stood near the pole. The data afforded by Eudoxus, however, are far too vague to serve as the basis of any chronological conclusion.
Egyptian Zodiacal Signs.—The Egyptians adopted from the Greeks, with considerable modifications of its attendant symbolism, the twelve-fold division of the zodiac. Aries became the Fleece; two Sprouting Plants, typifying equality or resemblance, stood for Gemini; Cancer was re-named Scarabaeus; Leo was converted, from the axe-like configuration of its chief stars, into the Knife: Libra into the Mountain of the Sun, a reminiscence, apparently, of the Euphratean association of the seventh month with a “holy mound,” designating the biblical tower of Babel. A Serpent was the Egyptian equivalent of Scorpio; the Arrow only of Sagittarius was retained; Capricornus became “Life,” or a Mirror as an image of life; Aquarius survived as Water; Taurus, Virgo and Pisces remained unchanged.[1] The motive of some of the substitutions was to avoid the confusion which must have ensued from the duplication of previously existing native asterisms; thus, the Egyptian and Greek Lions were composed of totally different stars. Abstractions in other cases replaced concrete objects, with the general result of effacing the distinctive character of the Greek zodiac as a “circle of living things.”
Spread of Greek System.—Early Zoroastrian writings, though impregnated with star-worship, show no traces of an attempt to organize the heavenly array. In the Bundahish, however (9th century), the twelve “Akhtārs,” designated by the same names as our signs, lead the army of Ormāzd, while the seven “Awakhtārs” or planets (including a meteor and a comet) fight for Ahriman. The knowledge of the solar zodiac thus turned to account for dualistic purposes was undoubtedly derived from the Greeks. By them, too, it was introduced into Hindustan. Āryabhaṭa, about the beginning of the Christian era, reckoned by the same signs as Hipparchus. They were transmitted from India by Buddhist missionaries to China, but remained in abeyance until the Jesuit reform of Chinese astronomy in the 17th century.
Chinese Zodiacal Signs.—The native Chinese zodiacal system was of unexampled complexity. Besides divisions into twenty eight and twenty-four parts, it included two distinct duodenary series. The tse or “stations” were referred by E. C. Biot to the date 1111 B.C. Measured from the winter solstice of that epoch, they corresponded, in conformity with the Chinese method of observation by intervals of what we now call right ascension, to equal portions of the celestial equator.[2] Projected upon the ecliptic, these were considerably unequal, and the tse accordingly differed essentially from the Chaldaean and Greek signs. Their use was chiefly astrological, and their highly figurative names—“Great Splendour,” “Immense Void,” “Fire of the Phoenix,” &c.—had reference to no particular stars. They became virtually merged in the European series, stamped with official recognition over two centuries ago. The twenty-four tsieki or demi-tse were probably invented to mark the course of weather changes throughout the year. Their appellations are purely meteorological.
The characteristic Chinese mode of dividing the “yellow road” of the sun was, however, by the twelve “cyclical animals”—Rat, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Dragon or Crocodile, Serpent, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Hen, Dog, Pig. The opening sign corresponds to our Aquarius, and it is remarkable that the rat is, in the far East, frequently used as an ideograph for “water.” But here the agreement ceases. For the Chinese series has the strange peculiarity of proceeding in a retrograde direction or against the course of the sun. Thus, the second sign (of the Ox) occupies the position of Capricorn, the third that of Sagittarius, and so on. The explanation of this seeming anomaly is to be found in the primitive destination of the “animals” to the purposes of an “horary zodiac.” Their succession, established to mark the hours of day and night, was not unnaturally associated with the diurnal revolution of the sphere from east to west.[3] They are unquestionably of native origin. Tradition ascribes their invention to Tajao, minister of the emperor Hwang-ti, who reigned c. 2697 B.C., and it can scarcely be placed later than the 7th century B.C.[4]
The Chinese circle of the “animals” obtained early a wide diffusion. It was adopted by Tatars, Turks and Mongols, in Tibet and Tong-king, Japan and Korea. It is denominated by Humboldt[5] the “zodiac of hunters and shepherds,” and he adds that the presence in it of a tiger gives it an exclusively Asiatic character. It appears never to have been designed for astronomical employment. From the first it served to characterize the divisions of time. The nomenclature not only of the hours of the day and of their minutest intervals was supplied by it, but of the months of the year, of the years in the Oriental sixty-year cycle, and of the days in the “little cycle” of twelve days. Nor has it yet fallen into desuetude. Years “of the Rat,” “of the Tiger,” “of the Pig,” still figure in the almanacs of Central Asia, Cochin China and Japan.
Aztec Zodiacal Signs.—A large detachment of the “cyclical animals” even found its way to the New World. Seven of the twenty days constituting the Aztec month bore names evidently borrowed from those of the Chinese horary signs. The Hare (or Rabbit), Monkey, Dog and Serpent reappeared without change; for the Tiger, Crocodile and Hen, unknown in America, the Ocelot, Lizard and Eagle were substituted as analogous.[6] The Aztec calendar dated from the 7th century; but the zodiacal tradition embodied by it was doubtless much more ancient. Of the zodiac in its true sense of a partitioned belt of the sphere there was no aboriginal knowledge on the American continent. Mexican acquaintance with the signs related only to their secondary function as dies (so to speak) with which to stamp recurring intervals of time.
Lunar Zodiac.—The synodical revolution of the moon laid down the lines of the solar, its sidereal revolution those of the lunar zodiac. The first was a circlet of “full moons”; the second marked the diurnal stages of the lunar progress round the sky, from and back again to any selected star. The moon was the earliest “measurer” both of time and space; but its services can scarcely have been rendered available until stellar “milestones” were established at suitable points along its path. Such were the Hindu nakshatras, a word originally signifying stars in general, but appropriated to designate certain small stellar groups marking the divisions of the lunar track. They exhibit in an exaggerated form the irregularities of distribution visible in our zodiacal constellations, and present the further anomaly of being frequently reckoned as twenty-eight in number, while the ecliptical arcs they characterize are invariably twenty-seven. Now, since the moon revolves round the earth in 2713 days, hesitation between the two full numbers might easily arise; yet the real explanation of the difficulty appears to be different. The superfluous asterism, named Abhijit, included the bright star α Lyrae, under whose influence the gods had vanquished the Asuras. Its invocation with the other nakshatras, remoteness from the ecliptic notwithstanding, was thus due (according to Max Müller’s plausible conjecture)[7] to its being regarded as of especially good omen. Acquaintance with foreign systems of twenty-eight lunar divisions tended doubtless to fix its position, which remained, nevertheless, always equivocal.[8] Alternately admitted into or rejected from the series, it was finally, some six or seven centuries ago, eliminated by the effects of precession in reversing the order of culmination of its limiting stars.
The notion of a twenty-seven-fold division of the zodiac was deeply rooted in Hindu tradition. The number and the name were in early times almost synonymous. Thus a nakshatra-mālā
- ↑ Brugsch, Z. D. M. G., ix. 513.
- ↑ Biot, Journ. des Savans, 1839, p. 729, and 1840, p. 151; Gaubil, Hist. de l’Astr. Chinoise, p. 9.
- ↑ Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 168.
- ↑ G. Schlegel, Ur. Chin., pp. 37, 561
- ↑ Op cit., p. 219.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 152; Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, iii. 321 (ed. 1860).
- ↑ Rig-Veda Samhita, vol. iv. (1862), Preface, p. lxii.
- ↑ Whitney, Journ. Am. Orient. Soc., viii. 394.
