Prologue

Abstract

IN INDIA, the curving moon lies on its back, and resembles a little boat sailing sedately across the heavens. The Greek hero Heracles sailed across the sky to the west in the boat of the Sun, a beneficent god. In India, the sun, Surya, is also a god, and the dawn, Uṣas, is a goddess, but the moon is not, like the Greek eye of night, a goddess....