Neither one nor many "neither one nor many" more intensively (throughout sixty-two of its ninety-seven stanzas) than any other text in Buddhist literature. This argument is one of a series of proofs used to demonstrate that phenomena are without real existence. Neither one nor many The 'neither one nor many' argument (Wylie: gcig du 'bral ba'i gtan tshigs) is an argument employed by different philosophers and spiritual traditions for various reasons. The argument and its permutations and antecedents, particularly the "problem of the One and the Many" as charted by McEvilley (2002: pp. 23–66) in his "magnum opus", has an ancient pedigree in the
Zodiac late Antiquity, by which time Ptolemy's influence was widely established. Ptolemy clearly explained the theoretical basis of the western zodiac as being a tropical coordinate system, by which the zodiac is aligned to the equinoxes and solstices, rather than the visible constellations that bear the same names as the zodiac signs. The Hindu zodiac uses the sidereal coordinate system, which makes reference to the fixed stars. The Tropical zodiac (of Mesopotamian origin) is divided by the intersections of the ecliptic and equator, which shifts in relation to the backdrop of fixed stars at a rate of 1° every 72 years,