200                           ALBERUNTS INDIA.

Rule for the      If you  waut to find the karctncts  bv computation,

computa-                      "                                                                       •              J               i.                    '

tion of the    subtract the corrected place of the sun from that of

karawM.                                                                       '-      _

Page 297. ^"^^ moon, reduce the remainder to minutes and divide
the number of them by 360. The quotient represents
complete karctncts.                                                           ^

What remains after the division is multiplied by 60,
and divided by the bhuktyctntctra. The quotient re¬
presents how much has elapsed of the current karctnct.
Every unit of the number is equal to half a ghctti.

We now return to the complete kctrctncts. If they
are two or less, you are in the second kctranct. In that
case you add one to the number and count the sum off,
beginning with catushpctdct.

If the number of kctrctncts is 59, you are in sctkuni.

If it is less than 59 and more than two, add one to
them and divide the sum by seven. The remainder, if
it is not more than seven, count off, beginning with the
beginning of the cycle of the movctble kctrctncts, i.e. with
bavct. Thereby you will arrive at the name of the
current kctranct in which you happen to be.
The karanas      Wishing to remind the reader of something relating

as borrowed                                                                                                             .

byAikindi   to  the kctrctuas which he perhaps has  forgotten, we
Aiab          must tell him that Alkindi and others like him have

hit upon the system of the karctncts, but one which was
not sufficiently explained. They did not comprehend
the method of those who use the karancts. At one
time they trace them back to Indian, another time to
Babylonian origin, declaring all the time that they are
altered on purpose and corrupted by the inadvertence
of the copyists. They have invented a calculation for
them which proceeds in a better order than even the
original method itself. But thereby the thing has
become something totally different from what it origi¬
nally was. Their method is this : they count half days,
beginning with new; moon. The first twelve hours they
regard as belonging to the sun, as burning,i.e. unlucky,
the  next  twelve  hours  as belonging to Venus, thi
 

authors.