Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s20.213

v1.c3.s20.213

But the question is complicated by the fact that there exist two similar sets of 28 stars or star groups in Arabia and in China, the Manāzil and the Sieou. The use of the Manāzil in Arabia is consistent and effective; the calendar is regulated by them, and the position of the asterisms corresponds best with the positions required for a lunar Zodiac. The Indians might therefore have borrowed the system from Arabia, but that is a mere possibility, because the evidence for the existence of the Manāzil is long posterior to that for the existence of the Nakṣatras, while again the Mazzaroth or Mazzaloth of the Old Testament 158 may really be the lunar mansions.¹⁵⁹ That the Arabian system is borrowed from India, as Burgess¹⁶⁰ held, is, on the other hand, not at all probable.