th
of the year as calculated by the Egyptians and other early historic
nations was 360 days, which fact would seem to indicate that a science
of astronomy had been developed in an earlier age which by the most
ancient peoples of whom we have any historic records has been lost
or forgotten. It has been said that if this cycle of the Neros "were
correct to the second, if on the first of January at noon a new moon
took place, it would take place again in exactly 600 years at the same
moment of the day, and under all the same circumstances."(61)

61) Godfrey Higgins, Celtic Druids, ch. ii., sec. 14.

The Varaha Calpa has the famous cycle of 4,320,000,000 years for its
duration. This system makes the Cali Yug begin 3098 years B.C. A dodecan
consisted of 5 days, and 72 dodecans formed a natural year of 360 days.
According to the earlier calculations, 360 solar diurnal revolutions
constituted a natural year. The doctrine of the ancients concerning
these cycles is thus set forth by Godfrey Higgins:

"The sun, or rather that higher principle of which the sun was the
emblem or the shekinah, was considered to be incarnated every six
hundred years. Whilst the sun was in Taurus, the different incarnations,
under whatever names they might go, were all considered but as
incarnations of Buddha or Taurus. When he got into Aries, they were in
like manner considered but as incarnations of Cristna or Aries, and
even Buddha and Cristna were originally considered the same, and had
a thousand names in common, constantly repeated in their litanies--a
striking proof of identity of origin. Of these Zodiacal divisions the
Hindoos formed another period, which consisted of ten ages or Calpas
or Yugs, which they considered the duration of the world, at the end
of which a general renovation of all things would take place. They also
reckoned ten Neroses to form a period, each of them keeping a certain
relative location to the other, and together to form a cycle. To effect
this they doubled the precessional period for one sign--viz: 2160
years--thus making 4320, which was a tenth of 43,200, a year of the sun,
analogous to the 360 natural days, and produced in the same manner, by
multiplying the day of 600 by the dodecans 72 = 43,200. They then formed
another great year of 432,000 by again multiplying it by 10, which they
called a Cali Yug, which was measurable both by the number 2160, the
years the equinox preceded in a sign, and by the numb