausschliesslich nur
als Silbenzeichen gu bekannt " ; and Jensen, dis-
cussing Epping and Strassmaier's constellation
list, writes thus of the abbreviation Gu for the
eleventh constellation : ^ " Ob Gu einen • Was-

^ Astronomisches aus Bafyhn,

' KosmohgU der BabylonUr, p. 314.

above referred to. But this fact, if it stood alone,

would not be enough to do more than point
to a possible identification of Gu in the late
tablets with Gula in the ancient astrological works.
Amongst the many constellations in the heavens
the name of more than one might have begun
with the syllable Ou.

We find, howe\'er, at a later page (206) of
Professor Sayce's Paper, this sentence translated
from W.A.I., 111. 57. i :—

' Tramiutions^ Biblical Archaolo^, vol. iii., February 1874.

PAiT I.] GU-GULA-BAU 47

" Jupiter* in the star of Gula lingers." None of
the five planets known to the Babylonians could ever
with truth have been described as appearing or
'* lingering" in any part of the heavens outside
the band of the Zodiac stars. '' The star (or con-
stellation) of Gula/' we must therefore assume, was
a Zodiacal star or constellation. This restriction
of the position of the ''star of Gula'* renders it
scarcely a rash conclusion to arrive at, that the
Zodiacal Gu of the later tablets is an abbreviation
for the Zodiacal Gula of the ancient astrological
works.

As to a mythological reason for the choice
of the goddess Gula to preside over the constellation
known to us as Aquarius, we find it in the fact
that Gula appears as another name for the god-
dess Bau ' and Bau (or Bahu) was a personification
of the dark water^ or chaos.

If we adopt this identification of the star or
constellation Gula with the constellation, or some
star in the constellation, Aquarius, it will throw light

^ Or, rather, "Mercury." See Epping and Strassmaier,
AstronmtUsches aus Badylon^ p. 112 et seq.

* Maspero, Dawn of CiviUtaHan^ p. 67a, notes i, a.

" To Ni'ngirsu, the powerful warrior of Ellilla

[this is dedicated] by Gudea, priestly governor of
Lagash, who has constructed the temple of Eninnu,
consecrated to Ningirsu.

" For Ningirsu, his lord, he has built the temple
of Ekhud, the tower in stages, from the summit of
which Ningirsu grants him a happy lot.

■' Besides the offerings which Gudea made of his
free will to Ningirsu and to the goddess Bau,
daughter of Anna, his beloved consort, he has made
others to his god Ningiszida.

' Evctts, Ne7v Li^ht on the Bible, p. i6i.

PART I.] NINIB AND BAU 49

'' That year he had a block of rare stone brought
from the country of Magan ; he had it carved into a
statue of himself.

" On the day of the beginning of the year, the
day of the festival of Bau, on which offerings were
made : one calf, one fat sheep, three lambs, six full
grown sheep, two rams, seven pat of dates, seven
sab of cream, seven palm buds.

'' Such were the offerings made to the goddess
Bau in the ancient temple on that day."

Ningirsu, the god — so highly exalted in this
and in other inscriptions found in the mounds of
Telloh — has been identified with the god. Ninib^ of
the Babylonians. Much difference of opinion pre-
vails as to what astronomical ideas were connected
by the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia with the
god Ninib.

Jensen admits that the generally received opinion
as to Ninib is that he represents the "southern
sun.'** He, however, contends, with great eager-
ness, that this is a mistaken opinion, and that Ninib
is really the eastern or rising sun. Many of Jen-
sen's arguments against the possibility of Ninib

' Masperoy Dawn ofCivititatum^ pp. 637, 645.
^ Jensen, Die Kosmohgie der BahylonUr^ p. 460.

winter solstice. And if we so understand the ex-
pression, the apparently contradictory references to
Ninib are easily explained.

At mid-winter tlie sun rises and sets more to
the south than at any other time of the year ; at
noon on the day of the winter solstice the sun is
forty-seven degrees nearer to the south pole of the
heavens than it is at the summer solstice.

If, instead of adopting Jensen's contention, and
looking upon Ninib as the eastern risini; sun, we
revert to the generally held opinion that Ninib was

PART I.] WINTER SOLSTICE IN AQUARIUS 51

the god of the southern sun, and if we understand
the southern sun in its astronomical sense as the
winter, or more strictly speaking the mid- winter
sun, it will naturally lead us to the conclusion that
"the day of the beginning of the year," the day
of the festival of Bau, Ningirsu's ( = Ninib's) "be-
loved consort,** was held at the time of the winter
solstice.

Speaking in round numbers, from 4,000 to 2,000
B.C., the winter solstice took place when the sun
was in conjunction with the constellation Aquarius,
which constellation, or some one of its stars, was,
as has been suggested, called by the Babylonian
astronomers, Gula, Gula being another name for Bau.

It is not therefore surprising to find that those
rulers of Lagash, whose dates fell between 4,000
and 2,000 B.C., should have so often associated
together Ningirsu and Bau ; and further, that
Gudea, whose rule is placed at about 2,900 b.c.,
should on "the day of the beginning of the year"
have kept high festival in honour of Bau, as the
beneficent deity presiding in conjunction with Nin-
girsu over the revolving years.

The precession of the equinoxes must neces-

Lagash inscriptions was not extended to her in
later times.

As to Ninib, wc know that even at Gudea's
date in the neighbouring state of Accad, and in
later times in Babylon, he did not hold the pre-
eminent position accorded to him by the early rulers
of Lagash.

This difference in the religious obstrvances of
Accad and Lagash regarding Ninib — if we suppose
him to be the god of the winter solstice — may also
receive an astronomical explanation.

PAW I.] ARffiS AND AQUARIUS S3

According to the evidence of The Standard
Astrological Work, the compilation of which is
generally attributed to the date 3,800 B.C., and
according to the evidence of many other tablets,
the year in Accad and afterwards in Babylon began
not at the winter solstice, but on the ist day of
Nisan, and Nisan (Ace. Bar zig-gar), the month
of *' the sacrifice of righteousness," was, as its name
suggests, the month during which the sun was in
conjunction with the constellation Aries.

At Gudea's date, about 2,900 B.C., the ist of
Nisan, if it was dependent on the sun's entry
into Aries, must have fallen about midway between
the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and as
century succeeded century, the ist of Nisan must
slowly but surely have receded further from the
solstice and have approached more and more to the
equinoctial point.

In Accad, therefore, neither at Gudea's nor at
any later date, did the year begin at the winter
solstice, and hence we can understand why in that
state, and afterwards in Babylon, Ninib was not as
highly honoured as in Lagash, and why he and
his consort Bau ( = Gula) were not referred to as

reform the sidereal calendar in use in Accad, and
it may be elsewhere.

In Accad the calendar makers clung to the
originally instituted slar-»iark for the year, and
made it begin with the sun's entry into Aries ;
therefore by degrees the beginning of their year
moved away from the winter solstice, and in the
first century li.c, coincided \'ery closely with the
spring equinox.

In Lagash, on the contrary, the calendar makers

PAET I.] RIVAL CALENDARS 55

clung to the originally established season of the
year, and made it begin at the winter solstice ;
therefore by degrees the beginning of their year
moved away from the constellation Aries, and in
Gudea's time the new year's festival was held in
honour of the goddess Bau=rGulazs Aquarius.

THE MEDIAN CALENDAR AND THE CONSTELLATION

TAURUS

[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical

Archaohgy^ fune 1897]

In a former number^ of these Proceedings I
contrasted as follows, what I believed to be the
calendar of the Accadians with that of the in-
habitants of Lagash : —

" In Accad the calendar makers clung to the
originally instituted star-mark for the year, and
made it begin with the sun s entry into [the
constellation] Aries ; therefore by degrees the be-
ginning of their year moved away from the winter
solstice, and in the first century B.C. coincided very
closely with the spring equinox.

"In Lagash, on the contrary, the calendar
makers clung to the originally established season

PART I.] EQUINOX IN TAURUS $7

of the year, and made it begin at the winter
solstice; therefore by degrees the beginning of
their year moved away from the constellation
Aries, and in Gudea's time [about 2,900 b.c] the
new year's festival was held in honour of the
goddess Bau = Gula = Aquarius. "

I now desire to draw attention to the Median
calendar, which appears to have differed from
that used, as above suggested, in Accad or in
Lagash ; inasmuch as the beginning of the Median
year was not dependent on the sun s entry into
the constellatian Aries^ as in Accad ; nor was it
fixed to the season of the winter solstice as in
Lagash.

The beginning of the Median year was fixed
to the season of the spring equinox^ and remain-
ing true to that season, followed no star-mark.
The great importance, however, of Tauric sym-
bolism in Median art seems to point to the fact
that when the equinoctial year was first established
the spring equinoctial point was in the constella-
tion Taurus. Astronomy teaches us that was the
case, speaking in round numbers, from 4,000 to
2,000 B.C,

"The 2ist of March, the impatiently antici-
pated day of the most joyous festival of Persia,
at last arrived. It is called the feast of the Now-
roose, or that of the commencement of the new
year; and its institution is attributed to the cele-
brated Jemsheed, who, accordin*^ to the traditions
of the country, and the fragments yet preserved
of its early native historians, was the sixth in
descent from Noah, and the fourth sovereign of
Persia, of the race of Kaiomurs, the grandson
of Noah. . . . But to return to the feast of the
Nowroose. It is acknowledged to have been cele-
brated from the earliest ages, in Persia, indepen-

PART I.] PERSIAN NOWROOSE 59

dent of whatever religions reigned there ; whether
the simple worship of the One Great Being, or
under the successive rites of Magian, Pagan, or
Mahomedan institutions." {Travels, vol. i. p. 316.)

This equinoctial and solar year, as the writer
proceeds to point out, is adhered to by the Per-
sians, though they, being Mahomedans, also cele-
brate Mahomedan lunar festivals, and for many
purposes make use of the Mahomedan lunar
year.

It is easy to see how greatly the Persian Now-
roose differs from the purely lunar Mahomedan
anniversaries — anniversaries which in the course
of about thirty-two and a half years necessarily
make a complete circuit through the seasons. The
difference, though not so marked, which exists
between the purely solar Nowroose, and all
soli-lunar festivals, such as those of the Baby-
lonians, should also be taken note of. These last,
like our Easter, were dependent on the phases of
the moon, and were therefore "moveable." The
Persian Nowroose, like our Christmas Day, is an
"immoveable" festival — fixed to the day of the
spring equinox.

and the spring equinox was the date to which as

closely as possible the beginning of their year was
fixed.

In Darmesteter's translation of the Zend Avesta
the Persian months are treated of in Appendix C,
p, 33, and in Appendix U, p. 3", we read of the
Persian years :—

" L'anncJe etait divisee en quatre saisons, corre-
spondant aux notres. Cette division nc paraft guere
que dans les textes post-avestecns ; mais il y a dans
I'Avesta meine des traces de son existence ancienne.

PAET I.] MITHRAS AND EQUINOX 6i

La division normale de Tann^e est, dans TAvesta,
en deux saisons, ^t6 et hiver ; V6t6, kama^ qui com-
prend les sept premiers mois (du i« Farvardtn au
30 Mihr, soit du 21 mars au 16 octobre). . . .
Cette division a une valeur religieuse, non seule-
ment pour le rituel, mais aussi pour les pratiques,
qui varient selon la saison."

The worship of the Persian sun-god Mithras
was introduced into Rome about the time of the
fall of the Republic. How far this worship differed
from that taught in the Zoroastrian writings we need
not inquire ; however changed it may have been,
it was evidently derived originally from a Persian
or a Median source. The worship of Mithras, in
spite of much opposition, gained many followers in
Rome. The birthday of the sun-god was kept at
the winter solstice, but the great festivities in his
honour, ^' the mysteries of Mithras^' were as a rule
celebrated at the season of the spring equinox,^

^ Cumont, in the first volume of his Monuments figuris relatifs
aux mysihrts de Mithra^ p. 326, having spoken of the solstitial
festival in honour of the birthday of the god, observes as follows :
'' Nous avons certaines raisons de croire que les ^uinoxes ^taient
aussi des jours i€x\i% oil Ton inaugiumit par quelque salutation le
retour des Saisons divinis^. Les initiations avaient lieu de pr^
f(6rence vers le d^but du printemps, en mars ou en avril. . ."

side opposite the door is seen a Httle elevation,
which served as the place for the usual statue of
Mithras in the act of thrusting his dagger into the
neck of the mystic Bull. A very singular peculi-
arity of this little Ostian mithriFttin is that it is
entirely covered with mosaics^pavements. seats,
and walls alike. The various figures and the
symbols are splendidly drawn, and all executed in
black tessera on a white ground. Upon each side
of the seats, turned to the entrance door, is figured
a genius bearing a lamp, that is, the genius of the

' Athenaum, 1886, October 30 and November 6.

PAET 1.1 MITHRAS SLAYS BULL 63

spring equinox, with the face raised, and that of
the autumn equinox, with the face cast down. . . .
It is known, in fact, that the whole myth of Mithras
is related to the phases of the sun . . . hence are
represented in the ground below the seats all the
twelve signs of the zodiac, by means of the usual
symbols, but each accompanied by a large star."

In the many sculptures of the Mithras group
similar to that above described, which have been
so well figured in Lajard's Culte de Mithras^
various heavenly bodies are represented. The
Scorpion (the constellation Scorpio of the Zodiac
opposed to Taurus) joins with Mithras in his attack
upon the Bull, and always the genii of the spring
and autumn equinoxes are present in joyous and
mournful attitudes.

In looking at these plates the conviction is
clearly forced upon our minds that the Bull so per-
sistently, and, it may be added, so serenely, slain
by Mithras in these Roman representations, is the
Zodiacal Bull, overcome, and as it were destroyed
or banished fcom heaven, in the daytime by the
sun-god, and at night by Scorpio, the constellation
in opposition. With almost equal conviction we

the mystic Bull," but again and again, in the bas-
reliefs adorning the walls, we do find a colossal
being thrusting his dagger into the body of a
still more "mystic" creature than the Bull of the
Roman sculptures — a creature combining in one
instance at least ' the attributes of Bull, Lion,
Scorpion, and Eagle, and frequently those of two
or more of these animals.

Perrot and Chipiez have supposed this con-
stantly repeated scene to represent imaginary

Pets^polii. Combat du roi/i du griRbn. Palaii n* 3.

Perrot « Chipiet HUMr* tU FArt dans FAniiguM,

Tome V. opposite page 547.

PART I.] BULL LION SCORPION EAGLE 65

contests between the reigning monarch and all
possible or impossible monsters, but a very
different impression was produced on the mind of
Ker Porter by these same bas-reliefs ; and though
he did not adopt a purely astronomic theory to ex-
plain them, he was firmly convinced that the combat
depicted was not one waged between an ordinary
human being and an ordinary or extraordinary
animal, but that it was a symbolical representation
of the combat constantly carried on by Ormuzd
(Ahura Mazda), and by his representative Mithras,
against the powers of evil and darkness.^

With the astronomic clue to Persian symbolism

^ " The man who contends with the animals ... is repre-
sented as a person of a singularly dignified mien, clad in long
draperied robes, but with the arms perfectly bare. His hair,
which is full and curled, is bound with a circlet or low diadem ;
and his sweeping pointed beard is curled at different heights, in
the style that was worn by majesty alone. . . . The calmness
of his air, contrasted with the firmness with which he grasps the
animals, and strikes to his aim, gives a certainty to his object, and
a sublimity to his figure, beyond anything that would have been in
the power of more elaborate action or ornament to effect From
the unchanged appearance of the hero, his unvaried mode of
attack, its success, and the unaltered style of opposition adopted
by every one of the animals in the contest, I can have no doubt
that they all mean different achievements towards one great aim.
. . ." — Ker Porter's Travels^ vol. i. p. 672.

marks for the summer and autumn seasons, when

the spring equinoctial point was in the Bull,' but
as regards the Eagle it must be admitted that
though it adjoins the Zodiacal Aquarius (the con-
stellation in which the winter solstitial point was
then situated), yet its principal stars lie consider-
ably to the north and west of that constellation.

A reason for the substitution of the Eagle

(Aquila) for the Zodiacal Water-man or Water-jar

' The solstitial and equinoctial colures were situated, speaking

in round numbers, for j.ooo years in (he constellations Taurus,

FAET 1.1 EAGLE FOR WATER-MAN 67

(Aquarius or Amphora) may, however, be found
in the fact of the very great brilliancy of the
star Altair in the Eagle. It is a star of the first
magnitude. In the Water-man there is no star
above the third. The Persians, we are told, had
a tradition that four brilliant stars marked the four
cardinal points {i.e. the colures). In Taurus, Leo,
and Scorpio we find stars of the first magnitude :
there was therefore no temptation for Mithraic
calendar makers and mythologists to seek for an
extra-Zodiacal star to mark and represent the
spring, summer, or autumn seasons; but for the
winter solstice the only stars of the first magnitude
within at all suitable distance were Aquila, to the
north-west, or Fomalhaut to the south of Aquarius.
For a nation dwelling as far to the north as the
Medians are supposed to have done, Fomalhaut
(when the winter solstice was in Aquarius very
far to the south of the equator) would have been
rarely visible. The choice by a Median astronomer
and symbolic artist in search of a very brilliant star
mark for the solstice would therefore have been re-
stricted to the constellation of the Eagle, containing
the conspicuous Altair, a star of the first magnitude.

by Jensen and other writers as a personification

of the sun of the spring equinox. The for ever
recurring triumph of spring over winter is probably
figured in Merodach's triumph over the Griffin.

The association of Hagle and Lion is to be
noticed in the arms of the city of Lagash ; they
were "a double-headed Eagle standing un a Lion
passant or on two demi-lions placed back to back." '
In Lagash, as was pointed out in a former paper, the
new year's festival appears to have been held at the
' MaiiptTO, Da'iVn of Ctvilizotw!, p. 6cj,

PART 1] GRIFFIN AND SOLSTICES 69

winter solstice : such a supposition would furnish an
astronomical interpretation for the arms of Lagash.^
Mythological references to the Eagle alone are
also to be met with which point to the Celestial
Eagle (Aquila) marking the winter solstice in lieu
of the constellation Aquarius, as for instance the
Babylonian legend of the ambitious storm-bird, Zu,^
who stole the tablets of destiny, and thus sought to
vie in power with " the great gods." Here we may
find allusions to the substitution (deemed by some,

^ In this connexion the following passage from Sayce's
Hibbtrt Lectures^ p. a6i, is interesting : —

A text copied for Assur-banipal, from a tablet originally written
at Babylon, contains part of a hymn which had to be recited '' in
the presence of Bel-Merodach ... in the beginning of Nisan," —

'*.... O Zamama,
Why dost thou not take thy seat ?
Bahu, the Queen of Kis, has not cried to thee.**

He adds in a note that Zamama was the Sun-god of Kis, and
was consequently identified with Adar by the mythologists. On
a contract-stone he is symbolized by an eagle, which is said to be
'* the image of the southern sun of Kis."

It was claimed in a former paper (Feb. 1 896) that " tfu Southern
sun " was '' (Ai sun of the winter solstict^^ and that Gula ( •> Bahu)
was the name of the constellation, or of some stars in the constella-
tion Aquarius (V. p. 50). In these lines Bahu, as I have sup-
posed, Aquarius, and Zamama, symbolised by the Ea^le^ the
image of the Southern sun or winter solstice^ are closely associated.

' Maspero, Dawn of Civiiitation^ p. 666.

If to the composite monster of the bas-reliefs
we ascribe an astronomic motive, we shall be ready
to grant the same to other Tauric symboHsms
prominent in the Persepohtan ruins.

With full conviction we shall recognize in l!ie
demi-bulls which crowned the columns in Persepolis
and Susa representations of the demi-buli of the
Zodiac. The resemblance is so striking that words
are scarcely required to point it out when once
the outlines of the two figures have been compared
( Plate V. ). In the spirited description of these

THE

ruNSTELLAnON

TADRDS

PART M PEHSEPOUTAN DEMI-BULLS 71

capitals, quoted here from Perrot and Chipiez,^ are
some lines, marked with italics, which might be
applied with exactness to the demi-bulls of the
Zodiac.

*'0n ne saurait cependant ne point admirer le
grand goOt et Tart ing^nieux avec lequel, dans ses
bustes de taureau, il [I'artiste perse] a pli6 la forme
vivante au necessit^s de la decoration architectural.
II a su la simplifier sans lui enlever laccent de la
vie; les traits caract^ristiques de Tesp^ce sur
laquelle s'est port^ son choix restent franchement
accuse, quoique les menus details soient ^limin^s ;
ils auraient risqu^ de distraire et de troubler le
regard. Les poils de la nuque et du dos, de
repaule, des fanons, et des flancs sont r^unis en
masses d un ferme contour, auquelles la frisure des
boucles dont elles se composent donne un relief plus
vigoureux ; en mdme temps le collier qui pend au
col, om6 de rosaces et d un riche fleuron qui tombe
sur la poitrine, 6carte toute id^e de r6alit6 ; ce sont
1^ des Stres sacrds et presque divins, que I'imagina-
tion de Tartiste a comme cr^^s k nouveau et modelds
k son gr6 pour les adapter k la fonction qu'elle leur
donnait k remplir. Cependant, tout plac6 qu'il soit
en dehors des conditions de la nature, I'animal n a

* Histoire <k i* Art dans Vantiquitk^ Perse, p. 519.

de mani^re ou d'autre, n'ait rendu hommage k
la noblesse et i I'^lrange beaut^ de ce type

singulier."

For the exquisite columns crowned by these
Tauric capitals the same writers have claimed a
distinctively Median origin. This claim they sus-
tain at great length, and with much architectural
learning. They show that in their proportions, and
in every detail of their ornamentation, the Perse-
politan differed from the Ninevite, Grecian, or
Egyptian column. They also point out that no-
where except at Persepolis and at Susa is the

PART I.] MEDIAN AND ASSYRIAN ART 73

demi-bull of the capital to be met with ; and
yet they express the opinion that this feature,
so far as is known proper to Persia, was mainly
derived from, or helped at least by, the models
of Assyria.

Very close resemblances can indeed be traced in
Medo- Persian to Assyrian art, and as the Medo-
Persian buildings, whose ruins are at Persepolis and
Susa, were erected certainly at a later date than the
palaces of the Assyrian kings discovered on the
site of N ineveh, it is natural to attribute, as Perrot
and Chipiez, and nearly all writers on the sub-
ject attribute, such resemblances to imitations of
Assyrian art and symbolism on the part of the
Medo- Persians.

