Mean Motion of the Planets 14. The day and night of the gods and of the demons are mutually opposed to one another. Bix times sixty of them are a year of the gods, and likewise of the demons. This is called ,’ etc.; bhat is, af, bhe commentary explains, the year composed of twelve Bolar months, as being those last mentioned; the sidereal year. It appears to us very questionable whether, in the first instance, anything more was meant by calling the year a day of the gods than to intimate that those beings of a higher order reckoned bitme upon a gander ecate: just as the month was said to be a day of the Fathere, or Mane8 (xiv. 14), the Patriarchate (v. 18), a day of bhe Patriarohs (xiv. 21), and the on {v. 20), a day of Brahma ; all these being familiar Puranic designations. In he astronomical reconstruction of the Puranio system, however , a physical meaning has been givon to this day of the gods: he gods are made to reside at the north pole, and the demons at the south; and then, of course, during the half year when the sun is north of the equato, it is day to the gods and night to the demons; and during the other half-year, the contrary. The subject is dwelp upon at some length in dhe twelfth chaptor (ii. 45, etc. To make such a division accurate, the yea ought to be the tropical, and not the sidereal; but the author of the Sirya-Siddhanta has not yet begun to take into account the precession. See what is Baid upon this subjeck in the third chapter ' (v. 9-10 'he year of the godsor the divne year, is employed only in des
- ribing the immense periods of which the statement now follows.
15. Twelve thousand of these divine years are denominated a Quadruple Age (cottryugg); of ten thousand times four hundred and thirty-two solar years 16. Is composed that uadruple Age, with its dawn and twilight. '£'he difference of the Golden and the other Ages, as measured by the difference in the number of the feet of Virtue in each, is as follows: 17. The tenth part of an Age, multiplied successively by four, three, two, and one, gives the length of the Golden and the other Agesin order : the sixth part of each belongs to its dawn and twilight. The period of 480000 years fe ordinarily styled Great Age tabiguga), or, as above in two instances, Quadruple Age (caturyugh. In the Shya-siddhAnta, however, the former term is not once found, and he latter occer only in these verses elsewhere, Age () aloma is employed to aanute it, and always denotes it, unless exprepely limited by औhe name of the Golden (rta) Age