ASTRONOMY of the BRAHMINS. 169 



In feeking for the caufe of the fecular equations, which mo- 

 dern aftrononiers have found it necefTary to apply to the mean 

 motion of Jupiter and Saturn, M. de la Place has difcovered, 

 that there are inequalities belonging to both thefe planets, 

 arifing from their mutual adion on one another, which have 

 long periods, one of them no lefs than 877 years ; fo that the 

 mean motion mufl: appear different, if it be determined from 

 obfervations made in different parts of thofe periods. " Now, 

 " I find," fays he, " by my theory, that at the Indian epoch 

 " of 3102 years before Christ, the apparent and annual 

 " mean motion of Saturn was 12°, 13', 14", and the Indian 

 " tables make it 12°, 13', 13". 



" In like manner, I find, that the annual and apparent mean 

 " motion of Jupiter at that epoch was 30'', 20', 42", precifely 

 " as in the Indian aftronomy *." 



43. Thus have we enumerated no lefs than nine aflronomi- 

 cal elements f , ^to which the tables of India affign fuch values 

 as do, by no means, belong to them in thefe later ages, but 

 fuch as the theory of gravity proves to have belonged to them 

 three thoufand years before the Chriftian era. At that time, 

 therefore, or in the ages preceding it, the obfervations mull 

 have been made from which thefe elements were deduced. 

 For it is abundantly evident, that the Brahmins of later times, 

 however willing they might be to adapt their tables to fo re- 

 markable an epoch as the Calyougham, could never think of 

 doing fo, by fubftituting, inftead of quantities which they had 

 obferved, others which they had no reafon to believe had ever 

 exifted. The elements in queflion are precifely what thefe 



Vol. II. y aftronomers 



• Efprit des Journeaux, Nov. 1787. p. 80. 



t The inequality of the preceflion of the equinoxes, ({ 22.) j the acceleration of the 

 moon ; the length of the folar year ; tlie equation of the fun's centre ; the obliquity of 

 the ecliptic; the place of Jupiter's aphelion ; the equation of Saturn's centre ; and the 

 inequalities in the mean motion of both thefe planets. 