There are, however, some considerations which
make it difficult to adopt this view. In the first
place, the symbolism supposed to have been copied
by the Medo- Persians was religious symbolism, and
the religion of the Aryan Medo-Persians was very
different from that of the Semitic Assyrians.

The Achaemenid kings who built their palaces
at Persepolis claimed constantly that they were
worshippers of the one great Lord Ahura Mazda,

see that, from the very day of the sacking of
the city, it had for the most part been left
just as it fell. It may have been rifled of its
material wealth, but its literary and artistic
treasures were left uncared for and undesired. A
few hundred years later the very site of Nineveh
was unknown.

The great city would not have been treated with
such neglect iiad the Medo- Persian artists turned
to it for inspiration and for themes of symbolic
art with which to decorate the palaces of Persepolis,

The Assyrian yod An

PLATE VI.

Fiaa

The Median god Ahura Muda.

na4.

Watera portioii of ConttdUtion Sagittariiu utd the
CoaitellUioD Corona AiutralU.

ITtfi-af. u

FAET I.] ASSYRIANS CX)PIED MEDES 75

The resemblance, however, between Medo-
Persian and Ninevite art is in many instances so
striking that some way of accounting for it must
be sought, and those who are dissatisfied with one
explanation will naturally look about to find some
alternative suggestion.

The alternative suggestion I would now pro-
pose is that the progenitors of the Assyrians at an
early period of the worlds history borrowed Tauric
and other religious symbolisms from the ancestors of
the Medes.

In support of this theory the following con-
siderations are put forward :

Tauric symbolism, if it is at all astronomic,
points us back to a very remote date for its first
institution, to a date considerably earlier than that
at which the existence of the Assyrian people as
an independent nation is generally put The sym-
bolism already discussed must, at the latest, have
been originated about 2,000 b.c. Of the Assyrians
as a nation we have no monumental proof earlier
than 1,700 B.C.

But further, in the symbol of Ahura and Assur,
I believe an astronomic reference may be traced

amples is similarly furnished ; but more often he

appears armed with bow and arrows. In this figure,
variously equipped, I believe that the heavenly
Archer, the Zodiacal Sagittarius (Plate VI. fig. 4),
is to be recognized^Sagitcarius, the constellation in
which the autumnal equinoctial point was situated,
speaking in round numbers, from 6,000 to 4,000 B.C.
The fact that a crown or wreath or ring often
replaces the bow and arrows in the hand of Ahura
and of Assur might at first sight make us doubtful
as to the connexion of the figure with the constella-

FART I.] AHURA MAZDA AND ASSUR jy

lion Sagittarius, but a glance at the celestial globe
will rather make this fact tell in favour of the astro-
nomical suggestion here made : for there we find
close to the hand of the Archer the ancient Ptole-
maic constellation Corona Australis (the Southern
Crown), actually incorporated with the Zodiacal con-
stellation Sagittarius.

Not only do Assur's bow and crown remind
us of Sagittarius, but his horned tiara, resembling
so closely that worn by the man-headed Assyrian
bulls, inclines us to look for some astronomic and
Tauric allusion in this Assyrian and Median
symbol.

True it is that, speaking generally, Gemini
and not Taurus is the constellation of the Zodiac
opposed to Sagittarius, but owing to the irregu-
larity in the shape and size of the portions assigned
in the ecliptic to the Zodiacal constellations, the
extreme western degrees of Sagittarius are opposed
to the extreme eastern degrees of Taurus. There-
fore about 4,000 B.c the equinoctial colure passed
through the constellations of the Archer and the Bull.

In the Assyrian Standard (depicted in
Layards Monununts of Nineveh, Plate XXII.)

Standard, that of Sargon il., we find not only

.Standard cif S.-it^'oti 11 . Kinj; of .\s,vrr.i, 7i;-70S PC.
51 et Chipicz. Jtiiloire de tArl dans t AnliquiU, Tome \
opposite page 508. !/,./.«,/.

PART I] ARCHER, BULL, UON, WATER-MAN 79

the Archer and the Bull, the two constellations
which 4,000 B.C. marked the equinoctial colure,
but we may also clearly trace a reference to the
two constellations which at the same date marked
the solstitial colure, namely, those of the Lion
and the Water-man (Plate VI L).

Here the Archer dominates over a circle in
which symmetrically duplicated Bulls appear, and
duplicated Lions' heads emerge out of what appears
to be a hollow vessel resembling a water jar ; the
wavy lines that traverse the disc suggest streams
that unitedly pour their waters into this jar. Below
the jar again are to be seen halved and doubled
heads, partly Lion and partly Bull.

This Standard of Assur may (like the Perse-
politan monster earlier described) be considered
as an astronomic monogram representing the four
constellations which marked the four seasons of
the year, and the four quarters of the earth.

The monogram of the Standard refers us back,
however, to an earlier date for its origin than
does the monogram of the composite animal in
the Persepolitan bas-relief, for in the Standard the
Archer is opposed to the Bull, in the bas-relief

symbolism in the Standard shown at Plate VII.
Earlier noi Leo and Aquarius, but Virg^o and
Pisces, would have marked the solstitial colure.
Later nol Sagittarius, but Scorpio, would have in
opposition to Taurus marked the equinoctial colure.
At this date, 4,000 k.c, suggested with such
curious accuracy by this Assyrian Standard, we
have absolutely no trace of the existence of the
Semidc tta/tot of the Assyrians in Northern Meso-
potamia. In Babylonia two hundred years later
the Semitic Sargon 1. ruled at Accad. In the

PLATE Vm.

Position of Colurei amongtt the Constellations U the date*
4,500-4,000 and 3,500 B.C.

PAtT I.] MANDA PROBABLY MEDES 8i

astrological work drawn up, if not for Sargon yet,
as we may judge from internal evidence, for some
king of Accad, no mention is made of the Assyrian
nation.

The Phoenicians, the Hittites, the Kings of
Gutium, and the '' Umman Manda " are then the
dreaded foes of Accad. Of the Manda we read as
follows : '' The Umman Manda comes and governs
the land. The mercy seats of the great gods are
taken away. Bel goes to Elam."

Professor Sayce is opposed to the view that
the Manda are necessarily identical with the
Medes; but he admits that Herodotus, following
the authority of Medo- Persian writers, claimed as
Median the victories of the Manda.^

If now on the authority of Herodotus and the
Medo- Persian writers we assume, at least as a
possibility, that these Manda were Medes, we
should expect to find them worshippers of Ahura
Mazda. Ahura, it is on all hands admitted, is the
Iranian form of the Vedic Asura, just as Mithras
is the Iranian form of the Vedic Mitra. At what-
ever date the separation between Iranian and Vedic

^ Proutdingt^ voL xviil Part vi. pp. 176, 177.

equinox — a year, as has already been pointed out,

distinctively Median.

According then to this supposition, a powerful
Median race was established in the vicinity of
Babylonia early in the fourth millennium li.c. — a
race who worshipped one great Lord, first under
the name of Asura, afterwards under that of
Ahura.

It is for these Aryan Manda or Medes that I
would claim, at the date of 4,000 B.C., the original
conception of the astronomic monogram in which

PART I.] SYMBOUC STANDARD MEDIAN 83

so plainly may be read an allusion to the four con-
stellations of the Zodiac, which at that date marked
the four seasons and the four cardinal points, i.e.
Sagittarius and Taurus, Aquarius and Leo. This
monogram was used as a Standard thousands of
years later by the Semitic Assyrians.

To the Manda or Medes, also, I would, as
has been suggested, attribute the first imagining
of the astronomic emblem common to Ahura and
Assur — that of the divine Being presiding over
the circle of the ecliptic

Berosus mentions a Median dynasty as having
reigned in Babylon for one or two hundred years.
Let us now suppose that the Manda for more
than a thousand years held power in Northern
Mesopotamia, but that at last the tide of conquest
turned, and after many struggles with the Semites
in the south the Aryans were finally driven from
the land now known as Assyria, and a Semite
race firmly settled in the regions from whence in
Sargon's time the Umman Manda had threatened
the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Accad. That
this was the case about 2,200 b.c may perhaps be
gathered from the monuments of Hammurabi, the

as their supreme and great Lord Assur — Assur
whose very name is not to be met with in Baby-
lonian mythology. This difficulty I would explain
in the following manner.

When the Medes had, by Hammurabi or his
successors, been driven out of Northern Mesopo-
tamia, they were replaced by Semitic settlers who
(like the settlers sent into Samaria more than a
thousand years later by a king of Assyria) adopted,
to a certain extent, the religion of the nation whom
they had dispossessed. In 2 Kings xvii, we read

FAtT 1.1 ASSUE. THE -GOD OF THE LAND" 85

that in this parallel instance ''the king of Assyria
brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and
from Ava, and from Hamath^ and from Sepharvaim,
and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of
the children of Israel : and they possessed Samaria,
and dwelt in the cities thereof." Later in the same
chapter we read that in order to appease, as they
believed, the wrath of the " God of the land," these
idolatrous settlers, retaining in full the worship of
all their own gods, added to it a worship of the
Lord of the dispossessed Israelites.

I would suppose then that the polytheistic
Semites, who in Hammurabi's time were settled in
Northern Mesopotamia, had acted in a similar
manner. Coming into a region where for nearly
2,000 years the monotheistic Medes or Manda had
been established, they, to avert the wrath of the
god of the land^ adopted to a certain extent his
worship. In fact, like the Samaritans, '' they feared
the Lord [Asura], and served their own gods."

This explanation of the difference in religion
between the Babylonians and the Assyrians seems
to yield also an explanation of the resemblances
between the Assyrian and Median religions, or

rati:
art
prol
Pap
held

supi
Ass

forw

Ass
bort
frot

the Assyrians borrowed not only religious sym-
bolisms, but even the very name of their god Assur
from the Medes. For I look upon Assur as a
"loan word" adopted from the Aryan Asura.

To the Medes or Manda, who were, as has
been argued, in power in Northern Mesopotamia
about 4,000 B.C., I have attributed the origin of
the astronomic Assyrian and Ahurian emblem.
To them, on the same grounds, I attribute
the first imagining of the astronomic Assyrian
Standard, and the devising of the man-headed and

PART I] ASSUR DERIVED FROM ASURA 87

winged monsters so well known as ''Assyrian
Bulls " ; and to them I would, with full conviction,
leave the honour of having invented, and not bor-
rowed, the idea of the magnificent Tauric capitals
that crowned the columns of Persepolis and Susa.
To all these conclusions I have been led by
a consideration of the distinctively equinoctial
character of the Median calendar, taken in con-
nexion with the importance given in Median art
to the constellation Taurus.

antiquity of the science of astronomy in India;
for scholars were amazed to find in this already
long dead language many learned astronomical
treatises, besides complete instructions for calcul-
ating, year by year, the Hindu calendar, as also
for calculating horoscopes,

Some then proclaimed the wonderful facts re-
vealed, and extolled the antiquity and accuracy
of this Indian science, while others, noticing the
many points of resemblance between European
and Indian methods, supposed, and warmly advo-

FAIT I.] GREEK r. INDIAN SCIENCE 89

cated the opinion, that much of the astronomy
contained in Sanscrit works had been borrowed
from the Greeks.

Sir William Jones was amongst the first to
enter the lists against this Grecian theory; and
he thus throws down his glove in defence of the
antiquity and originality of the science of as-
tronomy in India.

'' I engage to support an opinion (which the
learned and industrious M. Montucla seems to
treat with extreme contempt) that the Indian
division of the Zodiack was not borrowed from
the Greeks or Arabs, but, having been known in
this country (India) for time immemorial, and being
the same in part with that used by other nations
of the old Hindu race, was probably invented by
the first progenitors of that race before their dis-
persion." *

Since Sir William Jones wrote this challenge,

and supported it with whatever linguistic and

scientific resources were at his command, volumes

of heated controversy by many authors have been

devoted to the same subject.

^ On the Antiquity of the Indian Zodiach. Con^iete fVcrhSf
vol. i. p. 333.

J"
calmni
formei
both
cepted
Indiar
quaint
Zodiat

A
cated
ago, a
of th<
S^rya

(twelve-fold) division, and the present names of
the signs, can be proved to have existed in India
at as early a period as in any other country."^

The minoricy who hold this view are so few
at present that, as has bcc-ii said, the majority rest
in their opposed opinion in all the calmness of
conviction.

I will now as briefly as possible state the
chief arguments put forward, for and against, this
conviction.

' Journal 0/ 1 he Ameman Orttntat Socitty, vol. vi. p, 477.

PART 1.] SOLAR ZODIAC GRECIAN 91

I. In favour of the comparatively late intro-
duction into India of the twelve-fold division of
the Zodiac, it is contended that the divisions of
the Indian Solar Zodiac so closely resemble those
of the Grecian (the Zodiac which we to this day
depict on celestial globes), that it is not possible
to believe that two nations or two sets of as-
tronomers could independently of each other have
imagined the same fanciful and apparently incon-
sequent series.

History does not tell of communication between
Greece and India, sufficient to account for this
similarity of astronomical method, till after the
date of Alexander's conquest — about 300 b.c. The
Greeks could not at that late date have first become
acquainted with the figures of the Zodiac, for in
Grecian literature of a much earlier age the figures
of the Zodiac and other constellations are alluded
to as already perfectly well known. As the Greeks
therefore could not have learnt all their astronomic
lore from the Indians, the Indians must have learnt
theirs from the Greeks at some date later than
Alexander's Eastern conquests.

A corroboration of this opinion is drawn from

poses, not only of the twelve-fold Solar Zodiac,

they have also a series of 27 Nakshatras, or Lunar
mansions (this is for convenience sake designated
by European writers as the Lunar Zodiac). It is
admitted on all hands that the Nakshatra series
was not derived from Grecian sources. But it is
contended that the fixation of the initial point of
this Lunar Zodiac (a point at the end of Revati
and the beginninjj of Aswini, 10 degrees west of
the first point of our constellation Aries) was due
to an astronomical reform of the Hindu calendar,

FAmx I.] HINDU CALENDAR 670 A.D. 93

probably carried out under Grecian auspices at a
date not much earlier than 600 a.d. A very clear
statement of this opinion is thus given by Whitney
(the editor of Burgess' translation of the SHrya
Siddkdnta) : —

''The initial point of the fixed Hindu sphere
from which longitudes are reckoned, and at which
the planetary motions are held by all schools of
Hindu astronomy to have commenced at the
creation, is the end of the asterism Revatt, or the
beginning of A9vini. Its situation is most nearly
marked by that of the principal star of Revati . . .
that star is by all authorities identified with
( Piscium, of which the longitude at present, as
reckoned by us, from the Vernal Equinox, is
17* 54^ Making due allowance for the precession
(of the equinoxes), we find that it coincided in
position with the vernal equinox, not far from the
middle of the sixth century, or about a.d. 570.
As such coincidence wets the occasion of the point
being fixed upon 05 the beginning of the sphere^ the
time of its occurrence marks approximately the
era of the fixation of the sphere, and of the com-
mencement of the history of modem Hindu
astronomy." ^

^ Journal of the American Oriental Society^ voL vL p. 158.

Ii
fron
hav(
this
to.
are
Ved
hold

stars

brilli
two

(the
Arietis.

The vernal equinoctial point coincided about
3,000 it.c. with the constellation Krittika. It is
considered to be most probable that on account
of this coincidence, at the early date when the
hymns and list in question were composed.
Krittika was chosen as the leader of the Nakshatra
series, and hence a similar reason for the later
choice of Aswini as leader relegates it to a date
not much earlier than 570 a.d.

These very briefiy, as far as I have been able

PART I.] INDIAN V. GREEK SCIENCE 95

to gather them, are the chief arguments in favour
of—

(i) The Grecian introduction of the twelve-
fold Zodiac into India about 300 B.C.

(2) The date of 570 a.d. for the fixation of
the initial point of the Indian Zodiacs, and for
the commencement of the history of Indian
astronomy.

These propositions are based on cogent reason-
ings, and are maintained by very high authorities.
The opponents of the modern theory have brought
and bring forward the following considerations : —

"The BrdAmans were always too proud to
borrow their science from the Greeks, Arabs,
Moguls, or any nation of MUchcKhas, as they call
those who are ignorant of the Vidas, and have not
studied the language of the Gods ; they have often
quoted to me (Sir William Jones) the fragment of
an old verse, which they now use proverbially
{na nfchb yavandtparah), or, ' no base creature can be
lower than a Yavan,' by which name they formerly
meant an Ionian or Greek, and now mean a
Moguir 1

^ Sir William Jones, TTie Antiquity of the Indian Zodiack,
Complete Works, voL i. p. 345.

These considerations put forward by Sir
William Jones are further emphasized by the
reflection that not only does the Grecian theory
entail the improbability of the proud and jealous
Brahmins adopting into their science and their
mythology the teachings of foreigners ; but that
it also entails the greater improbability of the two
rival Hindu sects. Brahmins and Buddhists, having
at the same date and with equal enthusiasm
adopted into their science and religious symbolism
and calendars the same innovations.

PART I.] WEEK-DAYS— OLD WRITERS 97

Again the opinion of the Greek writers at the
beginning of our era may be quoted as showing
the high estimation in which, at that time of the
world, Indian astronomy was held : as for instance
in the life of ApoUonius of Tyana (written about
2IO A.D. by Philostratus), the wisdom and learning
of ApoUonius are set high above those of all his
contemporaries; but from the sages of India he
is represented as learning many things, especially
matters of astronomy. ^

This high opinion held by Greeks in regard
to Indian astronomy may be contrasted with the
very moderate praise bestowed on the Grecian
science by Garga, a Hindu writer of, it is supposed,
the first century b.c He says: —

"The Yavanas (Greeks) are MIechchas (non-
Hindus, or barbarians), but amongst them this
science (astronomy) is well established. Therefore
they are honoured as Rishis (saints) ; how much
more then an astronomer who is a Brahman?"'

Somewhat to the same effect speaks a Hindu
author of a later date, Varahamihira, who wrote

^ ApolUmius of T^ana^ Book iiL chapter 13.
' Romesh Chunder Dutt, Ancient India^ p. 136.

This moderate, and, as it reads, judicial opinion
of Varahamihira, touching the superiority of the
native Snrya Siddhanta over the Paulisa and
Romaka Siddhantas, may be appealed to as not

' This opinion of Varfiha has beun confirmed by modern
European scholars. Burgess (From whose translations of the
Siirya Siddhinta we have already quoted) remarks, " in regard to
... the amount of the annual precession of the equinoxes, the
relative size of the sun and moon as compared with the earth,
the greatest equation of the centre of the sun, the Hindus are
more nearly correct than the Greeks." {Journal of th< Amtricaii
Oriental Society, vol. \\, p 480.)

^ Thf Panehaiiddhanlika. Edited by G. Thibaut, ch. i. g 3.

PART I.] VARAHAMIHIRA— BENTLEY 99

conveying the impression that when Variha
wrote his co-religionists and scientists were
accepting, wholesale and with avidity, Grecian
astronomic methods in place of their own already
well-established native science. It is true that
in Varaha's work many words evidently of Grecian
origin are to be met with ; and some scholars
have claimed that these ** Greek terms occurring
in Varahamihira's writings are conclusive proofs
of the Greek origin of Hindu astronomy.'* That
such terms should occur in a work professedly
a resume of five astronomic treatises — some of
them Indian, and some European — can scarcely be
considered as conclusive proof that in the writer s
time no purely Indian astronomic science existed.
Varaha's writings suggest an author interested
in comparing the resemblances and the differences
to be met with in home and foreign methods, rather
than one introducing for the first time important
astronomic truths to the notice of his readers.

It may be further urged that the claims to anti-
quity in Sanscrit astronomical works are so well
known, that those who adopt the Grecian theory
must necessarily throw discredit in a very wholesale

man
diati
the
clair
it m
tion

forgi
hard

perh
profc

somi
are

to be full of interpolations, to answer some particular
ends : nor need we be surprised at all this, when
we consider the facilities they have for forgeries,
as well as their own general inclination and interest
in following that profession ; for to give the ap-
pearance of antiquity to their books and authors
increases their value, at least in the eyes of some.
Their universal propensity to forgeries, ever since
the introduction of the modern system of astronomy
and immense periods of years, in a.d. 538, are but
too well known to require any further elucidation
than those already given. They are under no
restraint of laws, human or divine, and subject to

HART I.] NEW SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE loi

no punishment, even if detected in the most flagrant
literary impositions." i

It is unnecessary now to further pursue the pros
and cons of what has hitherto been said and written
on the vexed questions as to the originality and
antiquity of astronomy in India, and especially as
to the Indian acquaintance with the twelve- fold
divisions of the Zodiac, and the date of the fixation
of the initial point in their Zodiac We have seen
that by the majority the Grecian and modern theory
is the favoured one.

Within the last quarter of a century, however,
an unexpected reinforcement has come into the
field, in aid of the disheartened and nearly silenced
minority, who still believe in a g^eat antiquity for
the science of astronomy in India.

The researches of archaeologists in Western Asia
have of late brought to our knowledge vast hoards
of information concerning the ancient inhabitants
of Babylonia and Assyria, and the surrounding
highlands and plains ; amongst other matters, con-
cerning the science of astronomy possessed by
these peoples.

* A Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy^ etc, p. i8i,

Asi
Sa)
and
dea
Sw
/ttr
by.
Ma
whi
use

Bai

Bahylonier, are important volumes devoted to

these same matters.

Whatever else concerning the subject of all
these writings remains uncertain and open to dis-
cussion, some facts are clearly established. We
now know that the inhabitants of Babylonia in a
remote age (certainly as early as the fourth
miilenium n.c.) were acquainted with the twelve
divisions of the Zodiac, and that these divisions
were imagined under figures closely resembling in
almost every instance those now depicted on our

PARTI.] ZODIAC IN ASIA, 8000 B.C. 103

celestial globes. The calendar used by the Acca-
dians, and later by the Semitic Babylonians and
Assyrians, was indeed based on the observance of
the Zodiacal constellations and of the joumeyings
through them of the sun and moon. The varying
positions of the planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn are also noted by references
to the Zodiacal asterisms : and not only Zodiacal,
but several of the extra-Zodiacal ancient constella-
tions are represented on the monuments.

All this information gained from the cuneiform
tablets concerning the science of astronomy in
Western Asia must undoubtedly affect the judg-
ment of enquirers into the history of the same
science in India.

