2# Hindu Astronomical Tables. 



to take advantage of the Edinburgh New Philosophical Jour- 

 nal, the pages of which, he has no doubt, will, with its customary 

 liberality, be lent to correct an error in science, to- direct public 

 attention anew to Laplace's demonstration of the real nature of 

 the Hindu Astronomical Tables, by quoting it here from the 

 Systeme du Monde. Sir Alexander Johnston, as we learn from 

 a note appended to the report of the Anniversary Meeting, has 

 been requested to reduce his observations to writing ; and it is 

 to be hoped may correct the oversight, in the published report, 

 of the lucid statement of Laplace. It is the object of the Royal 

 Asiatic Society, as we learn from Sir Alexander Johnston's 

 speech, to diffuse European learning and science in India ; but 

 the young gentlemen whom we send out thither with that view, 

 would be less stimulated to their noble task, and especially could 

 feel no interest in the introduction among the Hindus of that 

 which isinfinitelvmore'valuable than human learning and science, 

 and that is our revealed Theology and Ethics, were they to 

 leave our shores infested with any degree of the scepticism ap- 

 pended to the opinion of Bailly and Playfair, and go into re- 

 gions where they could have little opportunity for correcting diat 

 erroneous opinion. 



What follows is copied from Harte's translation of the Sys- 

 teme du Monde, vol. ii. pp. 220, 221, 222 (Dublin 1830). The 

 demonstrations are too varied, complete, and consistent, to leave 

 any doubt that the Hindu Tables are the result, not of observa- 

 tion, but of erroneous calculation backwards to anterior time. 



" In Persia and India," says Laplace, " the commencement of 

 astronomy is lost in the darkness which envelopes the origin of 

 these people. 



" The Indian tables indicate a knowledge of astronomy con- 

 siderably advanced, but every thing shews that it is not of an 

 extremely remote antiquity. And here, with regret, I differ in 

 opinion from a learned and illustrious astronomer, whose fate is 

 a terrible proof of the inconstancy of popular favour, who, after 

 having honoured his career by labours useful both to science and 

 humanity, perished a victim to the most sanguinary tyranny, 

 opposing the calmness and dignity of virtue, to the revilings of 

 an infatuated people, of whom he had been once the idol. 



" The Indian tables have two principal epochs which go back, 

 one to the year 3102, the other to the year 1491, before our era. 



