of the Letters of the Hieroglyphic Alphabet. 205 
and in xvili. 4, aarcever by aatsiewt. 4x occurs thirteen times, and is transcribed 
eleven times by ¢s?, and twice by ¢hi; while, when it does not precede «, @ is 
always transcribed by th, i.e. t 2, h2. In one of the two latter instances it is pro- 
bable that the @ and ¢ were pronounced in different syllables. Again, in an as- 
tronomical work of Variha Mihira, which was probably written in the beginning 
of the sixth century, certainly long previously to the recent intercourse of the 
Indians with Europeans,* the Greek names of the planets and zodiacal signs are 
* About fifty years ago, Mr. Bentley published a series of astronomical calculations, by which 
he pretended to prove that the tables attributed to Varaha were composed about 800 years before 
that time. Subsequently, he affirmed that Vardha was not the author of these tables, but lived in 
the sixteenth century. With a boldness of scepticism which is as amusing as the credulity of the 
writer whose reveries are placed in juxta-position with his in the “ Asiatic Researches,” he main- 
tained that all the Hindoo works, in which Varaha or his system was mentioned, were forgeries 
of alate age. It so happens, however, that an Arabic work on India has been discovered since 
Mr. Bentley wrote, the author of which, Albiruni, was a contemporary of Mahommed of Ghazni, 
who invaded India in the beginning of the eleventh century. In this work, the genuineness of 
which is incontrovertible, there is a chapter on Indian eras, nearly the whole of which is copied 
and translated in the Journal Asiatique for September and October, 1844, The writer takes as 
his epoch the 400th year of Yezdegird, answering to A.D. 1031; and states that the oldest astrono- 
mical tables in use among the Hindoos were those called the Pancha Siddhantika, which Varaha 
Mihira composed 526 years before that date, or A.D.505. Next to these were the Kanda Kha- 
taka, composed by Brahma Gupta 366 years before the epoch, or A. D. 665. Mr. Bentley’s calcula- 
tions have obtained more credit than they deserved, in consequence of a weak criticism upon them 
in the Edinburgh Review, the author of which overlooked the actual flaw in them. This is not the 
place for pointing out that flaw, nor would there be room for doing so in a note. I will remark, 
however, that, according to Varaha, the sun’s apogee moves only 11.6” in a century, whereas it ac- 
tually moves 1181”. Its place, therefore, as computed from his tables, could only agree with its 
actual place for a short time, and this ought to determine their age. Now, in A. D. 496, the tables 
of Varaha gave the true place of the apogee, according to Laplace’s formula for computing its 
motion ; allowing the equinoctial colure to have passed through the first point of the Indian 
Aries, in A. D. 499, as all the Indian astronomers are agreed, and as Mr. Bentley admits, that it did. 
This must, therefore, have been the approximate date of the tables. Again, at the end of the 
3600th year of the Kaliyuga,—which expired on the 21st March, A. D. 499, 33/36” after noon at 
Lanka,—the moon’s mean longitude was, by Varaha’s tables, within a few minutes of what it is 
found to be by modern tables, taking into account the secular variation. Mr. Bentley affirms that 
Lanka was 77° 50’ E. of Greenwich, which would make the error about 8’ 45”; but, according to 
other authorities, Lanka was in Ceylon, and its longitude must therefore have been at least two 
degrees more. This would reduce the above errror by one-half at least. A greater degree of 