Now that it is clearly proved that 3,000 B.C. and
earlier the twelve-fold fanciful signs of the Solar
Zodiac were known to the inhabitants of Babylonia,
it cannot any longer be asserted dogmatically
that the inhabitants of India must have waited
till 300 B.C. to learn this twelve-fold division from
Grecian astronomers after the date of Alexander's
conquest

But again as regards the fixation of the initial

Ihese late revelations ol archzeology seem to
strike at the root of the main arguments relied on
by the advocates of the Grecian and modern origin
of astronomic science in India; and this being the
case, it is possible to turn with unbiassed minds
' This Tact is admitted (see an, "Zodiac," sub-heading "first
sign," Enq^lopitdia Brilannka). lint it is a fact opposed to the
hitherto received opinion touching the necessary connexion of
the equinoctial point and of llie initial point of the Zodiac. "A
prehistoric reform" of the calendar is supposed, and corrections
of the ancient texts to suit this reform, are suggested. Uncil
traces of such reform and corrections can be shown to exist,
the evidence of the tablets may still be cited as pointing to a
year counted from the sun's entry into Aries, in the earliest
ages of Babylonian civilization.

PARTI.] ARIES LEADER, 3000 B.C. 105

to a consideration of the teachings of Sanscrit
literature, and endeavour to learn from them what
is the real truth as to the acquaintance of ancient
Indian authors with the figures of the Zodiac and
other astronomic phenomena.

The opinion has been very generally adopted,
as has been said, that in the Rig Veda there is no
mention of any of the twelve figures of the Solar
Zodiac. Some few writers have contended that
occasional references to these figures are to be met
with, and this question has been argued on
etymological grounds. My entire ignorance of
the Sanscrit language prevents me from at all
following the arguments employed in this dis-
cussion. And here it may be said, and said with
good reason, that for the discussion of points
connected with Vedic literature, writers ignorant
of the language in which the Vedas were com-
posed are but ill equipped for the task. At every
step I keenly feel my own disqualifications ; but
many translations and commentaries on the Rig
Veda are in existence; and without entering into
etymological questions, it has seemed to me that
broad astronomic explanations of some of the

Sanscrit names and epithets of mythic personages.
If no such corroborations are to be met with,
the probabilities in favour of the correctness of
the astronomic interpretations will be greatly-
diminished.

But to return tu our subject. It is sometimes
argued tliat the \'edic bards could not have been
acquainted with the twelve-fold division of the
Zodiac, as otherwise these great constellations
would surely have claimed at their hands clear
and outspoken notice. With this argument I
cannot fully agree. Even before pointing out

FART I.] ZODIAC IN VEDA DENIED 107

the important place which I believe astronomical
phenomena hold in the Rig Veda, I would draw
attention to the fact that according to the generally
received and non - astronomic explanation of the
myths, it is necessary to suppose that still more
striking and important natural phenomena than
those connected with the constellations of the
Zodiac — phenomena with which the Vedic bards
must certainly have been acquainted — were almost
entirely ignored by the authors of the Rig Veda.
It is true that some great scholars claim on
linguistic grounds a solar origin for much Vedic
imagery and nomenclature; yet when the hymns
are examined in translations, and the notes and
commentaries which accompany these translations
are studied, the impression left on the mind of
any reader unacquainted with Sanscrit must be
that very little attention or honour is given to
sun, moon, or stars, in comparison to that so freely
lavished on the elements of 6 re, air and water,
and on the mysterious properties of the juice of
the Soma plant

The beauty of the dawn is almost the only
celestial glory that appears to appeal with any

have often seen "the sun when it shined" and
"the moon walking in brightness," and if they so
rarely hymned these great luminaries with whose
appearance and existence they so certainly were
acquainted, it would prove no ignorance on their
part of the twelve-fold division of the Zodiac and
its quaintly imagined figures, were it indeed the
case that all mention of these figures is absent
from the Rig Veda.

But as has been stated above, my desire is to
draw attention to possible astronomic interpre-

PART i] ZODIAC IN VEDA CLAIMED 109

tations of many of the Vedic myths, and the
adoption of such interpretations would necessarily
entail a reversal of the dictum that all mention of
the twelve-fold Zodiac is absent from the Rig Veda.

Those who have studied this wonderful and
mysterious collection of hymns most constantly
and deeply are obliged to confess that it is still
very imperfectly understood, and though it is
agreed unanimously that the Gods of the Veda
are personifications of the phenomena of nature,
yet as to the exact phenomena underlying the
various Vedic myths there is among scholars
much difference of opinion. It is impossible not
to feel in reading the hymns and the many
speculations, notes, and comments appended to
them, that notwithstanding all the labour and
research bestowed on the work, much of this
ancient Veda still remains a cypher, for the right
understanding of which the modern reader does
not possess the key.

Guided by the teachings of archaeology, I
now make the suggestion that the key to this
cypher may perhaps be found in crediting the
authors of the Veda with a somewhat advanced

the sun and moon, and further. that they should
have learnt what changes in the scenery of the
heavens have been brought about by the slow
movement known to astronomers as the "precession
of the equinoxes."

Classical and philological scholars have how-
ever so rarely time and attention to spare from
their own intensely interesting and important
studies that as a rule astronomical phenomena are
not much observed or considered by them. The
accompanying diagrams drawn from a celestial

PARTI.] INDRA IN THE RIG VEDA iii

precessional globe may, it is hoped, enable those,
who have not as yet devoted thought to such
subjects, to judge for themselves of the reason-
ableness or otherwise of the following astronomic
suggestions concerning the most important of the
Vedic gods.

According to A. A. Macdonell — who in his
late work Vedic Mythology has summed up
clearly and compendiously the opinions of a host
of scholars on the nature of the Vedic gods —
Indra is the favourite national god of the Rig
Veda; he is celebrated in 250 hymns, a greater
number than that "devoted to any other god,
and very nearly one- fourth of the total number
of hymns in the Rig Veda." ^

What may be called the central myths related
of Indra, stripped of all epithet and ornament,
relate that, invigorated by copious draughts of
Soma, Indra fights with, overcomes, and drives
from heaven and earth a demon called Vritra
or Ahi, who is represented under the form of a
dragon, serpent or water snake. Indra also
searches for, finds, and releases cows which had

^ Macdonell, Vedic Mytholo^\ p. 54.

clouds which are reluctant to part with their

watery stores until assailed and penetrated by
the thunder - bolt of Indra; . . . the cloud is

personified as a demon named Ahi or Vritra
... a popular myth represents him (Indra) also
as the discoverer and rescuer of the cows, either
of the priests or of the gods which had been
stolen by an Asnra named Pani or Vala."

Macdunell, alluding to the same incident, ob-

' Macilonell, I'fdic .'ifyi/u)/o!;y, p. 66.

'■' Wilson. Rif; Vviia, liitroduclion, [)]). xvx.-xxxi.

PART I.] INDRA AN ''ATMOSPHERIC GOD" 113

serves:^ These "cows released by Indra may,
in many cases, refer to the waters, for we have
seen that the latter are occasionally compared
with lowing cows. Thus Indra is said to have
found the cows for man when he slew the dragon.
. . . But the cows may also in other cases be
conceived as connected with Indra's winning of
light, for the ruddy beams of dawn issuing from
the blackness of night are compared with cattle
coming out of their dark stalls. Again, though
clouds play no great part in the Rig Veda under
their literal name {abhra, etc.), it can hardly be denied
that, as containing the waters, they figure mytho-
log^cally to a considerable extent under the name
of cow {go), as well as udder {udhar) . . . thus
the rain-clouds are probably meant when it is
said that the cows roared at the birth of Indra."
At the close of the section devoted to Indra,
Macdonell refers to the probably pre-Vedic origin
of the Indra myths. He says:* "The name of
Indra occurs only twice in the A vesta. Beyond
the fact of his being no god, but only a demon,

* Vedic Mythology, p. 59.
*/>iV/., pp. 66.

In reading the Indra hymns in the Veda, and
in trying to fit them to the explanation given in
the passages quoted, a constant and very dis-
agreeable strain is put on the imagination ; it
must, for instance, attempt to grasp and hold, at
the same time, two very far apart opinions as to
the nature of the demon Vrilra. Vritra is to be
thought of as a demon of darkness, and as a
demon of drought ; the cows are clouds, they are
also ruddy beams of light !

Darkness and drought are not to be easily

FART I. J INDRA, GOD OF SUMMER S0I5TICE 115

bracketed together. Drought is in all lands, India
not excepted, connected with a long continuance
of bright and stainless skies. The appearance
then of a little cloud ''like a man's hand" is the
joyously hailed precursor of '' the sound of abund-
ance of rain."

Again, the driving away of a snake-like cloud
is no forcible simile by which to describe in myth
the advent of rain in India — rain which to be of
any use is no mere refreshing shower, but a long-
continued downpour from clouds not hastily
dispersed.

Indra's action first in driving away the cloud-
demon Vritra, and then in seeking for the beneficial
cloud cows, is also contradictory.

For the reconciling of many of these contra-
dictions the astronomic interpretation of the Indra-
Vritra myths is as follows : — Indra may still retain
all his atmospheric attributes of sending down rain
but — Indra is pritnarify and essentially a personi-
fication of the summer solstice.

The summer solstice in India is an all-important
agricultural epoch ; it brings with it '' the rainy
season/ the real spring of the Indian year. Before

is the highest of all " is the refrain of many
Vedic verses; " Indra placed the sun high in the
sky," " Indni lore off one wheel of the sun's
chariot," "Indra stopped the tawny coursers of
the sun." Now all these phrases are at once
and clearly to be interpreted if we think of Indra
as the personification of the summer solstice, and
especially of the solstice in India, where at that
season of the year the sun attains to the \'ery
zenith, and thus Indra associated with the sutt
under one figure of speech is spoken of as " highest

,A»Ti.] VRTTRA AND HYDRA 117

of all/' and in a slightly varied figure associated
with the season, is said to have ''placed the sun
high in the sky." Or again translating into myth
the very meaning of the word solstice or ''the
sun being made to stand,'' we read that Indra
"tore off the wheel of the chariot of the sun,"
and ''stopped his tawny coursers." Indra is, I
cannot but believe, not merely an atmospheric
god ; he is the god of the summer solstice. And
if this should be the case, what then may Vritra
be? Is the demon of the solstitial Indra personi-
fied as only a snake-like cloud .^ It is impossible
to think so. The astronomic interpretation of the
myth I would propose is that — a snake-like
constellation, not a snake-like cloud, is the repre-
sentation of the demon Vritra.

On the celestial sphere many serpents and
dragons are represented, but the far - reaching
constellation Hydra exceeds all the others in its
enormous length from head to tail. No very
brilliant stars mark the asterism, nor in the
grouping of its stars is there anything especially
snake-like. For some reason other than its appeal
to the eye did astronomers of old invest with all

by another equally important mathematical line,

namely the colure of the summer solstice {see
Plate IX.).

Almost irresistibly, as it appears to me, the
conviction forces itself on the mind, in considering
the position held by the constellation Hydra
4,000 H.C., that it was at that dale that this baleful
figure was first traced in imagination on the sky,
there filly to represent the power of physical (and
may we not suppose also, of moral ?) darkness— a
great and terrible power — but a power ever and

.9 B i
b B iS

S i

§•8
li

PAWL] HYDRA AND DARKNESS 119

ever again to be conquered by the victorious
power of light. In astronomic myth this power
was represented as that of the sun at the season
of its highest culmination, the season of the
summer solstice. For an observer in the temperate
northern zone all through the long nights of mid-
winter, the whole length of the dreadful Hydra
was at the date named visible above the horizon.
The dark midwinter season was therefore the
time of the Hydra's greatest glory. At every
season of the year, except at that of midsummer,
some portion of the monster's form was visible
during some part of the night But at the summer
solstice no star in the constellation might show
itself for ever so short a time.^

The supposed latitude of the observer in Plate
IX. is 40'' N., a latitude considerably to the north
of any part of India ; but it is to be remembered
that the Indra-Vritra myth cannot be claimed with
any certainty as a purely and originally Indian myth,
for, as Macdonell points out (as quoted above), there

' Plate IX. represents the constellations above the horizon,
but invisible at noon at the midsummer solstice. It therefore
represents those above the horizon, and visible at midwinter
midnight.

of ike Indra- Vritra myth. I believe that in thus

tracing the course of the Indra story from tem-
perate to tropical latitudes, we shall find a reason
for the contradictory attributes assigned to the
demon Vritra, namely those of darkness and
drought.

In northern latitudes winter is distinctly the
iVar^ season ; in tropical India there is little or no
perceptible difference between the darkness of
winter and summer. But in India winter is dis-

PAET I.] HYDRA AND DROUGHT 121

tinctly the dry season. Midsummer is the all-
important season of the rains. Indra's conquest
over Vritra, or the arrival of solstitial rains, marked
by the disappearance of the constellation Hydra
from the sky, was mythologically in the Vedas
described as Indra's conquest over the demon
of droughty but still traditionally — for the power of
tradition is great— even in India Indra retained the
attributes of the conqueror over the demon of
darkness.

At Plate X. a drawing is given of the southern
heavens and of the constellations — invisible at
midsummer and visible at midwinter, above the
horizon of an observer in latitude 23'' N. at the date
3000 B.C., a thousand years later than the date
referred to in Plate IX. For reasons which will
appear more clearly when we come to the discussion
of the Soma myth, it is to about this date that I
would attribute the composition of many of the
Vedic hymns.

But if Indra is to be considered as representing
the summer solstice, and Vritra as representing the
constellation Hydra, we must surely expect some
astronomic interpretation for Soma — Soma by which

generally admitted, it appears to be certain that

to the seers of the Rig Veda the god Soma
is a personification of the terrestrial plant and
juice." '

One German writer, hlillebrandt, very strongly
upholds the view that Soma in the Rig Veda
" often personifies the moon," " and especially
according to him is this the case in the 114
hymns of Mandala IX., all addressed to Soma

PAtTi.1 SOMA PAVAMANA=THE MOON 123

pavamana, or ''purified Soma," prepared for and
quaffed by Indra to invigorate him for the Vritra
combat.

That Soma in the Rig Veda is primarily the
moon, and that the moon is symbolized and always
more or less directly referred to in the Vedic
hymns to Soma, fits in, as must be evident to
the readers of this paper, with the astronomic
theories advocated in it. If we consider that
Indra's conquest over Vritra represents the god
of the summer solstice, with his bright weapons,
conquering, and driving from heaven and earth
the constellation Hydra, we can easily understand
how in this contest Indra might be strengthened
by copious draughts of Soma, i.e. by the bright
light of the full moon Hooding the heavens with
radiance and enfeebling all but the brightest
stars.

But a further confirmation of the lunar character
of Soma, and an elucidation of the imagery of the
Soma pavamana hymns of Mandala IX., are to be
found if — still crediting the Vedic Rishis with a
knowledge of the ancient constellations — we study
the position of these constellations at the date

134

3,ooo

moon

always

With

mystic

is so

the va;

waters,

easily

moon

further

the ea

sacrific

globe to see the eagle (Aquila) directing its flight

towards the pitcher of Aquarius- — and to remember

that the very night before the moon attained the

celestial vase, it would have been on the same

meridian as the constellation Aquila ; and the

imaginative Vedic bard might then describe it as

borne along by the eagle. — one of the most

glorious constelhitions in that part of the sky.

' Lunar dales are variable. The full moon nearest to ihe
summer solstice might have been observed somewhat to the
east or the west o( its position in the diagram, but always
in the conilcllalion Aqu.iriiis,

1 1

S"-

PART 1.1 THE MOON IN AQUAMUS 125

In one hymn especially devoted to the legend
of the Soma-bearing eagle (or hawk), allusion to
the small but well-marked-out constellation Sagitta
(the arrow) may be detected. In Wilson's trans-
lation of Mandala IV. 27 (vol. iii. p. 174), we read :
'* When the hawk screamed (with exultation) on his
descent from heaven, and (the guardians of the
Soma) perceived that the Soma was (carried away)
by it, then, the archer Kri$4nu, pursuing with the
speed of thought, and stringing his bow, let fly an
arrow against it."

Now to turn to another important Vedic deity,
Agni.

Agni is classed, according to Macdonell, amongst
terrestrial gods, but he points out that in some
passages he is to be identified with the sun.
Wilson describes Agni as comprising* "the element
of /^tre under three aspects : i", as it exists on
earth, not only as culinary or religious Are, but as
the heat of digestion and of life, and the vivifying
principle of vegetation; 2'''*, as it exists in
the atmosphere, or mid-heaven, in the form of
lightning; and 3*^, as it is manifested in the

^ Wilson, /^i^ Feda^ Introduction, vol. i. pp. xxrii.-xxviii.

126

heav4
bodie

who i
sun-
hold
whid
Persi:
celesi

T
pven
as gi
the
Macd
adhered to by Vedic authorities.

For some very puzzling myths concerning Agni, I
believe an astronomic interpretation maybe given, and
thereby the position of Agni in the ^rsi place, rather
than in the /as/, as a celestial god, may be established.

The Vedic deity Apam Napat — the son of
Waters, is classed by Macdonell as an atmospheric
god, and he says,' " In the last stanza of the Apam
napat hymn, the deity is invoked as Agni, and
must be identified with him," and again.' " Agni 's

' feiiic MytholoQ; p. 70. - Ibid., p, 92.

PART I.] AGNI IN THE WATERS 127

origin in the aerial waters is often referred to.
The 'son of waters' has, as has been shown,
become a distinct deity." Then turning to other
legends regarding Agni he says, ** In such passages
the lightning form of Agni must be meant Some
of the later hymns of the Rig Veda tell a legend
of Agni hiding in the waters and plants, and being
found by the gods. ... In one passage of the
Rig Veda also it is stated that Agni rests in all
streams ; and in the later ritual texts, Agni in the
waters is invoked in connexion with ponds and
water-vessels. Thus, even in the oldest Vedic
period, the waters in which Agni is latent, though
not those from which he is produced, may in
various passages have been regarded as terrestrial.
. . . In any case the notion of Agni in the waters
is prominent throughout the Vedas,"

To explain this legend, Wilson makes other sug-
gestions. He writes : ^ " The legend of his ( Agni's)
hiding in the waters, through fear of the enemies of
the gods, although alluded to in more than one place,
is not very explicitly related .... the allusions of
the Siiktas (hymns) may be a figurative intimation
of the latent heat existing in water, or a misappre-
hension of a natural phenomenon which seems to
have made a great impression in later times — the

^ Wilson, Rig Vtda^ Introduction, vol i. p. xxx.

pu
pre
wa
"h
flai
sh!
ma
the
rej

be so closely associated with water. Nor are the
difficulties concerning " Agni in the waters" to be
overcome by the tempting and poetic suggestion,
put forward by some writers, that in these pas-
sages reference is made to the sun rising in the
morning out of the ocean, and again hiding itself
beneath the waves at sunset. The composition
of the Rig Veda is attributed to Aryan settlers
" scattered over the Punjaub and regions lying
to the west of the Indus " : by such settlers the
' MacdoiiL'll, Vedic Mythology, p. S8.

PART I.] THE SITN IN AQUARIUS 129

sun could never have been seen rising out of the
ocean, for no ocean bounded their horizon on the
east Even the phenomenon of the sun hiding
itself at evening in the water, could only have been
observed by those who lived on the western coasts
and it is therefore not easy to imagine why sunrise
and sunset should in India have been so closely
and constantly associated with a sea horizon.

But if once the acquaintance of the originators
of the Agni myths with the Zodiacal figures is
admitted, the astronomic interpretation of those
relating to Agni in the waters is not difficult; it
is as follows :

Agni is the personification of fire, but his chief
personification is as the fire of the sun. ** Agni
in the waters " is especially the fire of the sun in
the celestial wcUers of Aquarius. 3,000 b.c. the
sun was in conjunction with Aquarius at the time
of the winter solstice} Those hymns therefore
which dwell upon the myths of Agni hiding himself
in, being born in, and rising out of the waters,

^ The position of the sun at the winter solstice 3,000 b.c.
was identical with that represented at Plate XI. as the position of
the full moon at the summer solstice.

PART I.] VEDIC IMAGERY OUT OF DATE 131

In this Agni myth, as in that of Indra, we
may perceive traces of a pre-Vedic origin. The
latitudes in which the Rig Veda was composed are
not those in which attention is forcibly drawn to
the diminution of the strength and visibility of
the sun at the winter season. In the Rig Veda,
however, Indra's conquest over darkness as
well as over drought is celebrated, and the
same traditional cause may be assigned for the
description of Agni hiding himself at the time of
the winter solstice in the waters of Aquarius.

Indra, Soma, and Agni no longer hold the
important place in the Hindu Pantheon which
they appear to have held in Vedic times, and on
the astronomic theory, this fact may partly be
accounted for by noticing how slow but inevitable
changes in the scenery of the heavens, produced
by the precession of the equinoxes, gradually
obscured more and more completely the meaning
of the imagery employed in the hymns to these
deities. Indra, if he represents the summer sol-
stice, is indeed still as powerful as ever, and
still triumphs over the demon of drought, but
no longer is that demon well represented by the

made for the very modern date of 570 a.d. as
that for the fixation of the initial point of the
Indian Zodiac at the "end of Revati and the
beginning of A<;vini." — This claim I desire to
oppose.

It has been admitted by scholars, but almost
with a sort of reluctance, that mention is made of
some of the Nakshatras in a few of the Rig Veda
hymns. The matter is rather avoided than
cordially enquired into. It is, however, a question

' V. p. 91.

PART i.i INITIAL POINT OF ZODIAC 133

of great and important interest to ascertain, if
possible, whether the circle of the Nakshatras was
known to the Vedic Rishis, and if it were known,
whether the initial point was fixed there, where
as we have read, all schools of Hindu astronomy
agree in declaring that the planetary motions com-
menced at the creation}

We have learnt from Babylonian archaeology
that we are no longer forced to assume that only
at the date of about 570 a.d. could this initial
point have been fixed by Indian astronomers.
It therefore need no longer be looked upon as
an unreasonable quest to search in the ancient
pages of the Rig Veda for indications that this
important astronomical point had been fixed,
even before Vedic times, as the starting-point
of a calendrical and sidereal year — and if we
should find such indications in the Rig Veda,
they may well out-weigh arguments against the
antiquity of this fixation, based upon passages in
later works, such as the Yajur and Atharva Vedas.

