Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c14.5

c14.5

2. Dodecameries: Aryabhata (A.D. 476) knew of the division of the heavens into twelve equal portions or "dodecameries." This zodiacal division came down from the Babylonians to the Greeks about 700 B.C. (?). But it was only by the first century B.C. that the Greeks had twelve separate signs for the twelve divisions. Aryabhata named the twelve divisions by words of the same import, and represented them by the figures of the same animals, as the Greeks. The Hindu zodiac, if it is foreign at all, seems thus to have been derived from the Greek, rather than from the Babylonian.