Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c9.11

c9.11

At the same time that the stars in the Zodiac are thus arranged into twenty-seven constellations, the ecliptic is divided, as with us, into twelve signs of thirty degrees each. This division is purely ideal, and is intended merely for the purpose of calculation. The names and emblems by which these signs are expressed, are nearly the same as with us;⁶ and there is nothing in the nature of things to have determined this coincidence, it must, like the arrangement of the days of the week, be the result of some ancient and unknown communication.