154 REMARKS on the 



This agreement is the more remarkable, that the Brahmins, 

 by their own rules for computing the motion of the fixed ftars, 

 could not have afligned this place to Aldebaran for the begin- 

 ning of the Calyougham, had they calculated it from a modern 

 obfervation. For as they make the motion of the fixed flars too 

 great by more than 3" annually, if they had calculated backward 

 from 1 49 1, they would have placed the fixed ftars lefs advanced 

 by 4° or 5°, at their ancient epoch, than they have adually 

 done. This argument carries with it a great deal of force ; 

 and even were it the only one we had to produce, it would 

 render it, in a high degree, probable, that the Indian zodiac 

 was as old as the Calyougham. 



23. Let us next compare the places of the fun and moon, 

 for the beginning of the Calyougham, as deduced from the In- 

 dian and the modern aftronomy. And, firft, of the fun, 

 though, for a reafon that will immediately appear, it is not to 

 be confidered as leading to any thing conclufive. M. Bailly, 

 from a comparifon of the tables of Tirvalore with thofe of 

 Chrifnabouram, has determined the epoch of the former to an- 

 fwer to midnight, between the 17th and i8th* of February 

 of the year 3102 before Christ, at which time the fun was 

 juft entering the moveable zodiac, and was therefore in longi- 

 tude To% 6°. M. Bailly alfo thinks it reafonable to fuppofe, 

 that this was not the mean place of the fun, as the nature of 

 aftronomical tables require, but the true place, differing from the 

 mean, by the equation to the fun's centre at that timef. This, 

 it muft be confeffed, is the mark of greateft unfkilfulnefs, that 

 we meet with in the conftrudlion of thefe tables. Suppofing it, 

 however, to be the cafe, the mean place of the fun, at the time 



of 



* Aft. Ind. p. no. The Brahmins, however, aflually fuppofe the epoch to be 6 hours 

 later, or at funrife, on the fame day. Their miftake is difcovered, as has been faid, 

 by comparing the radical places in the different tables with one another. 



f Aft. Ind. p. 83. 



