The Brahmans employ also another period called _Mahayuga_, which they determine by an anomalistic movement of the whole stars, which ends when the moon together with her apogeum and ascending nodes are in conjunction with the sun on the first day of April. Repeated observation of the starry heavens gave the Brahmans an opportunity of remarking that the course of the stars was in a certain measure retarded by their ascension and distance from the earth. They calculated, therefore, this retardation, and found, that, since the time when the above position of all the stars took place, 1,955,884,890 years must have elapsed; and that 2,364,115,110 years were necessary to produce it again. This great anomalistic period of the revolution of the stars, which they call _Calpa_, is divided into four epochs. The first is called _Satayayuga_, the age of truth and justice, or the golden age; _Tredayuga_, the second, we should call the silver age; the third, _Duabarayuga_, is the brazen age; and the fourth, _Caliyuga_, the iron age. Years. The _Satyayuga_ contains 1,728,000 The _Tredayuga_ 1,296,000 The _Duabarayuga_ 864,000 The _Caliyuga_ 432,000 The whole _Calpa_, comprehending the _Sandhi_[194], lasts 4,320,000,000 years. * * * * * Of all the Europeans, no one, as far as I know, has placed in a clearer light this subject, as well as the whole Brahmanic astronomy, so difficult to be explained, than Mr. Samuel Davis[195]. From his explanation, founded upon Indian manuscripts, it evidently appears that the above periods, as well as the division of the different ages into a certain number of years, is not a poetical fiction, but a real astronomical period, founded upon the hypothesis, that so many thousands of years, which form the _Calpa_, are requisite before all the celestial bodies can be found together in the above position; which however has never yet existed. M. Bailly was therefore in a great error when he endeavoured to prove, from the astronomical calculations of the Brahmans, that the world is much older than it is according to the chronology of Moses[196].