From the Yajur Veda itself, arguments may
be drawn in favour of a year beginning in the

^ V. p. 93.

the " EkS^htaka (day) " of some month not named,'

but one in the "distressed," or "reversed" period
of the year, i.e. the mid-winter season ; second, the
full moon of Phalguni ; and third, the Chailra full
moon. B, G. Tiliik, after some pages of comment
on the passage referred to, states in his summing

' Chaitra is tlie month whicli begins, as closely as a luni-solat
month may, at the sun's arrival at , the initial point of the Hindu
Zodiac — the beginning of Aswini.

'^ Tailtiriya Sanhita, vii. 4. 8.

' At p. 48 he 'juoles authorities in favour of the EkaslHaka (day)
in this passage meaning the 8th day of the dark half of Magha.

FAETI.1 ASWINI V. KHmiKA 135

up, amongst others, the following conclusions which
he has arrived at.

" i", that in the days of the Taittiriya Sanhitd
the winter solstice occurred before the eighth day
of the dark half of Mdgha . . . and that through-
out the whole passage the intention of sacrificing at
the beginning (real, constructive, or traditional) of
the year is quite clear : . . . . 2*^*^, that the year
then commenced with the winter solstice " : '* 3'**,
that as there can not be three real beginnings
of the year, at an interval of one month each, the
passage must be understood as recording a tradition
about the Chitrd full moon and the Phalguni
full moon being once considered as the first days
of the year."

This is B. G. Tilak's conclusion ; merely
judging from the translation, the passage might,
as it seems to me, be understood as unreservedly
recommending the full-moon of Chaitra as the
most suitable for the beginning of the sacrifice,
for in the text of the Taittiriya Sanhitd it is said
of it, ** It has no fault whatsoever."

But in whichever sense the words are under-
stood, this passage from the Yajur Veda may be
set against the hymns and lists in the Yajur and

And at once, as it seems to me, on turning to the
Rig Veda, on patje after page, sucii indications are
to be met with.

The first Nakshatra in the Indian series is named
Aswiiii (Aswins). The two chief stars in that Nak-
shatra are the twin stars, as they may fairly be

' V. p. 94.

■ Ai present ilit; month Chaitra in most parts of India is the
first monih of tht Hindu year. The beginning of ihe year is
measured by the return of tbe sun to ihe same point in the
Zodiac ; at present the boginnint; '>f the Lunar Mansioji Aswinl.
(See Indian CaUndnr. p. 45.)

PARTI.] ASWINI, a AND p ARIETIS 137

called, a and fi Arietis — stars of almost equal
radiance. The joyous hymns addressed to the
twin heroes, the Aswins, I would claim as new-
year hymns composed in honour of these stars,
whose appearance before sunrise heralded the
approach of the great festival-day of the Hindu
new year.

The Hindu year is a sidereal year. It is counted
at present in most parts of India from a fixed point
on the ecliptic, not from a season. It is a
calendrical not a cosmic year. Only one apparently
small change in the method of counting the years
would now require to be made, and again the
Aswins might be hymned by the Hindus as the
"wondrous," and "not untruthful," siars, marking
by their heliacal rising a new year's festival — a
festival to be held on the 15th, or full moon's
day.

The Hindu year is now counted from the new
moon immediately preceding the sun s arrival at
the initial point of the lunar Zodiac. The first of
Chaitra (the first of the light half of Chaitra) never
falls later than the 1 2th of April, and may arrive a
month earlier. If the year were to be counted from

138

the sai
fotiovoi,
at that

whole
The fii
arrive
month
Fof
the Asi
that w!
was so
not fro
"the ei

In support of this provisional theory, let us first
read the summing up of the Aswini myths, and of
the difficLilties and uncertainties surrounding them,
according to the present modes of explanation ; and
then let us consider the astronomic method of
interpretation above proposed.

We read that ' " Next to Iiidra, Agni, and Soma,
the twin deities named the Asvins are the most
prominent in the Rig \'eda, judged by the frequency
with which they arc invoked. They are celebrated

' Macdoiicli, Vidic Mythology, p. 49.

PARTI.] THE ASWINS IN THE VEDA 139

in more than fifty entire hymns and in parts of
several others, while their name occurs more than
400 times. Though they hold a distinct position
among the deities of light and their appellation
is Indian, their connexion with any definite
phenomenon of light is so obscure, that their
original nature has been a puzzle to Vedic inter-
preters from the earliest times. This obscurity
makes it probable that the origin of these gods is

to be sought in a pre- Vedic period The

ASvins are young, the T. S. (Taittiriya Sanhitd)
even describing them as the youngest of the gods.
They are at the same time ancient They are
bright, lords of lustre, of golden brilliancy, and honey-

hued They possess profound wisdom and

occult power. The two most distinctive and fre-
quent epithets of the ASvins are dasra, 'wondrous,'
which is almost entirely limited to them, and
nisatya, which is generally explained to mean
* not untrue. . . .' Their car .... moves round
heaven. It traverses heaven and earth in a single
day as the car of the sun and that of U$as (the
Dawn) are also said to do. . . . The time of their
appearance is often said to be the early dawn, when
'darkness still stands among the ruddy cows' and
they yoke their car to descend to earth and receive
the offerings of worshippers. Ujas (the Dawn)

have been conceived as finding and restoring or

rescuing the vanished light of the sun. In the
Rig Veda they have come to be typically succour-
ing divinities." . . . Again, at p. 51, the writer
adds, "Quite a number of legends illustrating the
succouring power of the Asvins are referred to
in the Rig Veda." Here follows an enumeration
of many miraculous "protections," and cures, — and
then' "The opinion of Bergaigiie and others that
the various miracles attributed to the Asvins are
anthropomorphized forms of solar phenomena {the

' Macdonell, /WiV Mythology, p. 53.

PART I.] A PUZZLE TO COMMENTATORS 141

healing of the blind man thus meaning the release
of the sun from darkness), seems to lack probability.
At the same time the legend of Atri may be a
reminiscence of a myth explaining the restoration
of the vanished sun. As to the physical basis of
the ASvins, the language of the Rsis is so vague
that they themselves do not seem to have under-
stood what phenomenon these deities represented
. . . . what they actually represented puzzled
even the oldest commentators mentioned by
Yaska« That scholar remarks that some regarded
them (the ASvins) as Heaven and Earth (as does
the S. B. — Satapatha Brahmana), others as Day
and Night, others as sun and moon, while the
'legendary writers' took them to be 'two kings,
performers of holy acts.' Yaska's own opinion is
obscure."

In contrast to all these vague and often contra-
dictory explanations, the astronomical suggestion
made at page 137 may to some appear too matter-
of-fact and prosaic. But that a firm and scientific
base should underlie mythical and imaginative
similes does not in reality detract from their
poetic excellence. Indeed, an added fitness, and
therefore an added beauty, is to be recognized
in the Aswin hymns, when we can think of

It is of course to be borne in mind that the
Vedic years were luiii-solar. The actual point
therefore on the ecliptic at which the conjunction
of sun and moon — or new moon — took place, and
from which each year was counted, varied in
different years to the extent of nearly 30 degrees.
The diagram, Plate XII. Figs. 1 and 2, represents the
maximum and minimum distance between the rising
of the Yoga stars of the Nakshatra AswinT, and of
the sun on the 15th or full-moon's day of the first
month of a luni-solar year ; counted from the first

PAET I.] NEW YEAR DIVINrnES 143

conjunction of sun and moon following the sun's
arrival at the '' end of Revatt and the beginning of
A9vini."

It will be seen from the diagram that something
more than two hours was the longest interval that,
according to the presumed method of counting the
Vedic year, elapsed between the appearance of a and
)3 Arietis and of the sun above the horizon.

This astronomic interpretation accounts for the
varying times noted in the hymns for the appearance
of the Aswins. It also accounts, as it seems to me,
for the general tone of the hymns, but as regards
the long series of miraculous "protections " of the
Aswins, accorded by them to many sick, aged, and
decrepit personages, it does not at first sight
account.

We have seen that Bergaigne and others have
opined that the various miracles attributed to the
Aswins are ''anthropomorphized forms of solar
phenomena," and with this view the astronomic
interpretation, when fully followed out to its logical
end, agrees.

But at first sight we wonder how the sun at
the beginning of the calendrical year could, in

Vtdi

sick.

3<
solsti
and
woult

half

solsti

weak

calen

solsti

of af

heral

To help in solving this difficulty, recourse may
again wisely be had to Babylonian astronomic lore.
The fanciful legends regarding the Aswins, con-
sidered only by themselves, can scarcely yield a
sufficiently firm foundation on whicli to build the
far-reaching theory I now desire to bring forward

' If the Hindu year wi:re no-iV couiiled from the new moon
/i!//f«'(>tf instead of that/««i/('w^ the sun's arrival at the initial point
of the Zodiac, owing to the jirecession of the equinoxes, the year
would begin at earliest tuentyone days after the spring eifuino.x.
Since 3,000 ii.C. the seasons have advanced by more than tuo
months, as regards their position amongst the stars.

FAHTi.] THE ACCADIAN CALENDAR 145

concerning them ; a theory on all fours with one I
ventured some years ago to propound in reference
to Babylonian astronomy, in a Paper entitled
the '* Accadian Calendar." ^ It was there sug-
gested that the probable date for the origin of
that Calendar was about 6,000 B.C. The fact was
pointed out that Aries, in the most ancient Accadian
and Babylonian astronomical works, always appears
as leader of the signs and of the year, and stress
was laid on the unlikelihood that this constellation
should have been chosen for this leading post at
a date when the sun's entry into it did not corre-
spond with any one of the four well-marked natural
divisions of the year, i.e. the solstices or equinoxes.
But as on the cuneiform tablets Aries appears as
leader long before the time when the sun sojourned
in that constellation during the first month following
the equinox^ it was suggested that it was when the
solstitial not the equinoctial point coincided with
the first degree of Aries, that the Accadian
calendrical scheme had first been drawn up ;
namely about 6,000 B.C.

A corroboration of the view then put for-

^ Proceedings of Society of BibliccU Archceoiogy^ January 1892.

146

ward i
Accadi
names,
pointer

Zodiac

(■•)

ness "

{'■)

Tauru!
(3.)

series

origina

solstice. They are called respectively :

" I2lh. The month of sowing of seed." — " I3lh.
The dark month of sowing."

For the sowing of most cereals, late autumn
and early winter are the favoured seasons. Many
crops however arc sown in early spring. There
might then be a doubt whether "the month of
sowing of seed" more fitly described the spring
sowing of seed in the twclftli month of a luni-solar
year, counted from the equinox, — or the winter
sowing of seed in the twelfth month of a luni-solar

PAUT I.] ASWIN LEGENDS, PREVEDIC 147

year, counted from the solstice. But when we
find this twelfth month followed by a thirteenth,
of which the especial and added epithet is dark^
there can, as it seems to me, be little if any doubt
that the winter month whose range in different
years extended from 12th of December to 22nd
January is better described by the epithet dark,
than the rapidly brightening month whose range
extended from 12th March to 22nd April.

Very curiously, then, and accurately does the
Accadian calendar give us the date of its origin,
and of the first naming of its months, as that
when the winter solstice coincided with the sun's
entry into the first degree of the constellation Aries *
— the date in round numbers of 6,000 B.C.

To this same date it is, as I believe, that
the miraculous protections accorded by the Aswins
to the distressed solstitial sun and moon and
earth appear to point, and fully does this view
corroborate the opinion that the Aswin-legends
took their rise in pre-Vedic times. They also,

^ The winter solstice now coincides very closely with the
sun's entry into Sagittarius. It precedes the sun's entry into Aries
by almost a third of the whole circle of the ecliptic.

NOTES. — ^AHURA MAZDA, ETC.

[ Ahura Mazda, a note reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society

of Biblical Archaohgy^ February 1900]

Professor Hommel in the March number for 1899
of these Proceedings calls attention in his Assyria-
logiccU Notes to the name " Assara Mazas " appear-
ing in a list of Assyrian gods. The section of the
list in which this name appears contains '' a number
of foreign sounding names" belonging to gods
honoured, presumably, in out-lying portions of the
Assyrian dominions.

Professor Hommel claims " that this god (Assara
Mazas) is no other than the Iranian Ahura Mazda,"
and he thus concludes his arguments in favour of
this opinion — ** concerning Assara-mazas^ I should
like to remark in closing this paragraph, that we
have here the same older pronunciation of Iranian

wor
and

whi
the
beti
byl

the
ber
simi

the

but was in the first place founded on the virtual
identity of the emblems of Assur and Ahura Mazda.
For the origin of these emblems (referring as it was
suggested they did to the Zodiacal constellation
Sagittarius) a date as high as 4,000 B.C. was, on
astronomic grounds, assumed, and it was pointed
out that at that date there was no evidence of the
existence of the Assyrian nation as a nation, nor
any trace of a Semitic worship of the god Assur ;
whereas, on the other hand, as early as 3,800 T!.c.
there is evidence that a powerful Aryan race— the

PARTI] ASSARA-MAZAS AND ASSUR 151

Manda — rivalled the power, and threatened the
Semitic rule of Sargon of Agane.

The opinion that the symbol of Ahura Mazda,
and of Assur, was of ancient Aryan origin, naturally
suggested the further thought that the name Assur,
so closely resembling the earlier Indo-Iranian form
Asura, of the Iranian Ahura, had, together with the
emblem of the god, been borrowed from the Aryan
ancestors of the Medo- Persians by the Semitic
settlers who, early in the second millennium B.C..
established themselves to the north of Babylonia.
It may here be pointed out that no very certain
Semitic derivation at present holds the field which
the proposed Aryan derivation would occupy.
According to some scholars it comes from a word
signifying "a well-watered plain." According to
Professor Hommel, the name Assur is derived from
a word which originally meant '' the heavenly
host."

Professor Hommel, quoting as his authority the
opinions of the Sanscrit scholar Oldenburg, and re-
inforcing Oldenburg's opinions by arguments from
other sources, further maintains the high probability
of the Median god Ahura Mazda having been the

It is said that " the parallel in character, though
not in name, of the god Varuna is Ahura Mazda,
the Wise Spirit." But a variety of considerations
may lead us to entertain the possibility of a Vedic
}^od other than Varuna being the parallel in charac-
ter and in epithet of Aliura Mazda ; a parallel which
is also still more clearly to be recognized if we
adopt the view, above contended for, of the identity
of Assur, the archer god of Assyria, with Ahura
Mazda.

The Vedic god Rudra is, like Varuna, an Asura

PARTI.] RUDRA— ASURA MAHA 153

or Spirit He is described as ** the wise," and his
votaries are encouraged to worship him " for a com-
prehensive and sound understanding." But in one
passage the epithet ^'asura maha/' so curiously
recalling to our ears the name of the Avestan
"Ahura Mazda/' is actually applied to him.^ As
a wise and great Asura, Rudra seems to be as close
a parallel to Ahura Mazda as Varuna ; the resem-

^ Wilson, I^tg Veda^ Ma^^ala ii., i, 6. Uncertainty prevails
among scholars as to the exact meaning to be given to the name
Ahura Mazda. The Rev. L. H. Mills, D.D., under the heading
"Zend," writes thus in Chamber^ s Encychpctdia : " The Supreme
Deity Ahura Mazd&h, the Living God or 'Lord' (a^»'the
living,' * life,' or * spirit * — root aA - * to be '), the Great Creator
{jnat -k-da^ Sansk. mahd + dM)^ or 'the Wise One' {cf. su-medhdsy
Again, the same writer in his book on the Gkthits, published in
18949 gives on p. 3 in his "verbatim translation," "O magni-
donator (?) (vel) O Sapiens (?)," as alternative meanings for
Mazda. Similar uncertainty seems to prevail as regards the
meaning to be attached to the words of the passage in the Rig
Veda to which reference has been made above, 1.^., Man<JUda il,
Siikta i., verse 6. In Wilson's translation of the Rig Veda^
voL ii., p. 211, we read:— "Thou, Agni, art Rudra, the expeller
(of foes) from the expanse of heaven " : and in his note to this
passage he says : " Twam Rudro asuro maho divah : asura is
explained Satninim nirasiti, the expeller of enemies, divas, from
heaven ; or it may mean, the giver of strength. . . ." Macdonell
( Viedic Mythology, p. 75) says that Rudra is called in this passage
" the great asura of heaven."

IS4

blan
para

^
high

but
Ved
to e
aho\
plao

]
Ahu
Assi
beco

Rudra is not only a wise and great Asura, he is
above everything else celebrated in the Rig Veda as
an archer. He has "the sure arrow, the strong
bow."' He is "the divine Rudra armed with the
strong bow and fast Hying arrows."^

In the Paper already referred to, it was
suggested that an astronomic observation of the
equinoctial colure passing through the constellations
Sagittarius and Taurus was the probable origin of

' Wilson, /?;!,■ Ttvi'rt, Man.hla v,, .\. (\lii.), 1 1.
■ /K Man.Jaia vii., xiii. (xlvi.), i.

PARTI] HUDRA, AN ARCHER GOD 155

Median and (as derived from Median) Assyrian
symbolism concerning Ahura Mazda and Assur.
This observation could, as was pointed out, only
have been made at the date, in round numbers, of
4,000 B.C.

It is a very tempting enterprise to seek in the
mythologies of European nations for allusions to
this same astronomic observation — an observation
made, as we may believe, when the ancestors of the
Iranian and Indian Aryans, and possibly the ances-
tors of the European nations, were still, if not all
dwelling together, at least within easy intellectual
touch of each other.

In Grecian fable we have the Centaur (the Bull-
killer) Chiron giving his name to the constellation
Sagittarius, and in this fable we may, as it would
seem, find a better astronomic explanation of the
term Bull-killer than that usually given concerning
the well-mounted Thessalian hunters of wild cattle.
The constellation Sagittarius, an archer, half man,
half horse, is not a figure of Grecian invention.
It is to be met with depicted on Babylonian monu-
ments, unmistakably the archer of our celestial
sphere ; and this constellation, when it rises in the

ski
the

thi
an

am
be<
"I

bow, who presides over all sanitary drugs ; worship
Rudra for a comprehensive and sound understand-
ing, adore the powerful divinity with prostrations."

Apollo the far-darter, Artemis the goddess of
the silver bow, also shared these same attributes,
and Grecian legend would lead us to place them in
the same part of the heavens as that allotted to
Chiron- — i.e., Sagittarius. Apollo prompted Artemis
to aim a shaft from her bow at a point on the

' Wilson, /■/> Veda, Mandala li.. xxxiii., 4.
' Jb., Mambla V-, x. (xlii.), 11.

PART I.] CHraON— APOLLO— ARTEMIS 157

horizon, and this point was the head of the hunter
Orion. Now the constellation Orion is exactly
in opposition to the bow stars of Sagittarius;
that the legend is astronomical is plainly to be
inferred from its variant form, in which Artemis
is represented as sending a Scorpion to sting
Orion to death. The stars marking the Scorpion's
sting are in very close proximity to the bow stars of
Sagittarius.

Returning to Indian myths, the name of Siva
does not occur in the Rig Veda; but in later
Sanscrit works Siva is the representative of Rudra.
In a hymn to Siva,^ the following passages occur,
and it is difficult to read them and not be reminded
of the sculptured figures of Artemis, crescent-
crowned and leading a stag by the horns. (Allow-
ance must be made, however, for the tendency in
Hindu art to multiply the heads, arms, and features
of their gods.)

" I worship the great Makesa, who shines like
ten million suns : who is adorned with triple eyes :
who is crowned with the moon : who is armed with

^ Hymn to Siva, prefixed to " An Exposition of the Prindples
of Sanskrit Logic," by Bodhanundinath Swamt, Calcutta.

158
the

gOJU

Kail
crest

1
battl

)
moo:

\
deer.

For the explanation of the Roman myths of
Dianus and Diana (varying forms as the dictionary
tells of Janus and Jana) we may naturally seek
for the same astronomic origin, as for those con-
cerning the Grecian archer divinities.

Janus indeed has not, so far as I know, ever
been represented as an archer or a Centaur. The
attribute for which he is especially renowned is that
of "opener of the year," and this attribute, on the
iistronomic theory here proposed, would furnish the

FAET I.] Sn^A— DIANA— JANUS IS9

connecting link between the varying forms of the
Italian deities above mentioned.

The many and still imperfectly understood
changes that were made in the Roman year by
successive rulers, have effaced the connexion of
that year with the stars which must have originally
presided over its opening. But Roman tradition
embodied in Virgil's lines speaks of •* the bright
Bull " who "with his gilded horns opens the year."*
The golden star-tipped horns of the Bull are as we
know exactly opposed to the westernmost degrees
of Sagittarius ; and that constellation, in opposition
to the sun, would therefore have marked the open-
ing of just such a vernal year as that alluded to by
Virgil. Whether this vernal year before the Julian
reformation was still the calendrical year in Rome
is, however, very doubtful.

Janus is represented with two heads, sometimes
even with four, " to typify the seasons of the year."
The ftUl moon in Sagittarius 4,000 b.c. marked the
season of the spring equinox — the sun then being
in conjunction with the stars marking the horn tips
of the Bull. The new moon in Sagittarius at the

^ Virgil, Gi^,^ Lib. I., 217, a 18.

san
Jiai
of
ere.
sun
thu
the

an<j

reft

whi
refc

but to the sun's triumph at the solstitia) season. In

the Roman Janus myth we may rather detect the
later Median influence, and suppose that it referred
to a year beginning with the //<// moon in Sagit-
tarius, a year opening in the spring, when the sun
was in conjunction with the "gilded horns" of "the
bright Bull."

All these mythological indications, derived from
Median, Assyrian, Indian, and classical sources,
though each of them looked at separately may not
speak with much insistence, yet considered together

PAiTi.] THE MOON IN SAGITTARIUS i6i

seem to point us more and more clearly as we study
them, to the fact that about 4,000 b.c. a very im-
portant and authoritative observation of the colures
(amongst the Zodiacal constellations) was made, and
that upon this observation much of the mythology
of ancient nations was founded.

asti

imp

Biblical Archaeology.

On Talmudic authority we are told that, as a
protest against the sun-, moon-, and star-worship of
surrounding nations, the Hebrews were not per-
mitted to calculate in any way beforehand, or by
scientific methods based on the movements of the
heavenly bodies, their days, their months, or their
years.

The end of the day and beginning of the night
could only be definitely ascertained when three
stars were visible to the observer. The moon must

PAtT I.] ASTRONOMY IN THE TALMUD 163

have shown its pale sickle to some watcher of the
heavens, before the first of the month could be
announced. The beginning of the year, we are
also told, was dependent on the earliness or late-*
ness of the agricultural season, for three ears of
com, in a sufficiently advanced state of growth,
were to be presented to the priest and waved before
the Lord an a fixed day of the first month di the
year.

