Sanscrit Writing and Language. 131 



already alluded to, endeavours, in his Indian astronomy, to prove that the first of 

 these epochs is founded on observation. Notwithstanding all the arguments are 

 brought forward, with that perspicuity he so well knew how to bestow on subjects 

 the most abstract, I am still of opinion, that this period was invented for the 

 purpose of giving a common origin to all the motions of the heavenly bodies in 

 the zodiac. Our last astronomical tables being rendered more perfect by the 

 comparison of theory with a great number of observations, do not permit us to 

 admit the conjunction supposed in the Indian tables ;" — Harte's Translation and 

 Commentary, &c. vol. ii, pp. 220-1. 



From the above extract it appears that Laplace was aware of the artificial 

 nature of the Hindoo systems of astronomy, as well as of the falsehood of the 

 claims to antiquity which are set up for them by the Brahmans, But the beau- 

 tifully ingenious application of the knowledge of that nature to the purpose of 

 compelling each system to tell its own age, is, I believe, altogether and exclu- 

 sively Mr. Bentley's invention, I subjoin another extract from the same 

 translation of Laplace's work, which affords some additional proofs of the several 

 sets of Indian tables having been constructed in comparatively modern times. 

 " Many elements, such as the equations of the centre of Jupiter and Mars, are 

 very different in the Indian tables from what they must have been at their first 

 epoch. A consideration of all these tables, and particularly the impossibility of 

 the conjunction at the epoch they suppose, prove, on the contrary, that they have 

 been constructed, or at least rectified, in modern times. This also may be 

 inferred from the mean motions which they assign to the Moon, with respect to 

 its perigee, its nodes, and the Sun, which being more rapid than according to 

 Ptolemy, indicate that they are posterior to this astronomer, for we know, by the 

 theory of universal gravitation, that these three motions have accelerated for a great 

 number of ages. Thus this result of a theory so important for lunar astronomy, 

 throws great light on chronology." — Harte's Translation, &c. vol. ii, p. 222. 



Although I avail myself of the support afforded by the proofs alluded to in 

 the above extract, both on account of the great — the deservedly great — scientific 

 celebrity of their author, and also because they lead to a right result ; yet I am 

 bound to add, that the last of them, and that upon which he appears chiefly to 

 rely as a useful test of chronology, is, in reference to that of India, altogether 

 inconclusive. For the age of a set of Hindoo tables can in no way be deduced 



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