Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c22.s3.9

c22.s3.9

(*b*) The “Bhavisya Purana” records that the snakes (*Naiæ*) copulate in May or June, gestate during the rainy months that follow, and bring forth about 240 eggs in November. Most of these are devoured by the parents, but those that are left break forth from the shell in about two months. By the seventh day the young snakes turn dark; in a fortnight (or twenty days, according to another account) the teeth come out. The poison is formed in the fangs in three weeks, and becomes deadly in the twenty-fifth night. In six months the snakes shed the skin. The joints on the skin (scales or scutes) are 240 in number (perhaps the sub-caudals were not counted).⁵⁹ 7. Various systems of classification were built up: (1) according to the nature of generation, e.g., from placentalia, or egg, etc. (in the writings of the schools of medicine); (2) according to the habitat and mode of life, and usefulness to man; (3) according to the number of senses possessed by animals. (This was the system of Umasvati, *A.D.* 40).⁵⁹