This is what some passages of the Talmud^

^ BibU Educator^ edited by Rev. E. H. Plumptre, M. A, voL
iiL pp. 339 and 340. " It may have been with a view to render
astrology impossible, that the Jews were forbidden to keep a
calendar in the Holy Land, ... as the length of thfe lunation,
or lunar month, is, roughly speaking, twenty-nine days and a half,
it is easy to know, from month to month, when to expect the
crescent to become visible. Six times in the year the beginning
of the month was decided by observation of the new moon. . . .
On two months of the year the determination of the new moon
was of such importance, that the witnesses who observed the
crescent were authorized to profane the Sabbath by travelling
to give information at Jerusalem. These occasions were the
months Nisan and Tisri. . . . The Mishna records that on one
occasion as many as forty pairs of witnesses thus arrived on the
Sabbath at Lydda. Rabbi Akiba detained them, but was reproved

for so doing by Rabbi Gamaliel When the evidence was

satisfactory, the judges declared the month to be commenced,
and a beacon was lighted on Mount Olivet, from which the signal
was repeated on mountain after mountain, until the whole country
was aglow with fires."

164

seem
it is
tions
trary,
to ar

"the
also"
seaso
have
statei
that
ofFeri

of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.
And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his
offering," In the margin the words "in process
of time" are rendered "at the end of days." In
considering this passage we seem to be brought
into touch with a definitely established year ;
and at once archasology and astronomy enter into
the field of Biblical research, to tell us of a remotely
old calendar — astronomic indications would date the
origin of this calendar at about 6,000 B.C. — and
from this calendar we learn that at "the end of

FAET 1.) ASTRONOMY IN THE BIBLE 165

days" — the end of the dark days of the year —
there followed a month of **the sacrifice of
righteousness " : a sacrifice, we may well suppose,
of the firstlings of the flock, as the stars in con-
junction with the sun during this first month were
imagined by the institutors of the calendar under
the form of a lamb or ram ready for sacrifice.

To this calendrical first month our attention is
again drawn when we read, in the book of Exodus,
of the institution at God s command of the Hebrew
festival, to be held on the 14th and 15th days of
the month Abib.

This month Abib, it is generally assumed, is
the equivalent of the month Nisan, spoken of in
some of the later books of the Old Testament.

Astronomy and archaeology again claim a
hearing on this point. The month Nisan, the
Semite equivalent of the Accadian month Bar zig-
gar (the month of the " sacrifice of righteousness "),
we may gather from the evidence of the cuneiform
tablets, had been the first month of a calendrical
year in Babylon for many centuries — for millenniums,
perhaps — before the date of Moses; and therefore
archaeology would teach us that the children of Israel

pat
tha
yea

firs
fest

nac

the
ver

acci

crops, and one taking its name from the ears of com

presented to the priest, and waved before the Lord
on some fixed day of that month; but rather it
must have been (as we know, from Babylonian
sources that Xisan was) a well calculated soh-Iunar
and sidereal month. Now, if we adopt this view,
we must find some alternative derivation for the
month name Abib. Nor is it by any means
difficult so to do.

On the fourteenth night of the first month —
Bar zig-gar, Nisan, or Abib — "a night to be much

PART I.] ABIB REFERS TO SPICA 167

observed," or rather, according to the marginal
reading, "a night of observations" — the bright
star Spica, which marks the ears of cam in the
Virgin's hand, rose above the eastern horizon as
the sun set in the west, and at midnight must
have shone down brilliantly on the Hebrew hosts ;
for Spica is so bright a star, that even the beams
of the full moon riding close at hand could not
have obscured its lustre.

The Indians of to-day name their months from
the stars in their lunar Zodiac which are in
opposition to^ not from those in conjunction with,
the sun. The close resemblance of the Arab and
Indian lunar Zodiacal series suggests the thought
that the Arabs may have followed the same
system of month nomenclature as the Indians;
and if this were the case it would furnish a reason
why Moses, who had so lately returned from his
forty years' sojourn in Arabia, should — in recalling
the Hebrews to the observance of such a year
as that which was presumably followed by their
forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — have yet
spoken of the first month of the year according
to a non-Babylonian method of nomenclature, and

i6S

should

oppositi

Ifn

method

amongs

present

general!

of the

reaped

Lord.

The

than in

to a fij

ours) before

which he might

not begin to put

his sickle

into the corn, would

be felt as a

hurt-

ful and arbi

rary regulation ; but to restrict the

husbandman

to a fixed day in

a luni-solar

year

would be

still more hurtful

regulation.

The

beginning

a soli-lunar year

may vary to the

extent of

whole month. A

late beginni

ng of

such a y

°3.V

might coincide with a very

early

agricultura

season, and vice

versa an

early

calendrical

year might occur in

a late agricultural

season.

FART 1.1 NOT TO FIRST RIPENED CORN 169

Considerations of this nature may incline us
to inquire carefully whether the " generally accepted
theory" (concerning the waving of the ears of
corn before the Lord during the Passover week)
rests upon Scriptural authority or on Talmudic and
traditional teaching. As against an almost un-
broken array of commentators, it is possible in this
connexion to quote from the work of a learned
Hebrew scholar a clearly expressed opinion that
from the Scriptures themselves, it is not possible
to infer directly a connexion in date between the
waving of the first fruits and the Passover festival.*

1 Peniaieuqui^ Traduction Nouvelle, par Rabbi Wogue
(Lazare), torn. 3. Discussing an important difference of opinion
which exists amongst Jewish scholars and commentators as to the
exact day of the Passover festival, on which the priest was to wave
the sheaf before the Lord, the writer says : " Le texte porte : ' Le
Lendemain du Sabbat,' indication qui a donn^ lieu k une dissidence
importante entre les Pharisiens et les Saduc^ens. . . . Nous avons
adopts le systime talmudique, qui a pour lui Tautorit^ des Septante,
des targoumtm, de Josephe, et Tusage immemorial de la Synagogue ;
mais, it ne consulter que les textes sans parti pris, nous ne sous-
cririons k aucune des deux doctrines. Ni la c^r^monie de Tdmer,
ni le comput des semaines, ne sont mis par nos textes en rapport
avec la PAque, mais uniquement avec les moissons, soit id, soit
dans le Deuttonome (xvL 9). Dis la r^colte de Torge, le divin
L^gislateur veut qu'on lui fksse hommage des pr^mices de cette
c^r^e ; il n'indique point de date, parceque la moisson, pas plus
que la vendange, et pas plus en Palestine qu'ailleurs, ne commence

I/O

as at
time
and
long-

ance
the I
than
woul
the
date
1
after

the above proposed explanations of the Hebrew
month name Abib as that of the month when the
sun was in conjunction with the constellation Aries,
and in opposition to tlie star Spica, marking the
Zodiacal ears of corn. But there is a further point

a jour fixe. Mais une fois ouvcrtc, die so continue sans interrup-
lion ; et comme les fromenls, ui Palestine, sont coupes sept
semaines apres, les pr(;mices dvi fninient doivenl C-tre ofTcrtes au
bout de sept seniaines, L'Omer et !a Pentecoie soul done mobiles
par exception, mais cettc dernicre est relalivomenl fixe. Main-
tenant de quel ' Sabbat ' est il question? I'uisque tout ici est
subordonn^ S touvfrturt de la matsson, ce sera naturellement le
Sabbat qui suit ceite ouverturc."

PAiTi.] ABIB AND CHATTRA 171

of connexion to be observed between Indian
astronomy and Biblical archaeology, namely, that
the first month of the Indian year is at the
present date the month during which the sun is
in conjunction with the constellation Aries. This
month is called Chaitra, which is the Sanscrit
name of the star Spica, and it is in fact the same
sidereally marked month, which, according to the
opinions here advocated, was the first month of
the ancient Accadian, Babylonian, and Hebrew
years.

It must, therefore, be a question of interest to
Biblical students to determine, if possible, whether
this Indian first month has only so been counted
(as some scholars tell us) since about 570 A.D., or
whether it has so been counted from the same
remote time as was the Accadian month Bar zig-gar,
that is, possibly, from about 6,000 b.c.

This question as to the month Chaitra forms
part only of a larger controversy which has been
long waged concerning the antiquity, or otherwise,
of the whole science of astronomy in India.

To this larger controversy I have drawn atten-
tion in my Paper, Astronomy in the Rig Veda, read

172

bef

Roi

fon

bar

the

and

pro

seei

dor

moi

times is discussed, and the claim that it was, and

throughout remote ages had ever been, virtually

the same month as the Accadian Bar zig-gar is

insisted upon.

Pursuing further the controversy concerning the
antiquity of astronomy amongst the Aryan races, in
the note on "Ahura Mazda" (p. 152), I proposed an
identification of the Vedic Rudra with the Median
god — the god who presided over the Median equi-
noctial year, marked by observation of the full moon
in the constellation Sagittarius.

PARTI.] THE MARUTS 173

Continuing then our enquiries into the astro-
nomic myths of ancient India, let us turn our
attention to the sons of Rudra — the Maruts.
They are a group of gods very prominent among
Vedic deities, and it is to be noted that Rudra is
oftener alluded to in the Rig Veda as the father of
the Maruts than in almost any other capacity. Now
the Maruts — ^the stormy troop of Maruts — ^are
celebrated as the companions and friends of Indra.
They are ''associated with him in innumerable
passages." Here, at first sight, it might seem that
the proposed astronomical identification of Indra
and Rudra as solstitial and equinoctial personifi-
cations must break down ; for how should the
sons of the equinoctial Rudra always appear as
the devoted companions of the solstitial Indra?

On further examination, however, a very
interesting explanation of this difficulty presents
itself. From a hymn (quoted at p. 157) to Siva,
the Hindu representative of the Vedic Rudra, we
learn that the crescent half-moon blazes on the
forehead of Siva. Now the crescent half-moon, in
the western degrees of the constellation Sagittarius,
would, 4,500 B.C., have marked the month of the

174

sumn
quart
attaii
the
full I
tions
some
are o
in m
three
thou{
Man
betwi

of Rudra, and the full moon of the summer solstice,
or Soma pavamana — Soma purified in the celestial
waters (see Plate Xlll.). And this explanation of
the Maruts does not contradict, but rather agrees
with and includes the usual non-astronomic ex-
planations held regarding them, namely, that they
are slorm ivitidi ; for we know that the days
which accompany the setting in of the solstitial
rainy season in India are the days in which the
fierce tropical hurricanes or monsoons prevail.
Now let us turn from the Maruts to another, as

PLATE XI n.

Outer circle divided into 360 degren.

and circle. The name* and extent of the tirenty-Mven Indian
"Nalubatiai" or diviiioni of the Lunar Zodiac.

3rd circle. Nunes and extent of the twelve Indian "Rashis* or
divisiooi of the Solar Zodiac

4tb circle. Propoied three-fold division of the Vedic Lunar Month
ai SeaXMi of Summer Solstice.

Section <rf 5th circle. Propoied identification of " Maruta " with Moon's
course through seven " Naluhatras " at Season of Summer Solstice.

The Constellations here appear as drawn on the celestial globe ; they
have not been reversed as in the other illustrations, hence an a^iarent,
tboo^ not real, contradiction ensues.

FAETi.] TRITA APTYA 175

it seems to me, lunar and solstitial myth, namely,
that of Trita Aptya.

Trita Aptya is a friend of the Maruts, and is
said to have appeared on the same car with them.
He is constantly, in the hymns, associated with
Indra, and feats recorded in one passage as per-
formed by Indra, are in another passage of the
same hymn attributed to Trita.

Trita is also often spoken of together with
Soma ; and in the ninth Ma^dala, again and again
we read of the ten " maidens, or fingers," of Trita
preparing the Soma juice for Indra.

All these attributes of Trita, and others to be
mentioned later, are easily explainable on the
astronomic theory already propounded in the
identifications of Indra, of Soma, and of the
Maruts.

In the name Trita there is certainly a suggestion
of the number tkree^ and Macdonell, in his Vedic
Mythology^ brings proof to show ''that it was
felt to have the meaning of the third " — that is, in
order of sequence.

But though the third, in this sense, does not

»P. 69.

basis of the Trita myth. Trita Aptya, or Trita in
the waters {or of the waters), appears as the third
part of the lunar month — the part during which
the moon is to be seen in the celestial waters ; and
as Trita is so closely connected with Indra and
Soma pavamana, that third part must have been
the ten lunar days (five before and five after " the
full ") during which the moon is at its brightest, and
in the constellation Aquarius.

If we think of Trita Aptya as a personification
of the triumphant third of the moon's course through

PARTI.] TRITA AND FUIJ, MOON 177

the constellations of the Zodiac at the season of the
summer solstice (see Plate XIII.), and if we re-
member that the moon during the ten lunar days
contained in that ''third" came to its full in
Aquarius or in Pisces, sometimes indeed at the
juncture of these constellations, we shall be able
to understand much of the figurative language of
the Veda, which associates Trita with the stormy
Maruts, with the victories of Indra over Vritra,
and with the effulgence of Soma pavamana.

There is a legend concerning Trita not related
but alluded to in the Rig Veda. This legend tells
us that Trita was one of three brothers (Ekata,
Dvita, and Trita), and that he was pushed into a
well by his brothers, and over the mouth of the well
a circular covering was placed with intent to keep
Trita down and drown him. But through the
circular covering the ever-triumphant Trita burst
Here there can be little doubt is a mythic descrip-
tion of the temporary disaster of eclipse overtaking
the full moon of the summer solstice in the celestial
waters of Aquarius or Pisces. The circular
covering can be nothing else than the circular
shadow of the earth covering the disc of the full

178

mw
the
enif

sky,

mai
also
asp4
brol
Fro
Tril
be
myt

change of termination, appears as the Greek
Triton, and we may guess at an allusion in the
sculptured forms of Greek and Roman Tritons —
half men and lialf fish — to the two watery con-
stellations, Aquarius and Pisces, in which the
Vedic Trita Aptya (son of waters) made hts abode.
The Roman rendering of these composite figures,
especially, may recall to our minds the Zodiacal
basis of the myth — the two fish of Pisces
appearing in Italian art, as the two fish-tails
' Macdonell, I'tdic Afylholo^}', \>. 6g.

PART L] TRFTA, TRITON— EKATA, HECATE 179

which terminate the human-headed figure of the
Triton. Again Hecate, as has been pointed out
by scholars, bears a close resemblance in name
to Ekata. Hecate was a lunar divinity ; she was
worshipped and sacrificed to at the close of the
month. We may therefore suppose she repre-
sented the waning moon. She is further said to
have been the daughter of Perseus and Asteria.
Looking at the figures of the celestial sphere (see
Plate), we may trace the third part of the moon's
course — the ten days of its waning appropriated to
Ekata — and observe how this portion of its course
began close to the consteilation Perseus. Thus the
Sanscrit Trita myth may explain the name and
parentage of the Grecian Hecate.*

A study of ancient European calendars may, on
the other hand, eke out our knowledge concerning
the astronomic scheme in which Trita and his

^ It is not to be supposed that only the month of the summer
solstice was divided into the three parts, personified by Ekata,
Dvita, and Trita : the legend of Trita Aptya, that is, Trita in the
waters (or, of the waters), is necessarily restricted to that season
in which the moon came to its full in the constellations Aquarius
or Pisces. Some interesting indications in Indian and Greek
mythology seem to point to a similar division of other months,
but the subject is surrounded with uncertainties and difficulties.

also, as shown by their cumbrous system of Kalends,

Nones, and Ides) retained the plan of a threefold
division of the months, but lost the originally con-
comitant arrangement of the ten equal divisions of
each part into tithis, whence much difficulty ensued
for Greeks and Romans alike in counting lunar
months of alternately thirty and twenty-nine days.
Indian astronomers, on the other hand, who retain
the accurate and elaborate division of the month
into equal tithis, must have long ago lost the thought
of its originally threefold partition, for the Indians

PART I.] ATM AND THE NEW MOON i8i

count each month as composed not of three periods
of time, but of a light and a dark half. ^

To one more lunar Vedic personage let us
direct our attention : namely, to Atri — ^Atri who,
unlike the conquering and ever-victorious Trita,
is chiefly celebrated for his misfortunes. Agni,
Indra, and especially the Aswins, moved by his
misfortunes, come to the help of Atri, and by
means of a hundred acts, a hundred devices, they
extricate him from captivity, whether from a dark
cavern or from a burning chasm. They make the
time of his captivity even pleasant to him, giving
him refreshing drink.

One of our own poets may help us to under-
stand the Vedic metaphor of Atri's darksome cave.
In the Samson Aganistes of Milton, the hero,
describing his blindness, says —

'* The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon
When she deserts the night,
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."

^ '* The Luni-Solar year is used for the regulation of festivals
and domestic arrangements; it commences at present at the
instant of conjunction of the Sun and Moon in the Sidereal
month Chaitra. The Hindu Lunar months invariably consist of

At
Moon,
somet
while
chasm
poet's
at tbi
dark
by th
which
other
Moon
wintei
the calendrical year. On one occasion ' we hear of

ihiriy Tilhis, or Lunar days ; and the whole month is divided into
two equal parts of fifteen Tithis each, the one called Shukla or
Shuddh Paksha— the bright half or increase of the Moon; the
other Krishna or Vadya Paksh.t— the dark half or decrease of the
Moon." {T/if Indian Cakndar for ihc year 1892.)

' Wilson's Jiig tWn, vol. iii. ]). 297, Mandala^ V. xl.
" 5. When, Sdrya, the son of the Asura Swatbhinu over-
spread thee with darkness, tlie worlds were beheld like
one bewildered, knowing not liis place. 6. When, Indra,
thou wast dissipatinj; those illusioiis of Swarbhanu which were
spread below the Sun, then Atri, by his fourth sacred prayer, dis-
covered the Sun concealed by the darkness imi>eding his functions.
7. (SiUya speaks) Let not the violator, Atri, through hunger
swallow with fearful (darkness) me who am thine ; thou art Milra,

PART 1.] ATRI AT THE SUN'S ECLIPSE 183

Atri coming to the assistance of the sun, which
had been hidden by the demon Swarbhanu. This
darkening of the sun is generally understood to
refer to a solar eclipse. A solar eclipse can only
take place at the time of new moon. It is a little
puzzling to find Atri, if Atri personifies the new
moon, saving the sun from eclipse instead of
being the cause of the disaster ; but as in the Rig
Veda Atri always appears as a friend, not an
enemy, of the gods of light — Agni, Indra, and
the Aswins — we may suppose that the Vedic bard
chose to represent him as being present at, rather
than causing the sun's eclipse. It may also be
that a certain number of divisions of lunar time
were considered as personified by Atri, and that
an eclipse terminated in the third or fourth of
those divisions ; so that it could be said that Atri
"by his fourth sacred prayer" discovered the
sun. The passage is no doubt a difficult one;

whose wealth is truth ; do thou and the royal Varuna both protect
me. 8. Then the Brahman (Atri), appl]ring the stones together,
propitiating the gods with praise, and adoring them with reverence,
placed the eye of Sdrya in the sky ; he dispersed the delusions
of Swarbhinu. 9. The Sun, whom the Asura^ Swarbhinu, had
enveloped with darkness, the sons of Atri subsequently recovered ;
no others were able (to effect his release)."

■ 84

StUI
of 1
aga
cat!

pos
Atr

to I
and
mil!
Th<

Vec

of etymology at their command, will easily be able
to follow up and pronounce upon the value of the
clues hero hazarded.

VIII

THE CHINESE CALENDAR, WITH SOME
REMARKS WITH REFERENCE TO
THAT OF THE CHALDEANS

[Rq>rinted from the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical

Archceology^ December 1901]

The Chinese Lunar Zodiac is divided into 28
star groups named Siou. Gustav Schlegel in his
Uranographie Chinoise having enumerated these 28
siou— or as he translates that term, *• domiciles"
— says : " La premiere chose qui nous frappe en
voyant la liste des 28 domiciles, c'est qu'elle com-
mence par le domicile Kio, ou la Vierge, preuve
positive que c'^tait avec ce domicile que Tannde a
dii commencer primitivement," * and further on he
quotes from " le Eul-ya cette antique dictionnaire/'
as follows : '' LAncien des canstellattons, c'est Kio et

^ Uranographie Chinoise^ p. 79.

186

mique que Vast^risme Kio ouvrait Tannic. Le
' Sing-king ' les nomme les Chefs des quatre
regions, les Legions cHestes. . . . Elks president
aux ni^/amorpkoses de la crt'ation : dies sont (raver-
stfes par C^cliptique et les sept claries {7 planets)
eommcncent {Icur revolution') par dies. "

The concluding words from the Sing-king which

I have marked in italics — giving as they do the

opinions held by ancient Chinese writers respecting

the first divisions of their Lunar Zodiac — may

' Uranographit Chinoise, p. 87.

PART I.] CHINESE AND HINDU LORE 187

remind us of the opinions held by Indian astro-
nomers as to their first division of the Zodiac

In Whitney's comments on the Sdfya SiddAdnta
he observes : — " The initial point of the fixed Hindu
sphere, from which longitudes are reckoned, and at
which the planetary motions are held by all schools of
Hindu astronomy to have commenced at the creation^
is the end of the asterism Revatt, or the beginning
ofA9vinl."^

It is impossible to read of these two traditions
concerning the initial point of the Chinese and of
the Hindu ecliptic series of constellations, without
suspecting some underlying cause common to both
traditions.

The Chinese and Hindu initial points are dia-
metrically opposite to each other on the ecliptic
Calendrically speaking, such opposite points may be
taken to mark the same season and the same month
— as for instance, in the old Accadian calendar the
month names referred to the stars in conjunction
with the sun. The month of the sacrifice of right-

■

eousness corresponded to the month during which
the sun was in conjunction with the sacrificial Ram.

» V. p. 93

To any interested in the history of the Chinese

calendar, or rather to any interested in the history
of the human race, the question as to the reason for
the choice of this point and for the equal honour in
which it was held {as we have seen) by the Accadian,
the Hindu, and the Chinese nations, is a question
worthy of close attention.

