DEFICIENCIES OF THE HINDOO SYSTEM. 305 



monly called Tanfros, Others were pretended to have been 

 received through revelation, as the Soma Siddhanta ; while 

 others again were imputed to sages who lived in the re- 

 motest periods of antiquity, as Varishta Siddhanta, and 

 other Siddhaiitas, to the number of about eighteen alto- 

 gether, including the Surya Siddhanta. These are now 

 called the eighteen original shasteis of astronomy, although 

 there be not above three or four of them original. 



M. Delambre says that the system explained in Mr. 

 Bentley's memoir is so simple and reasonable, that it might 

 have been found without the aid of the Indian hooks ; but 

 when it appears to be the result of a careful examination 

 of them, it seems to be placed beyond all doubt. On the 

 whole, it appears that the Hindoo astronomy is entirely dif- 

 ferent from ours. If there be any resemblances, they have 

 arisen out of the nature of the science, or from what the 

 Indians have borrowed from the Arabians, who were in- 

 structed by the Greeks, rather than from any thing bor- 

 rowed from the Indians by the Arabians, or by the Greeks. 

 The enigmatic methods of the Indians were never known 

 to the Greeks, and indeed have only been explained of late 

 vears ; so that the Greeks have taken nothing in astronomy 

 'from the Indians, unless perhaps the constellations ; this, 

 however, has not by any means been proved. As to the 

 mathematical doctrines 'in the astronomy of the Greeks, 

 they were their own ; and they have demonstrated them, 

 while the Indians have proved nothing. It cannot even be 

 shown that the Indians have ever observed, nor are there 

 any recorded original observations of which the date is cer- 

 tain. It is remarkable that the Indians, who could compute 

 eclipses, and who now announce them in their almanacs, 

 have not recorded even one as having been actually ob- 

 served ; while the Chinese, less skilful calculators, and ye6 

 less geometers, have long recorded them in their annals. 

 • We have been told of their spheres and their gnomons ; 

 but the gnomons of India appear to have served merely as 

 sundials, and to determine the latitude of a place. It is 

 surprising that we have never heard of the solstitial shadow, 

 and but rarely of the equinoctial shadow : that the Surya 

 Siddhanta only slightly mentions the armillary sphere, 

 which served to divide the zodiac into nacshatras ; that we 

 find only in the commentary some imperfect indication^ 



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