3. Astrologers. Colebrooke ("Miscellaneous Essays," ii. 440) is of
opinion that astrology was a late introduction into India. Divination
by the relative position of the planets seems to have been in part at
least of foreign growth and comparatively recent introduction among the
Hindus; (he explains this to refer to the Alexandrian Greeks). "The
belief in the influence of the planets and stars upon human affairs
is with them indeed remotely ancient, and was a natural consequence of
their early creed making the sun and planets gods. But the notion that
the tendency of that supposed influence and the manner in which it is
to be exerted, may be foreseen by man, and the effect to be produced
by it foretold through a knowledge of the position of the planets at a
given moment, is no necessary result of that belief; for it takes from
beings believed divine their free agency." See also Weber, "Geschichte
der Indischen Astrologie," in his Indische Studien, ii. 236 et seq.