and raised them to
twenty-eight; the Hindus began with twenty-seven, and raised them to
twenty-eight. Secondly, out of these twenty-eight asterisms, there are
seventeen only which can really be identified with the Hindu stars
(taras). Now if a scientific system is borrowed, it is borrowed
complete. But, in our case, I see really no possible channel through
which Chinese astronomical knowledge could have been conducted to
India so early as 1000 before our era. In Chinese literature India is
never mentioned before the middle of the second century before Christ;
and if the _K_inas in the later Sanskrit literature are meant for
Chinese, which is doubtful, it is important to observe that that name
never occurs in Vedic literature.[139]

When therefore the impossibility of so early a communication between
China and India had at last been recognized, a new theory was formed,
namely, "that the knowledge of Chinese astronomy was not imported
straight from China to India, but was carried, together with the
Chinese system of division of the heavens into twenty-eight mansions,
into Western Asia, at a period not much later than 1100 B.C., and was
then adopted by some Western people, either Semitic or Iranian. In
their hands it was supposed to have received a new form, such as
adapted it to a ruder and less scientific method of observation, the
limiting stars of the mansions being converted into zodiacal groups or
constellations, and in some instances altered in position, so as to be
brought nearer to the general planetary path of the ecliptic. In this
changed form, having become a means of roughly determining and
describing the places and movements of the planets, it was believed to
have passed into the keeping of the Hindus, very probably along with
the first knowledge of the planets themselves, and entered upon an
independent career of history in India. It still maintained itself in
its old seat, leaving its traces later in the Bundahash; and made its
way so far westward as finally to become known and adopted by the
Arabs." With due respect for the astronomical knowledge of those who
hold this view, all I can say is that this is a novel, and nothing
but a novel, without any facts to support it, and that the few facts
which are known to us do not enable a careful reasoner to go beyond
the conclusions stated many years ago by Colebrooke, that the "Hindus
had undoubtedly made some progress at an early period in the astronomy
cultiva