In former Papers contributed to these Proceed-
ings, I have drawn attention to the many indications
in ancient cuneiform and Indian literature, which
seem to point to the conclusion that about 6,000 B.C.,

PARTI.] KIO, CHAITRA, SPICA 189

in some part of Asia and in a latitude probably as
far north as 40 degrees, a calendar was instituted by
" some ancient race of men/' that this calendar dealt
with a year beginning at the season of the winter
solstice, and that the stars which at that date were
chosen to mark the solstitial year were those in the
first degrees of the constellation Aries in conjunction
with — ^and the bright star Spica in opposition to —
the sun. I suggested that the Accadians and later
Babylonians, as also the Aryans of India, continued
to follow as star-marks for their years the constella-
tions chosen by the institutors of this ancient
calendar, and that therefore in the course of ages
the beginning of the years of these peoples moved
gradually away from the season of the winter
solstice, approaching always nearer to the vernal
equinox, close to which point we find it ''bound"
at the time of the fall of the Babylonian power ;
while in India, where the star-mark Spica is still
followed, the year now begins about twenty days
after the spring equinox.

Indications in Mesopotamian and Indian litera-
ture have seemed to me to point to the above con-
clusions. The opposed view, held by most writers

the vernal equinox ; but on the contrary the opinion
has been very generally held and expressed by

Chinese scholars that at some remote date the new
year's festival was held in China at the season of
the winter solstice.

Gustav Schlegel, one of the latest writers on the
subject of Chinese astronomy, though he admits
that, " selon I'opinion g^n^rale I'annee chinoise
commence toujours avec le solstice d'hiver," has
put forward a view entirely opposed to this gener-
ally held opinion ; according to his theory, the

PARTI.] 16,916 B.C. 191

Chinese have from the most remote times counted
their years, as they count them at present — i.e.,
from the new moon nearest to the season mid-way
between the winter solstice and the spring equinox :
and as he is convinced — as we have seen — that the
beginning of the Chinese year was originally marked
by the asterism Kio, he demands as the lowest
possible date for this origin of the Chinese calen-
dar, that of 16,916 B.C., when the constellation Kio
marked, by its heliacal rising, the mid-season between
solstice and equinox.

Schlegel brings forward many learned and in-
genious arguments drawn from Chinese literature to
support this theory. It would be impossible at
second hand, and in a small space, to state fairly his
arguments with a view to rebutting them. His
volumes are full of valuable information concerning
the •* Uranographie Chinoise," but it has not seemed
to me when reading and re-reading his work, that
the grounds on which he relies are sufficiently
established to support the high claims to antiquity
which he puts forward for the origin of the modem
Chinese method of counting the year from the mid-
season between solstice and equinox.

hist
will
soir
and
the
thai
Thi
inci
tion
initi
groi
ano
at the date in round numbers of 6,ooo B.C.

The year in China is luni-solar, and it is, as has
been pointed out, counted from the season exactly
midway between the winter solstice and the spring
equinox.

It is counted from this mid-season and not from
the sun's opposition to, or conjunction with, any
particular star or star group. It is therefore not
;t sidereal but a tropical year ; and it is estimated
at exactly the same length as is our European
Gregorian year,

FART I.J GREGORIAN YEAR. 1688 AJ). 193

We here in Europe are not yet tired of con-
gratulating ourselves on the scientific success at-
tained by Pope Gregory XI I L, when in 1582 he,
with the help of many learned men and astronomers,
established, as a reform of the earlier Julian
calendar, a method of securely binding all recurring
anniversaries — civil and ecclesiastical — to the exact
same season of the year.

Calculations for the arrangement of the Julian
calendar had strained the scientific powers of the
astronomers of Greece and Rome in Cxsar's time,
but the length of the year estimated by them was
twelve minutes greater than that arrived at by the
astronomers of Gregory's later date.

To find, as we do, in the far east of Asia a
people counting the length of their luni-solar year
with the same accurate exactness as that only
attained to as late as 1582 a.d. in Europe, might
well cause us surprise, were it not that history
furnishes ys with an easy explanation of this exact
identity of Chinese and European calendrical calcu-
lations, by teaching us that the calendar by which
the Chinese now count their years, and by which
they have counted them for nearly three hundred

learned Jesuit Father, " was sent out partly in
consequence of his knowledge of mathematics and
astronomy to China," and was ultimately "invited
to the Imperial Court at Peking, where he was
entrusted with the reformation of the calendar
and the direction of the pubh'c mathematical
school." '

Under these circumstances, when we read that
"according to the Chinese work, IVan-nian-shu, or
'Ten thousand-year Calendar,' in which the ele-
' Chai'ibers'i Eiieyclopadia, 1901.

PAiT I.] CHINESE CALENDAR, 1624 A.D. 19S

ments of the Chinese calendar from 1624 a.d. until
1 92 1 A. D. are calculated by the Astronomical Board at
Peking, the earliest date of the Chinese New Year's
Day is January 21st, and the latest February 20th " *
— when we read this and remember that Johann
Adam von Schall was in 1624 in charge of the
reformation of the calendar at Peking, we need feel
no surprise to find ** the elements of the Chinese
calendar" calculated in advance for 279 tropical,
that is Gregorian, years. Indeed the influence of
the European ecclesiastic in these calculations is
clearly to be recognized in their very form, for we
are easily reminded by it of the ** Table to find
Easter from the present time to— such and such a
year — a.d. inclusive," prefixed to our English Books
of Common Prayer. And we may be tempted to
smile when we see the jealously conservative
Chinese nation so peaceably — perhaps unwittingly
— accepting a reformation of their calendar at the
hands of foreigners, and contrast with this accept-
ance the turbulent opposition with which for so

^ On Chnmology and the Construction of the Calendar^ with
special regard to the Chinese Commutation of Time compared with
the European. By Dr. K. FriUche.

196

long

into 1

the
calen
tude
Chim

festiv
Chim

that J
it. E
I am
tweei

with definite intention as the first of the year by the
Chinese, but had only been arrived at, in con-
sequence of an age-long following on their part of
a star group, chosen thousands of years earlier, by
one of theirancient emperors, as that from which the
beginning of their year was to be counted. This star
group was the Siou (domicile) Hiu, the eleventh divi-
sion of their Lunar Zodiac, and it is marked by the
stars 8 Aquarii and " Equulci. {See diagram.)'

' The i8 Siou are not of equal extent, and there are many
discrepancies in the Chinese tabks which profess to give the

PAET I.] TCHUEN-HIO, 26102481 B.C. 197

There is in the great History of China a
description given of a reformation of the calendar
carried out by the Emperor Tchuen-Hio, whose
date is placed at ^2510-2431 b.c. The conjunction
of the sun and moon close to the Siou Hiu is in this
description clearly referred to as a mark given for
the beginning of the year. But the fact of this
choice of the star mark Hiu has, for European
scholars, been obscured by a most unfortunate
paraphrase made use of by P^re de Mailla, the
translator into French of the Histoire GinircUe de
la Chine. He gives us in the passage describing
Tchuen-Hio's reformation the phrase, "15* du
Verseau," instead of the Chinese expression, " the
Siou Hiu." ^

The Siou Hiu extends over some eight or ten

number of degrees attributed to each. In the diagram, therefore,
only the stars which compose the three adjoining domiciles, Niu,
Hiu, and Wei are noted, and they are connected by straight lines,
according to Chinese astronomical custom.

^ The fact that P. de Mailla has so paraphrased the Chinese
original has thus plainly been attested by the late Professor
Legge. In answer to a question addressed to him on the subject,
he wrote, in December 1894, to Mr. H. W. Greene, Fellow of
Magdalen College, Oxford, as follows: ''In the passage from
P. de Mailla's History, that writer is both translating and para-
phrasing ' the star group Hiu.' "

PAW I.] " 15" DU VERSEAU " 199

degrees of the ecliptic in the constellation Aquarius ;
to restrict to one degree the given star mark was an
inaccuracy serious enough in an astronomical state-
ment, but this inaccuracy is as nothing when com-
pared with the further entire distortion of facts
occasioned by P. de Mailla's use of the ambiguous
phrase, '' 15'' du Verseau/' ambiguous because it can
be taken to refer either to the fifteenth degree of
the sign, or of the constellation ''du Verseau"
(Aquarius).

The Siou Hiu is situated, as stated above, in
the constellation Aquarius (see diagram), but astro-
nomers reading P. de Mailla's translation have
understood the phrase in its technical sense, and
have therefore been led to believe that the Em-
peror Tchuen-Hio fixed the beginning of the
Chinese year to the i^"" of the sign Aquarius;
and as, astronomically and technically speaking,
the IS"" Aquarius (sign) has no reference to any
star or constellation, but is only that point of
the ecliptic to which the sun attains exacdy at the
mid-season between winter solstice and spring
equinox, they have taken for granted that 2,500 ac
the Chinese year began at that point, and therefore

at th
time.

B
Profe
that
begin
is tru
begui
seasoti

\\
has b
Hio's
overc"

Histoire Gin^raU de la Chine, or rather I should
say that it is when we have corrected P. de Mailla's
paraphrase that this difficulty appears. For in the
history it is stated that it was from the new moon at
the beginning of spring, and near to the star group
Hiu, that the year was then and henceforth to be
counted, and this statement contains an astronomical
contradiction. Our knowledge of the precession of
the equinoxes teaches us that the star group Hiu in
Tchuen-Hio's time did not mark the beginning of
spring, but rather the \ery middle of winter.

PAtTi.] "THE STAR GROUP HIU" 201

Unless, then, we throw aside as worthless the whole
record of Tchuen-Hio's reform of the calendar, we
are driven to suppose that some Chinese historian,
ignorant of the precession of the equinoxes, and
writing at a date when, owing to that precession,
the first new moon of spring was indeed close to
the star group Hiu, and that of the winter solstice
far distant from it — that this historian made what
he may well have considered a necessary correction
in the record with which he was dealing, and
substituted the "first day of spring" for the
"mid-winter season." Nor need we much blame
him for making such a correction, when we
find ourselves driven by stress of modem en-
lightenment to correct his correction, and to read
" mid-winter " where he has written "beginning of
spring."

Let us now read with due corrections, between
square brackets, the record of Tchuen-Hio's reforma-
tion of the calendar as given in the Histoire G^ndraU
de la Chine.

"Tchuen-Hio . . . profitant de la paix dont
jouissoit I'empire, transf6ra sa cour k Kao-yang.
Ce fut dans cette ville, que toujours passionn^ pour

d^termina qui I'avenir I'annie commenceroit k la
lune la plus proche du premier jour du printems
[proche du solstice d'hiver] qui vient vers le 15° du
Verseau; [vers le Siou Hiu] et comme il savoit par
le calcul qu'il en avoit fait, que dans une des ann^es
de son regne les pianettes devoient se joindrc dans
la constellation Che {constellation qui occupe 1 7° dans
le ciel, dent le milieu est vers le 6° des Poissons)
il choisit cette ann^e-lk pour la premiere de son
calendrier, d'autant plus que cette m^me annde le
soleil et la lune se trouvoient en conjonction, le

PARTI.] TCHUEN-HIO'S REFORM 203

premier jour du printems [le jour du solstice
d'hivery ^

It may, of course, be objected to the proposed
correction of the season in this passage as follows :
granting that either the star mark Hiu, or the spring
season said to have been chosen by Tchuen-Hio,
must have been erroneously recorded in the Histoire
GhUrale^ the probabilities are equal as to which
element in the statement is or is not true. Tchuen-
Hio may have chosen the moon nearest to the first
day of spring, and may have named some constella-
tion other than Hiu near to which this first moon
was in conjunction with the sun. The late Chinese
historian, instead of tampering as above supposed
with the recorded season^ may have substituted the
name of the star group Hiu, which at his date
marked the beginning of spring, for that "other"
chosen by Tchuen-Hio.

But the probabilities on this point are in reality
not equally balanced. For, in the first instance, we
must take into consideration the very general opinion
that the year in China anciently began at the winter
solstice, and the fact that this season was in Tchuen-

* Vol I. p. 33.

204

Hio's

the s

we rr

refere

Chint

with

Hio.

Gaub

instar

on a

Hiuex

appel

adds,

appelons Amphora. Le dictionnaire [Eul-ya] met

dans ce Signe la Constellation Hiu ; c'est-a-dire que

le Signe commen9oit par quelque degr^ de cette

Constellation. L'Histoire Chinoise asseure que

I'eau est le synibole du regne de Tchouen-Hiu {sic).

L' Eul-ya dit formellement que Hiuen-hiao Signe

Celestedu Zodiaquedcsigne I'Empereur Tchouen-Hiu

(sic).'"^ Schlegei also tells us that the Chinese placed

the soul of Tchuen-Hio in the constellation Hiu.

' Ofiserva/ions Malht'maliqua, Aslrommiquts, &c., redig^es
el publiiies par Ic I*, f'tieiine Soucict, tome iii. pp, .ii-j.v

PARTI.] TCHUENHIO AND HIU 205

But not only is Hiu in Chinese literature closely
associated with the Emperor Tchuen-Hio : it is also
closely bracketed with the season of the winter sol-
stice. Schlegel gives many quotations to this efiect
from Chinese authorities, but he would refer all such
allusions to the far back time between 14,000 and
13,000 B.C., when Hiu was in opposition to the sun
at that season, not in conjunction with it as at
Tchuen-Hio's date.

Of Hiu he writes : —

Hiu, ou Tertre funiraire}

"C'est cet ast^risme dont la culmination \
rheure tsz€ (11^ de la nuit) annon9ait le solstice
d'hiver. . . . ' Au solstice d'hiver,' dit le M^moire
sur la divination par la tortue, ' la course du soleil
et des astres n'est pas encore complete, et ils sont
cons^quemment d61aiss6s comme des orphelins {Kou)
et vides {Hiuy Le solstice d'hiver ^tait done
consid6r6 par les Chinois comme la position d'un
'orphelin au tombeau de ses parents.' . . . Le
pire NoSl k traduit {Hiu) par Vacuum, Vide ; mais
nous pr^fdrons traduire lit^ralement par Tertre
fun^raire." '

^ UranographU Chinoise, p. «i4« ' /W/. p. 217.

fav<
Hii

pan
mat

con

inte
wer

sols
clos
the following of these sure rules was an impossibility.

Either the season or the star mark must in the long
course of ages have been abandoned. It would
be a difficult, perhaps an impossible, task to ascer-
tain how far. or in what manner, the attempt was
made under successive dynasties to carry out the
injunctions of Tchuen-Hio. We read in the Con-
fucian Analects that in answer to his "disciple,"
who had asked him, "how the government of a
country should be administered," the Master said —
as the first of five rules — " Follow the seasons of

PAKT I.] HIU SS06 B.C.-1600 A.D. 207

Hsil" And in his note on this text the commenta-
tor says, "Confucius approved the rule of the Hsi&
dynasty. His decision has been the law of all the
dynasties since the Ch*in.*'^ During all the cen-
turies in which the Hea or Hsift dynasty held
sway, i.e., from 2205 to 1766 b.c., the sure rules
of Tchuen-Hio might have been carried out with-
out much difficulty, for at the new moon nearest to
the winter solstice the sun would still have been in or
near to the consteliatian Hiu (see diagram), though
at the date of Confucius, 551-479 B.C., this was no
longer the case, judging from the final result,
we may, I think, take it for granted that the
Chinese followed the star mark and not the season
appointed for the beginning of the year by Tchuen-
Hio. And thus following the star mark, the begin-
ning of their year imperceptibly receded from the
solstice, and approached the spring equinox, so that
in 1600 A.D. the Jesuit fathers found the year still
beginning at the new moon, ''vers le Siou Hiu,"
and henu at the season midway between the winter
solstice and the spring equinox.

^ Legge, CMmsi Classics, vol. I, Qmfiuian Analects, book xv.,
oh. X.

"Such were the offerings made to the goddess
Bau, in the ancient temple on that day."

The generally received opinion as to Xingirsu
(Ninib) is, that he was the god of the "southern
sun"; and, as I contended in my Paper, the southern
' February 1896, V, j). 54.

FAET I] GUDEA AND TCHITEN-HIO 209

s$in, if we think of the sun in its yearly, not merely
in its daily course, may fitly represent the sun of the
winter solstice, while the goddess BausGula is the
goddess by whose very name the constellation
Aquarius, as we may assume, was designated in the
Accadian astrological texts.

If from Gudea's inscription concerning the new
year's festival a reform in the calendar of Lagash
may be inferred, by which the beginning of the year
was transferred from the stars of Aries to those of
Aquarius, we should find that the Lagash inscrip-
tion, and the great History of China, tell us the
same story — the Lagash inscription supplementing
the Chinese History in this important point — that
whereas the account of Tchuen-Hio's reform has
been manifestly more or less garbled in its long
descent through human hands : that of Gudea's new
year's festival is a contemporaneous and utterly
untampered - with account It is also of some
moment to note one curious point of resemblance in
the idea connected with the stars of Aquarius, by
the astronomers of countries so far distant from each
other as China and Mesopotamia. Hiu, as we have
learnt, may be translated as "Vacuum/' and the

the beginning of the year al t!ie winter solstice 6000

B.C.

To this same cause I have here, and elsewhere,
attributed the fact that in the Accadian calendar the
stars of Aries held the same position, and marked
the first month of the year, as the month of the
" sacrifice of righteousness."

In thus tracing back the history of the calendars
of the ancient nations of the East, in observing the

' Sayce, TramiulioHs of Iki So<uty cf Biblical Archaology,
February 1874.

PA,Ti.] "BEHOLD THE PEOPLE IS ONE" 211

identity of their earliest astronomical traditions, and
noting the curious points of contact and divergence
in their later scientific and mythological ideas, the
impression seems to force itself upon us more and
more definitely, that before the races of mankind
were *• scattered abroad upon the face of the whole
earth," their ancestors were capable of great scientific
achievements, and possessed in common high intel-
lectual aspirations.

We in these later days, so picturing to ourselves
the past, may be freshly struck by the words of the
ancient history, which tell us of the time when '' the
whole earth was of one language and of one
speech."

PART II

PLATES.

PART II.

PLATES XV., XVI.. XVII., and XVIII.

In the foregoing pages arguments have been urged in support
of the view that the ecliptic circle, at the remote date
(speaking in round numbers) of 6000 B.C., had been portioned
by some ''ancient race of men'' into twelve divisions; and
that the twelve constellational figures of the Zodiac had then
also been imagined under forms more or less closely resem-
bling those which we recognize in the heavens at the present day.

Most of the arguments in favour of this opinion are neces-
sarily based on considerations connected with the phenomena of
the heavens, effected in the long course of ages by a slow revolu-
tion of the earth's axis. Astronomers during the last two
thousand years have carefully observed the effects and studied
the causes of this slow terrestrial movement, and they can now
tell us with confidence and exactness that the space of 25,868
years is required for the accomplishment of one such revolution
of the earth's axis.

In our enquiry into the astronomy of the ancients we need
not at aU turn our minds to the difficult subject of the causes, or
indeed even to the fact, of this slow movement of the earth's
axis, further than to realize fully that its effects have been to pro-
duce a slow but continuous change in the apparent position of the
fixed stars, a change not in their position relatively to each other,
but in their distances from the heavenly equator and its poles.

The effort to fully realize these effects by means of careful
calculations and measurements must prove to any but an
astronomer a most arduous task ; but, by aid of the mechanical
contrivance called a " precessional globe," much of the difficulty

a«5

of tbe

have

adjusti

amotm

intenrt

I ]
whose
cUime
in doti
tions "
the fii
heavei
have
It ii I
conste
we ha.
thepo

of many oi tne ngures are to De met with m astronomical
atlases and on the celestial globes in use to-day ; and to estab-
lish the relative claims concerning the antiquity of these variant
forms is a branch to itself of research.

That these constellations have indeed been well denominated
"ancient " is scarcely to be denied, and our only wonder, when
studying the subject, must be, not that some differences are to be
met with as to the exact form under which, at different dates and
by different nations, these figures were delineated in the heavens,
but rather the wonder must be that (as archsological research
is always more and more clearly establishing) through many
thousands of years, and by nations long and widely separated,
ihc stars, which to an unaccustomed observer seem to be
scattered in wild and random profusion on the sky, should have
' 1800 A.D. Is [he date 10 which the globe in queition originallj' refers ; the
intervals of SJB years can be reckoned backwards or forwards from this date.

ANTIQUrrY OF CONSTELLATIONS 217

been divided into the same distinct groups, and thought of as
representing the same m3rsterious beings.

But though it may be impossible to maintain that the Grecians
have handed down to us in an absolutely unchanged form the
figures of the ancient constellations as they were first imagined
in remote ages, yet many proofs may be cited in favour of the
opinion, that not lightly or arbitrarily did astronomical artists
venture to tamper with the Zodiacal and extra-Zodiacal figures.

Some of these proofs have already been pointed out in the
foregoing Papers. Attention will be drawn to others in the con-
sideration of the diagrams here given.

In Plates XV., XVI., XVII., and XVIII., the positions of the
solstitial and equinoctial colures amongst the constellations are
given at the date 5744 B.C Had it been possible, I should have
liked to have drawn these diagrams as at 6000 b.c — not only
because it is easier to deal with and to remember a round number
such as that, but also because at that date the solstitial colure
passed through the ecliptic only one degree distant from the initial
point of the Indian Zodiac — ^a point which there seems good
reason to believe was the initial point of many, other than Indian,
ancient Zodiacs.

Owing to the mechanical restrictions of the precessional globe,
it was not possible to adjust it to any more accurate date than
that of 5744 B.C

It will not be necessary here to reiterate the considerations
in favour of the opinion already advanced that the calendrical
importance of the constellation Aries in some nations, and its
symbolical importance in the mythology of others, may best be
explained by the supposition that the choice of this constellation
as '' Prince and Leader ** of the signs was made net when its stars
marked the spring equinox, but when they marked the winter
solstice.

Let us rather take this opinion as a working hypothesis, and

2l8

turn 01
the/M
which,
the car

Ne:
Plate :
fortnst.
Zodiac
Dend«
to the I

Thi
creatur
They
animal
theZoi
but if
played

quarters of the ecliptic circle, this admissiOD will furnub us with
an adequate reason for the extraordinary honour paid in Egyptian
symbolic art to ihis lowly, and in ilself unattractive, insect.

Tlie scataba;us, according to our hypoihesis, marked in ancient
calendrical iradilion llie spring equinox when in conjunction with
the sun, and the autumn eciuinox in opposittpn to it. And it was
as presiding visibly in oppaitioii thai we may reasonably suppose
it gained such honour ui li^gypt. For the autumn, not the spring,
is in that land the time when vegetation begins to burst into life,
and when all E^ypi rejoices. I think, moreover, that facts con-
nected with the wotsliip of the .■^pis Bull will further strengthen
the opinion that the Egyptians considered the constellations in
opposition to the sun to be those which presided over particular
seasons and months.'

