Astronomy and Cosmology

Author(s): L C Jain
Publisher: Rajasthan Prakrit Bharti Sansthan Jaipur

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6. KINEMATICS OF ASTRAL BODIES
Candraprajñapti's commentaries71 give for greater details of a Jaina calendar based on calculation of motion of various types of heavenly bodies, especially that of the sun, the moon, and the nakşatras. Tiloyapanṇatt172 as well as Trilokasara,73 Lokavibhāga and Jambudvipa prajñapti also relate the concise knowledge of the above.
NAKSATRA SYSTEM ABROAD
In Prakrit, Jyotişka is written as Jodisiya or Joisiya or Joisia, reminding one, of the word Zodiac74. Controversy regarding the relation between the Indian nakşatra, Arabic al-manazil, "moon-stations", and the Chinese hsiu systems. The earliest reference outside Asia is in a Greek papyrus of the +4th century. The origin is common, but the question is which is the oldest ? Both in China and India, the new year was reckoned from the mansion corresponding to Virginis, and in both cultures Pleiades was one of the four quadrantal asterisms. Two important statements are, "The nakshatra do not show so clearly the 'coupling' arrangement discovered by Biot (4), whereby hsiu of greater or lesser equatorial breadth stand opposite each otherf." "The Chinese has possessed', from fairly early times, a twelvefold division of the year and the equator, which being based upon hsiu and palaces, consisted of unequal parts.9 "75
One more statement by Needham and Ling is, "Now in these texts there is never any mention of any zodiac or of constellations lying along the ecliptic; the earliest documentary evidence of this conception occurse just after 420. On the other hand, the Seleucid cuneiform texts of the -3rd and -2nd centuries give great prominence to the Zodiac, and use ecliptic
71. Cf. C. P., comms. by Malayagiri and Amolaka Rşi. Cf. also, S. P. 2. Cf. T.P,, II, ch. VII.
73.
Cf. T. S., ch. IV.
74. Compare the lunar Zodiac of China with that of Jaina School. Cf. Needham & Ling, op. cit., pp. 252 et. seq.
Cf. ibid, pp. 253, 258.
75.
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