Hindu Astronomical Tables. tS 



spondence. In that, Sir Alexander is represented as saying:— 

 ** Laloubere, a man of great research, who was sent by Louis 

 XIV. on a mission to Siam, was the first person who in modern 

 days brought to Europe any document shewing the nature of 

 the Hindu Astronomical Tables. He brought to France a copy 

 of the Siamese Table, which was a subject of a good deal of con- 

 sideration to the astronomer Cassini. The French subsequently 

 brought to Europe the Hindu Astronomical Tables found at 

 Krishnapuram, those found at Naraspur, and finally, those found 

 at Trivalore, a place twelve miles to the west of Negapatnam ; 

 these three places are all situated in the southern peninsula of 

 India. The astronomical tables found at Trivalore, are supposed 

 to have been formed upon observations made 3000 years before 

 the Christian era, a fact which Bailly and Playfair both con- 

 ceived to be proved, as they found, upon calculating back to the 

 time when these tables were supposed to have been formed, that 

 the situation of the heavenly bodies must have been precisely 

 such as described in these tables. Bailly and Playfair also re- 

 mark, that the Hindus could not have formed these tables with- 

 out an extensive knowledge of geometry, and of plane and sphe- 

 rical trigonometry, or of some substitute for them.*" 



Few persons at all conversant with the recent progress of 

 science and literature, are ignorant of the opinions of Bailly and 

 Playfair on this subject, and of the advantage that some persons 

 took of them to propagate, with great zeal, a total scepticism 

 respecting the authenticity of the true records of mankind, 

 which we possess in Europe, the acknowledged chronology of 

 these not agreeing with such an early advance of science in In- 

 dia. It was in vain that Mr Jones had early demonstrated the 

 true nature of the Hindu Tables, in opposition to the opinion 

 of Bailly and Playfair. By a certain class of writers, they were 

 held forth as a faithful record of actual observations, for many 

 years alter the death of Bailly. In the Edinburgh Review, 

 especially, as if some writer in that work had taken the opinion 

 of Bailly and Playfair under his special protection, we had a se- 

 ries of papers taking the accuracy of that opinion for granted, 

 down to the very time when the question was finally set at rest 

 in Laplace's Systeme du Monde. 



The writer of this note has no means of corresponding with 

 Sir Alexander Johnston or the Royal Asiatic Society, and begs 



