History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.362

v6.c82.362

⁸⁵⁴ C. V. MacLean on 'Babylonian Astrology and its relation to the Old Testament' (United Church Publishing House, Toronto) p. 27, Prof Neugebauer in E. S. A. p. 162 (for arrangements of planets in cuneiform texts in Seleucid period and in Greek horoscopes). In the Seleucid period the standard arrangement was Jupiter—Venus—Mercury—Saturn—Mars. Ordinary arrangement in Greek horoscopes is Sun, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury. For the planetary week the arrangement in Greece is said to be Saturn-Jupiter-Mars-Sun-Venus-Mercury-Moon. On p. 163 Prof. Neugebauer thinks that Hindu arrangement of planets is obviously Greek in origin for two reasons, as it is based on the arrangement according to distance from the earth and also on a division of days into 24 hours, which is not Babylonian but Hellenistic and ultimately of Egyptian origin. In this latter he can be said to be wrong, as a similar arrangement of week-days can be arrived at by relying on the 60 ghaṭikā system of India. We saw above that *horā* in Indian astrology has three meanings, viz. Jātaka, *lagna* and half a sign, but the very early Sanskrit astrological texts at least do not appear to employ the word *horā* in the sense of 'hour' or 1/24th part of the whole day or 1/12th part of the day. Any one who asserts that the arrangement of week-days is copied from the Greeks must prove two things, (1) the definite time when the Greeks hit upon the particular arrangement of planets for purposes of week-days and (2) the borrowing people had definitely not arrived at the same arrangement before the Greeks. Prof. Neugebauer, so far as I can see, offers hardly any evidence on any of these two matters beyond mere assertions and conjectures. It has further to be remembered that Alberuni (Sachau, vol. I. p. 343) states that nobody in India uses the hours except the astrologers, for they speak of the dominants of the hours. The 30 muhūrtas of *ahorātra* are much older than the Śatapatha Br. and it was easy to divide a muhūrta into two nāḍīs or ghaṭikās as the Arthaśāstra does (I. 19 p. 37 'Nālikābhiraharastadhā rātriṃ ca vibhajet) and Purāṇas like Viṣṇu VI. 3. 6-9 do. There is hardly anything in the vast Sanskrit Literature (of ancient or medieval times) to show that common people or writers (not being astronomers or astrologers) employed the method of 24 hours of the day.