Curtius apparently means that the Indians mark time, not by taking a month to be the period from full moon to next full moon, but from new moon to full moon. “The year of the Indians (says Duncker) was divided into 12 months of 30 days; the month was divided into two halves of 15 days each, and the day into 30 hours (_muhurta_). In order to bring this year of 360 days into harmony with the natural time, the Brahmans established a quinquennial cycle of 1860 lunar days. Three years had 12 months of 30 lunar days; the third and fifth year of the cycle had 13 months of the same number of days. The Brahmans do not seem to have perceived that by this arrangement the cycle contained almost four days in excess of the astronomical time, and indeed they were not very skilful astronomers” (_v._ his _History of Antiquity_, iv. 283, 284). According to Weber this system of calculating time was borrowed from the Babylonians, but Max Müller and learned Hindus hold it to be indigenous. The Indian name for the half of a lunar month is _paksha_. The half from new moon to full moon was called at first _pûrva_ (fore), and afterwards _śukla_ (bright); the other half was called _apara_ (posterior), and afterwards _krishna_ (dark). Le Clerc concludes his criticism of this passage thus: “Matthaeus Raderus endeavours to explain Curtius as if he designed to demonstrate that one month began and was understood to commence a little after the change to the full moon, and the next, from the time when she began to decrease to the next change. This, indeed, ought to be his meaning; but it is strangely expressed, when he tells us that the moon begins to show herself horned on the sixteenth day, when ’tis evident she does not appear so till about seven days after full moon. But before Raderus, Thomas Lydiat had tried to solve the matter otherways. However, Scaliger, in his _Prolegomena_ to his _Canones Isagogicae_, p. 11, has plainly showed that Lydiat neither understood Curtius nor Curtius the author which he copied from. The ancient Persians counted 15 days to each of their months, and 24 of these months to the solar year, before the introduction of Mohammedism, as John Chardin evidently demonstrates in his _Itinerarium Persicum_, tome xi. p. 14, quarto” (_v._ Rooke’s _Arrian_, p. 12). NOTE Y.—BATTLE WITH PÔROS