418 HINDU AND CHINESE CYCLES
birth commemorated the day on which the earth was restored to mankind— a memorable epoch from which they henceforth dated the years of the newly-restored earth,
that is, of the new era which they had just entered.
The mighty changes which nations underwent entirely
upset their calculations relating to those remote times; but the Hindus, settled as they were in a country long exempt from the revolutionary troubles that agitated other countries, have been able to preserve intact the tradition of those events.
Their ordinary cycle is of sixty years, but they have also adopted another of ninety years, used in astronomical
calculations. The latter is a much more recent invention, and was introduced at the time of the death of a famous
king of India, named Salivahana, who reigned over a province then called Sagam, and who died at the end of the first century of the Christian era. It should be remarked that the use of these two different cycles could never occasion the least confusion in point of dates, since a period of three ordinary cycles corresponds to a period of two astronomical cycles, and they both start from the same epoch.
The Chinese, likewise, have an ordinary cycle of sixty years in common with the Hindus; but there is this difference between the two: the Chinese, according to
Du Halde, are ignorant as to when their era commenced, at least with reference to the epoch of the Flood. On the other hand, it is hardly likely that the two nations could have communicated with each other on this subject, seeing that they do not agree in their computations. According to the author just quoted, the birth of our Saviour falls on the fifty-eighth year of the Chinese cycle, while it coincides with the forty-second year of the Hindu cycle. But this coincidence, nevertheless, goes to confirm the high antiquity of the cycle of sixty years still in use with the two most
ancient races on the face of the earth.
It would be quite useless to inquire whether this cycle was adopted before the Flood, and whether it was from
Noah or his immediate descendants that the Hindus and
Chinese learned its use. We do know for certain, however, that the weekly period was known prior to this remarkable