Page:A Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy.djvu/21

xiv observations on which they are founded are anterior to it. None of the Hindu artificial systems are ancient: they are all since A. D. 538, the year in which the modern astronomy commenced, and not at the beginning of the Kali Yuga, as imagined by Bailly or others; for they had no astronomy then, as I have fully proved in the Essay, where I have brought forward all the astronomical facts and observations that could be collected relative to their ancient astronomy, showing that it did not go further back than about 1425 before Christ, which was only the dawn of astronomy in India.

The reviewer must be greatly mistaken, if he imagines that the motions of the planets in Hindu artificial systems, were drawn from two actual observations, as in the European methods, and "that their merit, and their claim to antiquity, was decided"—"by the accuracy of the mean motions, as contained in the tables." Now the assertion thus boldly made is not correct; for the Hindu artificial systems, and tables drawn from them, which give the motions alluded to, are not constructed on the European principle. The European method requires that the motions be determined by two actual observations at least, and at a considerable distance of time: the Hindu, in artificial systems, requires no such thing; he makes use of but one observation, which is in the time of the observer: the other he