Thus, the 27 divisions of the Ecliptic became as fixed in position the stars themselves, like a great fixed dial, with the numbers ranging, not along the Equator, but along the Ecliptic itself.
The accompanying diagram (Fig. IV.) may, perhaps, more
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explicitly convey the nature of the Hindu Ecliptic, which is here shown, as a great circle in perspective.
Each division represents one twenty-seventh part of the Ecliptic, and each star the Yoga-tara of the Nacshatra, or Lunar Asterism, to which it belongs.
It will be observed that the Yoga-tara might be either in the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere, and the stars selected were those most suitable for observation, either on the Ecliptic or near it, North or South, but always such as were capable of being occultated by the moon or of being in conjunction with it or with the planets.
To render this important part of Indian astronomy still more easily understood, the two accompanying Plates, V. and VI., are intended as a graphic representation of the Hindu Ecliptic, and of the Lunar Asterisms, together with the Solar signs of the Hindu Zodiac, the position of each being fixed by a supposed projection of the Yoga-tara on the plane of the Ecliptic, the Northern stars, with their modern names, on one side of the plane, and the Southern stars on the other, the divisions retaining the same names in each Hemisphere.