To trace allusions in the symbolic art of Egypt to Libra — the
I See below, pp. IJ4, 2JS-

CRAB-SCABAB.f:US, SCALES>PLUMES 219

thin) in order of the constelUtioDs we ve now discussing (see
PUte XVII.)— ti, it must be confessed, not so umple ■ matter,
and it is with some diffidence that I put forward the following
suggestion — i.e., that we mtj pcHiaps find in the " two feathers,"
so prominent in Egyptian mythotogic imagery, a reference to the
two scales of the Bidance {Libra).

In allegotiad language we speak often of
the even scales of Justice, and in art the god-
dess is always represented with the Balance
in her hand. In Egyptian symbolism and
art, I think the two feathers represented the
equal weights of the scales of Justice. In
the great judgment hall of Osiris, the souls
of men were weighed tn the balance. The
soul, or heart, of the dead Egyptian wu
placed in one scale, while a feather — oi the
figure of the goddess Mait, wearing oo her
head a single plume or feather — occupied
the other. Mait was the goddess of Justice,
and we often read also of " the two Maits
who preside over Justice and Truth."

There it a woodcut in Prof. Maspero's
Dawn «f Civilitatifin, p. 130, in which
the head-dress — the symbolic head-dress —
so often to be met with in Egyptian mytho-
logic representations, is very clearly drawn.
It was in studying thU woodcut that the idea ^' ""*"' dressed,
first suggested itself to my mind, that in this head-dreu we may
find a reference to the four constellations which, when the
Zodiac was first imagined, marked the four colurei — the four
quarters of the beaven»— that it was in fact an astronomic
monogram, c(Knbining four figures in one.

In this head-dress very plainly are to be seen the horns of a

th
or

this constellation, in opposition, presided— traditionally — over the
least honoured season of the Egyptian year — the arid season
preceding the inundations.

It should be borne in mind that all the Egyptian mythologic
symbolism we have been considering must necessarily have only
embodied traditions already even under the earliest dynasties
extremely ancient ; for it was, as may be seen in the Plates, about
6000 B.C. ihat the colures touched the exireme western degrees of
the constellalions Aries, Cancer, and Libra — and a point some
degrees to the west of Capricornus, as it is now drawn. In each
succeeding century the colures moved still more to the west,
through the stars, and from 6000 down to 4000 B.C. they were no
longer to be observed in the four already named constellations,
but in Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius.

' Maipfio, p. 139. ' Ibid. p. 1 j8.

TWINS— EQUAL DAY AND NIGHT 221

It k curious to note that there seems to be no pronounced
allusion in Egyptian art or literature to these four constellations,
though there are indications (see pp. 330-238) which may lead us
to believe that the astronomical phenomena of the later date, 4000
B.C, were closely observed, and seem to have formed the basis of
much of the mythology of Egypt.

These (acts tend to confirm the conclusion — so often advo-
cated in this book — that the ancestors of the Egyptians, as also of
all the grejit civilized nations of antiquity, followed through many
long ages the same sidereal calendar— one based on the observa-
tion of the colures amongst the fixed stars 6000 ac. And it
would seem that not till about 4000 b.c, when the colures had
traversed, from east to west, the constellations Pisces, Gemini,
Virgo, and Sagittarius, and had arrived at the eastern d^;rees of
Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, and Scorpio, did astronomic authorities in
Egypt direct their attention to a reform of the calendar and intro-
duce into it, and into religious observances, references to these
four last-named constellations.

Turning to Plate XVI. we may notice that the equinoctial
colure, marking out as it does the extreme western limits of the
constellation Cancer, passes also through a part of the constella-
tion CreminL This fact may, I think, help to explain some of the
l^ends connected with the twins Castor and Pollux in ancient
lore.

A very brilliant star glitters on the head of each twin. These
stars are of almost equal lustre and weH deserve the name of twin
stars ; and so we can easily suppose how it was that the imagina-
tive astronomers who, at the early date in question, mapped out
the figures of the Zodiac, noticing that the equinoctial colure
passed between these two bright stars, should have elected to
represent them as marking the heads of twin figures, which they
determined should symbolise the ifua/ day a$id night of the
season over which they presided.

twu
leg*

nigl
the
Ien{
oTIi

colt

cent

fact

orig

that division of the ecliptic ; and that the huge composite figure of

the archer — half man and half horse — was added to the original

design in later ages, by astronomers who chose the spring equinox

instead of the winter solstice for the beginning of the j'ear.

In discussing the Median calendar, the importance which
seems to have been given by the ancestors of the Medes to the
constellation Sagiitaiiiis, at a date when it marked the spring
equinox, was dwelt upon. It will, I think, appear likely, when we
come to study Plates XIX, and XX., that as early as 4600 b.c.
constellations were iniajjined to honour and mark the equinoctial

Perhaps then, at that date the constellation Sagittarius was
extended to its prest-nt dimensions; and it maybe that some
teniuries later, wlitn ilic colure of the winttr so/ilia had passed
into the constellation Aquarius, some astronomers desired —
like Gudea of Lagasli and Tchuen-Hio in China— to honour that

DRACO AND BOOTES 223

neuon, and to make it the beginning of the year. It may be that
such astronomers dealt with the eleventh constellation of the
Zodiac, as earlier ones had dealt with Sagittarius, and that they
added to what was possibly originally only a water jar^ Amphora,
the figure of the water paurer Aquarius.

These ideas are put forward very speculatively. They were
partly suggested by noticing that in the Indian 2k>diac the name of
the constelktion Sagittarius is merely Dhanus (arrow), and the
name of Aquarius is Kumbha (water jar).

In the diagrams which we have been discussing, it will be
observed that only the twelve figures of the 2Miac, and two of the
extra-2Sodiacal constellations, are given in continuous outline, one
of these two is Draco— the dragon or serpent whose folds surround
the Pole of the Ec/i/tu^-iht central point of the circle of the
Zodiac

That the astronomers who traced out the circle of the Zodiac
on the heavens, and imagined its twelve strange figures, should
also have devoted attention to, and marked out, its central point,
is not improbable. The Pole of the Ecliptic^ unlike the Pole of
the Heavens^ is immoveable amongst the fixed stars. At 6000 b.c.,
as at the present date, the stars of Draco surrounded this point —
a point not itself marked by any conspicuous star. We have not,
however, I think, at present sufficient grounds for deciding at what
exact date the constellation Draco was imagined under the form
it now holds. But that it is very ancient there is no doubt

For the first depicting on the vault of heaven of the figure of
Bootes, I claim with much stronger conviction the date of 6000
B.C., and the latitude of 45* north. For then and there Bootes
might be seen at midnight of the summer solstice, standing up-
right on the northern horizon, his head reaching nearly to the
Pole of the Heavens. Never since that date has he held so com-
manding a position in the sky, nor at any more southern latitude
coukl his whole figure have been represented as standing on the
horizon.

5ooo B.C. — presided visibly over the northern sky. But we h«ve
tearnt from the month names in the Accadian calendar that the

astronomers who insiiluied il always directed attention to ihc
constellations which inviiibly accompanied the sun in his daily
journeyings from east to west, rather than to those which {in opposi-
tion) were visible through the hours of the night. For example —
all through the mid-winter month of the sacrifice of righteousness,
the stars of the Ram— the celestial symbol of that sacrifice — were
invisible, hidden in the overpowering light of the sun. In like
manner, 1 think, wc may assume that at the close of the Accadian
year^in the "month of the sowing of seed" or in "the dark
montli of sowing," when mortal husbandmen were following on
earth their oxdrawn ploughs, Bootes, the ox-driver, though invis-
ible to the bodily eye, appeared to the mental vision of the

' Tki Phainnmena or " Ihavtnly Display" of Arates, d>m inle Etigliih
lirsi liy Robetl Biown, Jun., F.S.A., line 92.

BOOTES THE PLOUGHMAN 225

astronomer, following unweariedly the ox-drawn plough in the
sky.

The various suppositions here put forward will lead those who
accept them as probably correct, to picture to themselves the
existence, at the early date of 6000 b.c., in latitude 45* N., of a
race of men — not savages, and not merely pastoral nomads — but
a race of agriculturists who tilled the ground and reaped its fruits
— a race possessed of high intellectual power — who respected law
and justice, and whose religion taught them to offer to their god
" sacrifices of righteousness."

In pi

spfaet

latitui

been

midni

god,i

he m

dragc
A

berej

held:
A

Here

and :

hatigi
G

account for this "reversed" position of "the Kneeler." Aratos,

from whom I have quoted above, thus further wonders as to this

constellation. At line 63 we read : —

". . . . like a lolling man, revolves
A roirn. Of il can no one clearly speak,
Nor lo whal [oil he is altached ; but, simply,
Kneiltr ihey call him. Lalrouring on his knees,
Like one who sinks he seems ; "

and again at line 614 —

" The Knitlcr

lie who is ue'ei lii dislanl frum ihe Lyrt,
Whoe'er Lhis sinnger of the heavenly forms

' Tht Pkainemtna er " Heavenly Display " of AraUs, ilont inlf Engltth
vtrtt by Roberl Brown, Jun., F.S.A., line 669.

HERCULES, CORONA, HYDRA, ORION 227

4600 B.C no such difficult speculations could have presented
themselves to the minds of those who, in the joyous springtime
of the year, beheld in imagination, night after night, die grand
and conquering figure of this god or hero, typifying for them, as
we may easily suppose, the ever-increasing triumph at that season
of the power of light over darkness.

Plate XIX., fig. 3. It was perhaps at this same date that the
cluster of stars " led round in circle " ^ close to the bow of Sagit-
tarius, and exactly marking the equinoctial colure, was figured as a
crtnvfif and that so depicted, as I have contended at page 76, this
constellation suggested the symbolic circle, crown, or wreath
which sometimes takes the place of the bow in Assur's hand, and
which almost always is present in the hand of Ahura Mazda in
Median representations of that figure.

At Plate XX., fig. i, I have drawn the constellation Hydra
as it would have appeared at the date 4667 b.c At pages 11 7, 1 1 8,
the reasons which led me to suppose that this constellation was
then first imagined have been given.

At Plate XX., fig. 3, it may be seen how 4667 b.c the figure
of Orion very accurately marked the equinoctial colure, and this
fiict may incline us to suppose that the giant hunter — so often,
according to Grecian legend, in confiict with the powers of high
Heaven — was depicted about this date by ancient astronomers
to represent the strength of the adverse powers which, at the
autumnal season in the mythologies of northern nations, appear in
combat with, and temporarily triumphant over, the powers of light

In favour of the high date here claimed for the imagining of
Orion's figure under very much the same form as that still
depicted on our globes, there are some indications to be observed
in the Sanscrit names of the Nakshatra, which contains the stars,
X fx 9% Orionis — 1>., the stars marking the head of Orion.

virsi by Robert Brown, Jun., F.S.A., line 401.

has the meaning of " first-going " (of the sun) understood. In a

long dissertation on this name, Tilak contends that it marked an
important point in ihe annual course of the sun, and then further
seeks to derive the Greek name Orion from the Sanscrit word,
Agrahayani, Of the value of the etymological arguments advanced,
I am quiie unable to judge, but on astronomic grounds it would
not seem an improbable derivation.

But the acceptance of 'I'ilak's contention as to the derivation
of the name Orion would make it reasonable to suppose that not
only the name but also the configuration of the constellation
might, in the astronomy of the Greek and Indian nations,
resemble each other ; and thus we should be more ready to
believe that Mfigashitsha referred lo the lion's head on Orion's
arm, and not to an "antelope's head" — a head which, as depicted
by Tilak at p. lOo, would alone have filled ready all the space in

ORION, MRIGASHIRAS, A6RAHAYANI 229

the heavens occupied in the Grecian sphere by the huge figure of
the giant hunter known to us as Orion.

The indications furnished by these two Sanscrit Nakshatra
names, if they are followed, must lead us to attribute the imagin-
ing and naming of the constellation Orion to a time before that
when the ancestors of the Greeks and Indians went their separate
ways to the west and to the east, and so will strengthen the claim
here made for the depicting of the constellation on the sky as
early as 4600 B.C.

It will be noted that in the suggestions here offered concem-
bg Hercules, Corona Australis, Hydra, and Orion, a change in
the Sjrmbolic methods followed by earlier astronomers, 6000 ac.,
must be supposed.

It was to the constellations invisibly accompanying the sun
that the originators of the Zodiac appear to have directed their
attention. But the symbolic figures we have now been studying
— there can, it seems to me, be little doubt — were designed to
mark vistbiy^ and, therefore, in opposition to the sun, the various
seasons of the year.

A great astronomic activity, a sort of astronomic renaissance,
in fact, seems to manifest itself as we study the celestial globe at
4600 B.C, and to this date I would attribute the origin of the
astronomic myths of many nations.

IH 77
put fc
source
about
positio
date tn
to the
spring
aUthn
adraiK
bolism
in Eg}
think i
they m
from 4

It will be seen at Fig. 4 that the equinoctial colure, at the
earlier of these dates, touched the confines of the constellation
Sagittarius, and might even ihen, with almost equal right, have
been claimed as adjoining (hose of Scorpio. We con well imagine
that the astronomic school which carried out the reformation in
method discussed above (pp. 322, 227), which resulted in :he imagin-
ing of the constellations Hercules and Corona Australis, and in
the extension, as I suggested, of the boundaries of Sagittarius —
we can well imagine that this school would with reluctance
admit the baleful image of Scorpio to take the post of leader
o( the year, so long held by Sagittarius. Rut from 4000 B.C.
onwards to 2000 h.c. the constellations that did actually mark
1 The figutes in this Plate have been drawn from the globe adjusted to ih*

BULL, SCORMON, UON, WATERMAN 231

the equinoctial and sobtitial colures, were Taunts, Scorpio, Leo,
and Aquarius.

Volumes of controversy have been written concerning the
astronomic teachings of the ceilings of the temples of Denderah
and Edfu, as to the position of the colures amongst the fixed
stars, suggested by the arrangement of the figures of the Zodiac
in both these temples. The date astronomically referred to in
these designs was claimed by some to be about 4000 &c, but
when it was proved that these temples had been restored in
Ptolemaic times, and the ceilings probably redecorated then, the
high claims put forward for the first imagining of these astro-
nomic designs could no longer with certainty be upheld. A strong
reaction in opinion then took place, and it was again and again
asserted that the Egyptians were probably not even acquainted
with the so-called Grecian twelve-fold division of the ecliptic
till after the introduction of European culture into Egypt To
seek for allusions in ancient Egyptian mythology or art to any of
the twelve Zodiacal constellations was, therefore, a much dis-
couraged attempt.

But if the testimony of the ceilings of the Denderah and Edfii
temples is rendered suspect by their Ptolemaic restoration, the
same objection cannot be raised against the evidence borne by
the ceiling of an ancient Egyptian building, which has certainly
not been restored in Ptolemaic times. In the Description de
PEgypte^ we find a careful drawing of a "Tableau astronomique
au Plafond de Tun des tombeaux des rois." In the central portion
on either side of this ceiling a monstrous hippopotamus and croco-
dile are represented, together with various beings depicted on a
much smaller scale. In the drawing here given, of one of these
central groups, we find, as it seems to me, very clear refer-

^ DiseripH&H tU tSgypU, 10 vols., Paris, MDCCCXil.-xxill., Vol. I.,
Antiquity, plandie 95.

THE BULL APIS 233

ence to the four figures — ^Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius
( >- Amphora).

The monstrous hippopotamus and crocodile here depicted
are, I am strongly inclined
to believe, representations,
not of any particular con-
stellation, but rather of
the solstitial and equinoctial
colures; and the four not at
all, except astronomically, re-
lated figures of the Bull,
Scorpion, Lion, and Water-
jar, are here very clearly in

evidence. Bull apis

In Egyptian mythology the
Apis Bull held a very important place. '' It was regarded as a
symbol and incarnation of Osiris, the husband of Isis, and next to
RA, the great divinity of Egypt" Grecian authorities tell us that
the Apis Bull was black, with some distinctive white markings ;
and on its back (or tongue, according to variant accounts) the
figure of a scarabseus was to be observed. From a drawing in
Ebers' Egypt^ VoL I., p. 121, we may, however, gather, as I think
I have seen it elsewhere stated, that the Apis Bull was marked by
equal areas of black and white. Such equal areas would fitly
Sjrmbolize the equal day and night of the equinoctial season, and
the presence of the scarabseus on the back or tongue of the Bull —
if the suggestion made at p. 318 should prove to be correct —
would point to the traditional connexion of that creature with the
same equinoctial season.

It has often been assumed that the golden calf set up and
worshipped in the wilderness by the Israelites was a representa-
tion of the Apis god of Egypt ; and that so also were the calves
set up by Jeroboam in Bethel and in Dan on his return from

looKca upon as a living represenuiive oi ine fXKiiacai Dvu — loe
constellation which in the time of the early dynasties marked, in

opposition to the sun, the autumnal equinox.

In Median mythology and art we have seen the great import-
ance of Tauric symbohsm : but there is a wide difference between
the Tauric symbolism of the Medes and the Egyptians, Mithras,
the Median sun-god, again and again triumphs over and slays the
Bull. In Egypt, on the contrary, the Sacred Bull is honoured
and worshipped during its lifetime, and reverently embalmed,
and with all pomp and glory buried after its death.

This difference in the mythologic conceptions of Media and
Egypt may be atlributed, I think, lo the difference of climatic
conditions in the two countries.

In Media, spring— in Egypt, autumn—is the joyous and
fruitful season of the year. In the early ages, when Median and
Egyptian mythologies look llieir rise, Taurus was at the spring

THE BULL IN EGYPT AND IN MEDIA 235

equinox in conjunction with the sun, and was, therefore, slain by
its overwhelming brightness; but at the autumn equinox that
same constellation, in opposition^ rose when the sun set, and all
night long was visible. In Median art, it is the Bull immolated
by the sun in springtime that is represented. In Egyptian sym-
bolism, it is to the Bull triumphantly traversing the sky by night,
in the autumn season, that attention is directed

In the light of these astronomic considerations, it is interesting
to think of the fanatical act of Cambyses in slaying the Apis Bull,
as one prompted not only by fury at seeing the high honour paid
to the Egyptian god, but also by an insane pride, which made
him desire to imitate the triumph of Mithras — the Persian sun-
god — over the Bull in the heavens, by killing its earthly represen-
tative, the Apis Bull.

In the days of Cambjrses, when Apis worship prevailed in
Egypt, and even still earlier when the children of Israel, in
imitation of this worship, set up the golden calf in the wilderness,
the raison d'itre for the honour paid to Taurus as a star mark of
the autumnal season no longer existed ; for we know that about
1800 &c, the equinoctial colure had left that constellation, and
had entered the eastern degrees of the constellation Aries.
Egyptian history assures us, however, that the institution of the
Apis worship was effected by some king of the first d3masty
in the far back ages when Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius
did actually preside over the four seasons of the year. More-
over, the recent discoveries of the tombs of kings and other
personages, in the first Egyptian dynasty, lead us back to the
remote date of 4000 b.c., when the very earliest observa-
tions of the colures in the four above-named constellations could
have been made.

In these ancient tombs, amongst other objects, have been
found slate slabs of various shapes—some of them, in their
general outline, as it appears to me, representing in the flat the

»36

fmm (
reiton
disting
in dot
execut
reliefs
repeati
his fee
Lions
where
below
be set
scoipit
sentati
jarii a
grAti
of the
here described

It is difficult, I think, to resist the conclusion that we have in
the carvings on ihese ancient slate objects references not to merely
terrestrial bulls, lions, scorpions, and water jars, but rather to the
constellations, already imagined under those forms, whose stars, at
the date when these carv ings were made, marked in conjunction
with, and in opposition to, the sun, the four seasons of the
year.'

' In

ihe cenlte o

many, ,f

nfa

.ofihe

slates undc

our notice, there is

caivcd

on the obv«

ISC a .in

I s

nding

a depressio

n. "MrQuibeirs

tlieory,

Hhich is Sli

a<)h<.-ieci

rrofe^

I Penie. i

that this ring was

inlende

lo receive

he green

ith »!.

ich il is su

pposed the earliest

Kgyplia

nj painlcd ll

eii faciV

LeBge

11 liis Paper, from ivhich I have

here (jii

leii (coniribu

leJ 10 Lhe

PreitrdiHf,-! of

Ikt Seiirly

6f BmUa! Ariha-

d^gy. ^

ij- 1900. pp

.37, .38

n f

,iwaid

a different

■iew, which, if il is

would lend

uppotl (

ononii

inlerprera

on alx)i*e proposed

f.ii sum

ot ihe car

til ttprcs

■nl

i"n

. Ml

Legge con

ders thnt the ring)

CAKVED SLATES

'!>

Hepobtt

diik. He
not In bis
■dvocfttcd.

PLATE XXI I.^

In Grecian legend Cepheos, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, the sea-
monster (Cettts), and Perseus are associated together, and on the
Grecian sphere five neighbouring constellations represent the
actors of the legend.

Studjring these constellations as they must have appeared to
observers of the heavens at different dates, we shall, I think, see
some reason to attribute the imagining of the figure of the hero
Perseus to a later age than that of the other members of the
group, and, on the other hand, there are considerations which may
make us hesitate whether we should not place the origin of the
constellation Andromeda at an even earlier date than those of
Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and the sea-monster.* One point in the
legend, however, finds strong astronomic support from a study of
the precessional globe — namely, the fact that Cepheus and Cassio-
peia were personages of Ethiopian — il^, of tropical provenance.

It will be seen in Plate XXII., fig. i, that only in a latitude
as far South as i8* N. could the figure of Cassiopeia— even at the
early date of 6000 B.C — have been imagined as that of a queen
seated in royal dignity, and visible in the northern quarter of the
heavens.

By referring to Plate XV., we may learn that in Lat 45* N. at
that date, Cassiopeia would have appeared in the southern quarter
of the sphere, head downwards, while the figure of Cepheus could
only have been observed by turning first to one and then to the
other quarter of the sky. As, however, the hiod of Cepheus would
have marked so esnctly the solstitial colure 6000 b.c, it seemed

^ Thb pUte bu been drawn from the globe adjusted to the dates tnd
kuitndci of 5744 B.C Lst 18* N., and of 3588 B,Cn Lat 33* N.
' See below at fx 346, and pp. 242, 143.

to me (
of his q
hoTeni
supposi
the sol:
set the
To
human
seemed
iffortt
onewei

hons u

45" N-

poutioi

colure I

symmel

origin.

figure and the whole coDstellation of Cassiopeia Ue considerably

lo (he east of that line.

