ZODIAC, a broad circle, whose middle is the ecliptic, and its extremes two circles parallel thereto, at such a distance from it as to bound or comprehend the excursions of the sun and planets. See ASTRONOMY. It is a curious enough fact, that the solar division of the Indian zodiac is
the same in substance with that of the Greeks, and yet that it has not been borrowed either from the Greeks or the Arabians. The identity, or at least striking similarity, of the division, is universally known; and Montucla has endeavoured to prove that the Brahmins received it from the Arabs. His opinion, we believe, was very generally admitted; but Sir William Jones has adduced a variety of arguments which seem to prove that neither of those nations borrowed that division from the other; that it has been known among the Hindus from time immemorial; and that it was probably invented by the first progenitors of that race, whom he considers, before their dispersion, as the most ancient of mankind. See Asiatic Researches, vol. ii.