History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.151

v6.c82.151

If the nakṣatras ( 27 or 28 ) had been borrowed at one time *en bloc* from a foreign source the divergences in the names of the nakṣatras, in the presiding deities, and in the gender and number should ordinarily not have arisen to the extent they do. But, if they were an indigenous growth then differences of opinion would naturally have been evolved in the passage of centuries The only asterisms first specialised and named in Greece and Syria were the Pleiades in Job 38. 31, Homer and Hesiod; Orion in Job 39 31, Homer and Hesiod; Arcturus in Job 9.9 and in 39.32, Homer and Hesiod, the great Bear in Homer and Hesiod, Aldebaran in Homer and Hesiod and three more including Sirius ( vide 'Dawn of Astronomy' by Norman Lockyer, 1884 p. 33 ) This is several centuries later ( if not thousands ) than the early Vedic texts wherein the whole scheme of nakṣatras appears.