(   i5   )
 

CHAPTER  L.

HOW MANY STAR-CYCLES THERE ARE BOTH IN A " KALPA "
AND IN A " CATURYUGA."

It is one of the conditions of a kalpa that in it the
planets, with their apsides and nodes, must unite in
o° of Aries, i.e. in the point of the vernal equinox.
Therefore each planet makes within a kalpa a certain
number of complete revolutions or cycles.

These star-cycles   as  known  through  the canon of The tradi-"
Alfazari and Ya'kub Ibn Tarik, were derived from a Xia°nd
Hindu who came to Bagdad as a member of the politi- ilrik!
cal mission which Sindh sent to the Khalif Almansur,
A.H. 154 ( = A.D. 771).    If we compare these secondary
statements with the primary statements of the Hindus,
we discover discrepancies, the cause of which is not
known to me.    Is their origin due to the translation
of Alfazari and Ya'kub ? or to the dictation of that
Hindu ? or to the fact that afterwards these computa¬
tions have been corrected by Brahmagupta, or some one
else ?   For, certainly, any scholar who becomes aware
of mistakes in astronomical computations and takes an
interest in the subject, will endeavour to correct them, Muhammad
as, e.g. Muhammad Ibn Ishak of Sarakhs has done. s;mkhS-"
For he had discovered in the computation of Saturn a
falling back behind real time (i.e., that Saturn, accord¬
ing to this computation, revolved slower than it did in
reality).    Now he assiduously studied the subject, till
at last he was convinced that his fault did not originate