Under these circumstances it is satisfactory to find at a later,
and therefore at a more historically prohable date, and still in an
Ethiopian (tropical) latitude, a meridian line on and about which
the constellations Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Cetus
form a well-balanced group.

This meridian, it is true, is not that of a solstice or an equinox ;
but it is one which marked a very important astronomical moment
— namely, the commencement of the caJendrical year — the year
counted from the entry of the sun into the constellation Aries.
(See Plate XXII,, fig. 2.)

Of the high calendrical importance attached through thousands
of years to this point in the sun's annual course by the Accadian
and Babylonian nations and by the Hindus down to the present

CASSIOPEIA AND SEA-NYMPHS 241

day, astronomic records testify. Egyptian mythology and
traditions also, as I have churned, refer to it : it need not, there-
fore, surprise us to find constellations imagined to mark the
beginning of a year counted from that point, even at a date when
this beginning did not coincide either with solstice or equinox.

3500 B.C. is the approximate date I would suggest in a latitude
not far from 23* N. for the origin of the constellations Cepheus,
Cassiopeia, and probably also for that of Cetus.

The legend tells us that Cassiopeia by boasting of her own or
of her daughter's surpassing beauty incurred the enmity of the
nereids. She is

*< . . . that fUrr'd Ethiop qneen that strove
To set her beauty's pndse above
The sea-nymphs, and their power offended.** '

It seems to me that for this legend, as for many others, an
astronomic basis may be assigned. 3500 b.c the solstitial colure
passed through the constellation Aquarius. The stars of that
constellation might then not unfitly have been likened to sea
divinities, and rival schools of astronomers and calendar keepers
may have exalted the praise, on the one hand, of the stars that
marked a calendrical, and, on the other hand, of those that
marked a solstitial year.

A curious fact as to the lines in which Aratos refers to the
constellation Cassiopeia must here be noted.

Aratos versified ** the Phainomena of the astronomer Eudoxos,
who lived cir. b.c. 403-350." It has often been pointed out that
the facts concerning the constellations which Aratos and Eudoxos
record " are to a great extent traditional and archaic, and belong
to another and izx earlier epoch.^ What is said of Cassiopeia is a
case in point ; for thus the poet deplores her pride and its punish-
ment at line 654 et seq, —

^ Milton, // Pimir$s0,

ANDROMEDA 6000 OR 8500 B.C. 243

The chains which bind Andromeda's anns are fastened by
staples to the sky. They appear (at fig. i) at 6000 b.c as though
driven into two important astronomic lines — 1./., one of them into
the line of the equator, the other into that of the solstitial colure.
This may, of course, be a mere coincidence, and should not be
allowed to weigh at all heavily in the almost evenly adjusted
balance of probabilities regarding the date of the origin of the
constellation Andromeda. Her story is so interwoven, not only
with that of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, but also with that of the sea-
monster Cetus, that we should not hastily attempt to dissociate
the members of this group.

The very interesting question as to what southern people first
depicted the Ethiopic king and queen on the sphere cannot be
answered on astronomic grounds. We know that the latitude in
which these figures were imagined must have been tropical, if the
date of their imagining was as early as 3500 b.c. But we cannot
learn from the celestial globe what was the longitude of the land
in which they were so imagined. Ethiopia proper, and parts of
Arabia and India, lie within the tropics, and the term Ethiopia,
in classic writings, embraces all these countries.

Etymologists are^ I believe, divided in opinion as to what
language the rather un-Gredan names, Cepheus and Cassiopeia,
were derived firom. Some writers have suggested for their origin
the Sanscrit names Capuja and Cassyape: and if, as I have
already urged, the Aries-year was followed in ancient Vedic times
in India, the Sanscrit derivation suggested will seem not an un-
likely one. Nor under these suppositions would it be diflkult to
propose a possible Sanscrit origin for the name Andromeda,
though for this purpose we should have to deprive the legend of
all its classic and romantic charm. Cassyape, in Sanscrit story, is
not the name of a gloriously beautiful queen, but of a *' sage,** and
it might be that the constellation Andromeda also, for ancient
Indian astronomers, represented merely a kuman sacrifice^ not that

of tl
Rig'

acco
toth
godB
T
of tl
Bomi
pnis
and
thcM
Asm

hymi
this,

might by ancient Indian astronomers have been attached to the

constellation, which for us represents the hapless Andromeda :
for if we suppose that ihe constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus
were imagined in India, but adopted with an appropriate legend
into the Grecian sphere — the names of the personages in the
legend at the same lime suffering a Grecian change^il would be
easy further to suppose that the Indian name of the constellation
near to them, transformed and misunderstood, came to represent
in Grecian story not merely a human sacrifice, but that of the
much-lo-be-pitied daughter of the proud Cassiopeia.

Whether these fanciful speculations concerning the names of
the actors in the ancient legend be adopted or not need not affect
our judgment as to the reasonableness, or otherwise, of the dale,
3500 B.C., and of Ij(. 13' N. for the origin of the const ellational
group here discussed.

PLATE XXnV

The probable dates for the first imagining of four constellations
are here given — namely, for the Centaur, Ophiuchus, Auriga,
and Perseus.

For the Centaur the date in round numbers of 3500 b.c. (fig.
i) is suggested: at that date his huge figure would have well
marked, id opposition, the beginning of the calendrical Aries-
year ; or, in conjunction with the sun, the beginning of the seventh
month of the same year. It is not necessary, at that date, to
attribute a low latitude to the astronomers who designed this
figure : in that of 35* N., as shown in the diagram, the whole
constellation would then have been well above the horizon. The
much eariier epoch of 6000 ac might perhaps be claimed for the
Centaur. At that date, as I have assumed, the calendrical and
the solstitial year coincided. (Compare Plate XVII. and Plate
IX.) As between 6000 and 3500 &c. I have often hesitated, but
on the whole I have come to think the later date, as here given,
the more probable.

Fig. a.-^Again at the date 3500 B.a and in the latitude
35* N. I have drawn the constellation Ophiuchus as it would have
appeared in opposition to the sun at the season of the spring
equinox ; triumphing over the powers of darkness— namely, the
scorpion on which he treads and the serpent which he crushes
with his hands. Although at the date in question Hercules' posi-
tion in the northern heavens was not quite so commanding and
symmetrical as it was a thousand years earlier (see Plate XIX.), yet
in the lower latitude given here (Plate XXIIL, fig. 2) the heads of

' Tlie figures in thu plate bare been drawn firoin the globe adjusted to the
following dates and latitudes. Figi. i and a, 3589 B.C., Lat. 35* N. Ftg. 3,
3050 b!c., Lat 35* N. Fig. 4, 1443 ^^** La^ 40* N.

346

Hei

thes
and
ing

was
spri:
equi

the
astr
of I
toe
Aur

Cassiopeia, and Andromeda legend the date 3500 for Perseus, it

will seem, I ihink, almost necessary to attribute the much later
one of 1433 B.C. for the designing of this constellation. At the
earlier date the position of Perseus — see Plate XXII., fig. 2—
militates against the likelihood of its having then been imagined ;
ab part of the figure of Perseus would have been visible in the
northern and part in the southern hemisphere.

Ill favour of the later date we may note the way in which the
figure of Perseus has been fitted in, as it were, between already-
named constellations, so that though restricted to a small space it
slill retains heroic proportions.

The star Algol, whose strange alternations of magnitude may
well have suggested to the ancients the winking of the eye of some
malignant monster, was imagined by the astronomers who drew
the figure of Perseus, as on the brow of the Gorgon Medusa. It

CENTAUR, OPHIUCHUS, AURIGA, PERSEUS 247

will be seen in the Plate how, at the date there given, this mysteri-
ous star exactly marked the equinoctial meridian.

The northern latitude 40* N., suitable for the imagining of this
constellation, and its name Perseus, seem to point to an Iranian
school of astronomers as the probable originators of this figure.

ITW

been
com]
couI(
ontt
ofth

1
Caoi:
and I
The
an ei
certa
of tl
nigit
them

A further study of the precessionil globe with this thought
present would probably suggest approximate dates for the imagin-
ing of some of these constellations, small in extent but marked by
bright stars.

I will now only allude to the l*o remaining ancient constella-
tions of ^i-iJe <;x/(rit—nan)e]y, to Argo and Pegasus,

Glancing at Plate X. (Astronomy in the Rig Veda) the
almost upright and symmetrical position of Argo 3000 d.c. may
suggest the likelihood that at that date or perhaps a few hundred
years later, and in a latitude about ii° higher than that given in
the diagram, this consiellaiion was imagined. It will he obscned
that all the stars of Art;o, even the bright and southern Canopus
at 35° N, would have been above the horizon and visible at mid-
night of the winter solstice. At noon of the summer solstice

AR60 AND PEGASUS 249

they would htve been above the horiion, but invisible in conjunc-
tion with the sun.

But now turning our thoughts to the constellation Pegasus, a
difficulty confronts us at every date from 6000 b.c downwards
even to this present a.d. 1903 : Pegasus as depicted on the globe
has held and still holds a reversed position in the heavens. The
very fact that for all the other ancient constellations which repre-
sent living beings, it has been possible to find some season and
some date at which they could have been observed upright in the
sky, makes it a more imperative need to seek for some explanation
of the anomalous treatment meted out by astronomers of old to
the winged steed.

In this stress of difficulty, I venture to make a suggestion
which will, I fear, at first sight, appear far-fetched and fanciful,
and quite out of line with other suppositions put forward in this
book.

My suggestion is that an error concemmg the right depicting
of this constellation was fallen into by some astronomers of old,
and that this error was handed down to us through the Grecian
school

If on some clear autumnal or winter night we search for the
constellation Pegasus, not on a globe or map but in the southern
quarter of the actual sky, we may quickly recognise it by four
very bright stars which mark the comers of an almost exact and
very extensive square on the vault of heaven. Then stretching
away firom the lower and western comer of this square still farther
towards the horizon and to the west, we may trace the faint stars
which mark the neck, and the somewhat brighter star which marks
the head of the Demi-Horse : while starting from the upper western
comer of the square and stretching still higher towards the zenith,
and to the west we detect the lines of famter stars which mark the
fore legs and the hoofs of Pegasus. If we allow the four stars of
the " square of Pegasus " still to nutrk the body of the horse, and

AQUARIUS

But even to arrive at so satisfactory a result, we might scarcely
dare to propose without some other plea than its mere desirability,
so arbitrary a method of di;aling with the reversed position of
Pegasus, as that of thus correcting a supposed error on the part of
early astronomers.

There is, however, I think, in Grecian and in Vedic legend
some support to be found for the opinion that the original position
of Pegasus was upright and not reversed-

PEGASUS ALWAYS REVERSED 251

Though on the Grecian astronomic sphere Pegasus appears
reverMd, on no artistic monument, vase, or coin is he thus repre-
sented, and in Grecian legend he is ever a glorious and highly-prized
friend and helper of gods and heroes. Amongst other achieve-
ments, we read of him that he produced with a blow of his hoof
the inspiring fountain Hippocrene.

In the Rig Veda we read of a swift horse, belonging to the
Aswins, who from his hoof filled a hundred vases of sweet liquor.

Max Miiller has pointed out that the Aswins possessed a horse
called Pagas. The stars a and fi Arietis are in Hindu astro-
nomy called the ''Aswins," and at p. 137 I have contended that
these stars in Vedic times symbolised the twin heroes, the Aswins,
the possessors, according to Max MQller, of the horse Pagas. If
we look at Pegasus in the sky, and observe how closely following
that constellation the bright stars that mark the head of Aries
appear, we shall easily understand how these Aswins might have
by Vedic bards been imagined as possessing and driving in front
of them the swift steed Pegasus.

In two hymns addressed to the Aswins we read as follows :^ —

Mandala I. — Sdkta cxvi. and verse 7.

'* You filled from the hoof of your vigorous steed, as if from a
cask, a hundred jars of wine."

And again in the next hymn, cxviL verse 6 —

" You filled for the (expectant) man a hundred vases of sweet
(liquors) from the hod* of your fleet horse."

As Pegasus is now represented his hoofs touch no well or
fountain, cask or vase. But if we depict him as suggested above
(see Plate XXIV.), his hoof would indeed appear as almost in the
act of striking the vase in the constellation Aquarius, from which
the abundant waters gush forth.

^ Wilson'i translation of the Rig Veda.

v«

bor

INJ
we
froi

witi

him
PO;

brought first with the fleet courser, so that TWASHTRI may

prepare him along with the horse, as an acceptable preliminary
offering for the (sacrificial) food."

Looking at Plate XXIV., Figs, i, 2, wc may observe how the
constellation Capricornus " goes befote " that of Pegasus, and we
may understand the aspiralJon that Twashtri may prepare him
along with the horse as an acceptable preliminary offering.

After many verses entering into minute and rather horrible
details of ihe "immolation" and even of the cooking of the
sacrificial horse the iglh verse adds—

" There is one immolalor of the radiant horse, which is
Time " ; and these words seem lo carry us back from thoughts of
an actual to a, in soniu way, symbolical sacrifice, especially when
at verse 2 1 we read ;

PEGASUS AND ASWAMEDHA 253

''Verily at thii moment thou dost not die; nor art thou
harmed; for thou goest by auspicious paths to the gods. The
horses of INDRA, the steeds of the Maruts shall be yoked (to
their cars), and a courser shall be placed in the shaft of the ass of
the ASWINS (to bear thee to heaven)."

The following hymn (Ixiii.) I give in extenso : —

Manoala I. — Stikta clxiii.

I. Thy great birth, O Horse, is to be glorified; whether
first springing from the firmament or from the water, inasmuch
as thou hast neighed (auspiciously), for thou hast the wings of
the fidcon and the limbs of the deer.

a. TRITA harnessed the horse which was given by YAMA :
INDRA first mounted him, and GANDHARBA seized his
reins. Vasus^ you fabricated the horse from the sun.

3. Thou, horse, art YAMA : thou art A'DITYA : thou art
TRITA by a mysterious act : thou art associated with SOMA
The sages have said there are three bindings of thee in heaven.

4. They have said that three are thy bindings in heaven;
three upon earth ; and three in the firmament Thou dedarest to
me, Horse, who art (one with) VARUNA, that which they have
called thy most excellent birth.

5. I have beheld. Horse, these thy purifying (regions) ; these
impressions of the feet of thee, who sharest in the sacrifice ; and
here thy auspicious reins, which are the protectors of the rite that
preserve it

6. I recognise in my mind thy form afar off, going from
(the earth) below, by way of heaven, to the sun. I behold thy
head soaring aloft, and mounting quickly by unobstructed paths,
unsullied by dust

7. I behold thy most excellent form coming eagerly to
(receive) thy food in thy (holy) place of earth ; when thy attend-

PEGASUS ERECl' IN THE SKY 255

hone led to sacrifice, but of the winged celestial Pegasus ; nor is
it easy to think of that celestial horse as it is at present depicted,
reversed in the sky.

The Vedic poet beheld his head soaring aloft, but in the
previous verse he has said, " I have beheld Horse, . . . those
impressions of the feet of thee"; and if these "impressions"
were the stars which, on the Grecian sphere, marked the horse's
head, but, as I have contended, originally marked his hoof, then
we shall understand how, associated with Soma, and identical
with Trita by a mysterious act — 1>., at the season of the summer
solstice, and when the moon was at its full in the constellation
Aquarius, ancient astronomers imagined to themselves the horse
Pegasus producing with his hoof the sweet exhilarating waters of
the fountain Hippocrene.

The date of this particular legend concerning the hoof of
Pegasus I should be inclined to place at about 3000 B.C, when
the solstitial colure was so closely marked by ''those impres-
sions of the feet" of the "swift horse sprung from the gods."
For the first imagining of the constellation I think that of 4000
B.C. is more probable (see Plate XXIV., Figs, i, a).

g' i^. S
I" I

ZS.S

5 ' 3

M " ^

■ > z

Hi'
S =-■& !

Ill'

° S:

p.*

3 I-

So*

r» s

■« •

c o

3 S

g tr

•^ 3

o X
^ 2

^ 5

c o
O j; c

•g g §•

c W g
h« e

o a<

{fi m ^

t i%

JO ij; -o

I s

.9 3

^^ ■ mm ^tm»

^ 'C* "^

t; — r>

c
o

3.8 S-

g =• « S
III =

INDEX

AB AB-OAt, 4

Abbft nddn, 4

Abd, 164 *

Abhra, 113

AHb, 165, 166, 168, 170

Aboo Simbel, 39> 40, 41

Abnham, 167

Abo, a, 4

Accftd, 6, 53-C7, 8a Sa Calendar

Achaemenid l&gt, 60^ 73

AcvinL 5iM Aswml

Adar, Adarn, 2-6, 69

A'ditya, 253

Agane, 151

Agni, 125.131, 138, 140, 153, 172,

181, 183
Agiahayani, 228
Ahi, III. SuVntx%
Ahnia Mania, 60, 64, 65, 73-76, 8i-

83. U9-I5S. I72f M7
Aim, 2, 4, II

Aitareya Brahmana, 140

Akiba, Rabbi, 163

AlbniBanar, 17, 18

Alexander, 25, 91, 103

Algol, 246

Alphonsns, 23

Altair, 67

Amen, 32-41

Amen-Ra, 32-34, 39-41

Amon. Sa Amen

Ampbora, 44, 45. ^. 79. «>4. ^3.

2j3, 236
Andromeday
Anna, 48

239.244. 246

Apim Napftt, 126

Apin-am-a, 4

Apb Boll, 218, 233-235

Apollo, 156

ApoUonins of TVana, 97

Aptya. Sm TnU

Aqnarii fi, 196

79. 80, 83, 123, 124, 129-132. 144.

174179. 197. 199. 202. 209, 221.

22i, 232-235, 241, 250, 251, 255
Aqrabo, 44

Aqnila, 66-70, 80, 124, 248
Arakb-makro, 4
Arakb.iamna, 2, 4
Aratot, 216, 224.227, 241, 242
Archer. Sii Stgittarius
Ardtenens, 44
Arp), 248
Anei, 1-19, 24-44. 53-57. » 94.

104, I45-U7. 170, I7if 186.190,

209, 210, 217, 218, 220, 224, 235,

245. 251
Arietis a and A 94, 137, 142, 143.

251
Armckbe, 4
Artemis, 156, 157, 160

Aril, 44

Aryaman, 252

Asa^ui, 4

Assam Mans, 149, 150

Assur, 74-79. 83. ^4. W, IS«>-I55.

227
Assnrbanteal, 6, 69
Assyriin Standiiid» 774k)b 83, 86

EHi«bitn,4
D-Hetbelot, iS
IMuM, 15S
Diuni, 158
Dorii,a43
Dnca, 113
Dapoia, 37-39
Dflio,3,4
Dnl*, i77-i8o

EAQLK,fi4. ^Atnih
Ebm, 3S, 333
Eden, II, 31
Edib. 313

EkMM, 177.180
Ekliml,48
Ebun, 81
EllUk,48

Eniiiiiti,48

EiwB, 44

Epping ud Sttamuicr,

45. IM
Eqanlef, a, 196
Eneb,3i8
EtMkwot, 241, 343
Eol-y*, iSj, 30*
EnMDiu, 17
EnUi,48
Bxodo*, 165, J70

Gir-t>tv8

Go, 113

GtM-bh, 8, 330

Golden air, 333, 33s

GrsmyXIII., 11, '"^

Grian, 68

Griffith*, 31

Go, 9, 44-47

Gndca, ^S-sj. 308, 309, 3W :

Gnlt, 9, 46-J7, 69, 309

Gndnm, SI

M93

IIiil,307

HvuTB, 150

Hydn, II7-I33, 131, 137, 339

ICD, 346

Indw, in-184, I30i 131, 138, 148,
"73-I83, i5i-*54

Oppcvt, 101
Onm, 157, »7-sa9
Oraiiicd, 6i
Oiiride pOlin, 40

Pa. 44

Putuuiha, 98
PtfldunddUotikl. 08
Pifli,iii

»:v>

Pbco, 44, 80, 174, 177-179, J09,

StgTiKf

PoUoX. S44 CmIot
Ptab, 40
Plolemr, 17, ai6
Polnklca, 44
~ 'aab, taS

Piihui, 3
QUIMLL, 236

361

Rnmtl, oa, 93, 104, 13a, 138, 143,

187, 188
RibhtikihiD, 353
(tied, Muteo, 194
tUg Veda, 9a, 105-148, 153, 171-

■84, u8, >44, asiJSS
nim-nn, 3, 4

108, «3, 130, 133
18
Ranunreu, 180
Rome, 61, 171, 193
Rodn, 151-160, 173't74> '84
f(fit, 141. Sm Ruhi*

Sabahu, 4
Sebln, a

SchUfd, GmUVi'i^im, 190, 191,

Scoroio, 8, 44, «3-*7. 80, aii, 131-

SeX, 4, 13, 14, I4<, 147
Se-U-ril, 4, 13, 14. 146, 147

Seti,36,}

Slioo,j3
Shodd&n
SboUiL, iS

aioa, 185,
Siriu, 31,
Si«, isr,
Slate*, 33J
S6in,96
Soma, 10}
138. 17a

Sphiucf,
Spin, 38,

a 10
Standaid,

SCnachios
Sucra, 96
Suidu, 13
Su-liul-nn,
Sunihscpa
Sari., .50

INDEX

263

Vo«iiii| IiMC, 93
Vrihaspad, 96
Vritn, III-I35, 1481 177
Vrtnhan, 114

Wan-nian-sbu, 194
Water-jar. Sm Amphora
Water-man. Sa Aquarius
Week, Days of, 96
Whitney, 93, 187

Wilion, 113, 134-1^1 I53» 1^3, 351
Woden, 96
Wogne, 169

Yajur Veda, 94* t33i35
Yama, 353
Ybka, 141

Yavan, 95. 97
Yoga ttan, 143

Zamama, 69

ZendAvetta, 60, 113, 114, 178
Zeus, 70

Zib,44
S^banltu, 44

Zodiac, 3 ttpanim

Zu,69

laiMTBO AT TMI BOWtOIGH

9 AMO It VOVKC tTBaST.

3 2044 025 694 217

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