NATURE 
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1896. 
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY IN INDIA. 
fTindu Astronomy. By W. Brennand. Pp. xiv + 329. 
(London: Chas, Straker and Sons, Ltd., 1896.) 
HE ancient mathematical and astronomical works of 
the Hindus are worthy of more attention than they 
have yet received from Europeans. A lengthened resi- 
dence in India led Mr. Brennand to become interested in 
the study of some of these, which was frequently inter- 
rupted by the pressure of official duties; but after his 
retirement he took up the subject again, and presented 
a paper on it to the Royal Society about five years 
ago. The interest manifested in this has encouraged him 
in the composition of the work before us, which it is 
hoped will have the effect of making the Hindu system 
of astronomy more generally known, and perhaps induce 
others to make further investigations on the subject. 
He begins by a discussion of the ancient zodiac, and its 
general correspondence amongst the Indians, Chinese, 
Chaldeans, Arabians, and Egyptians ; treats also of the 
other division of the ecliptic into so-called lunar man- 
sions ; and shows the bearing of this upon the probability 
that the Hindus had originally migrated from Central 
Asia into India. This, however, is a view which probably 
few at the present time would dispute, as that is under- 
stood to be the original home of the Aryan race. It is 
when we come to the astrononiical calculations with re- 
gard to the movements of the planets, the precession of 
the equinoxes, and the prediction of eclipses, that the pro- 
blem of the source and origin of the astronomy contained 
in the Hindu books stands before us. Now as to the 
precession of the equinoxes, H. T. Colebrooke (who 
afterwards became the second President of the Astro- 
nomical Society, succeeding Sir William Herschel) 
pointed out in 1816 (“ Asiatick Researches,” vol. xii. p. 
221), that the Hindus “had approximated to the true 
rate of that motion much nearer than Ptolemy, before 
the Arabian astronomers, and as near the truth as these 
have ever done since.” The Hindus, indeed, appear to 
have reckoned it at one and a half degrees in a century, 
which is equivalent to a revolution in 24,000 years ; 
whereas Albatenius, the earliest of the Arabian astrono- | 
mers who improved upon Ptolemy, made it a degree in | 
66 years, which amounts to a revolution in 23,760 years. 
The true value of this is about 25,800 years ; but though 
the Hindu is nearer it than the Arabian, the difference is 
hardly enough to warrant us in concluding that the two 
are independent. 
Mr. Brennand’s second chapter is on “ Early Hindu 
Periods.” Aday of Brahma was called a Kalpa,and was 
supposed to comprise a period of no less than 4, 320,000,000 
years. A thousandth part of this was a Maha-Yuga, 
and a tenth of a Maha-Yuga was a Kali-Yuga, or 432,000 
years. At the beginning of each Kali-Yuga the sun and 
all the planets were supposed to be in conjunction, and 
the beginning of the present Kali-Yuga corresponded to 
B.C. 3102 of our era. But, as Laplace pointed out in the 
“Exposition du Systtme du Monde,” the conjunction 
was not near enough to permit us to suppose that the 
€poch in question was founded on observation ; it must 
NO. 1418, VOL. 55] 
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have been “invented for the purpose of giving a common 
origin to all the motions of the heavenly bodies in the 
zodiac.” With regard to the enormous periods of time 
which the vanity of other nations besides the Hindus led 
them to claim, it does not seem to us that Mr. Brennand 
is particularly successful in endeavouring to explain it by 
taking a year as in fact a month, or season, and so re- 
ducing the period. Not to refer again to the Hindu 
Kalpa, many other periods, even reduced in this way, are 
absurdly long. Mention is here made of the list of eclipses 
said to have been sent to Aristotle by Callisthenes from 
Babylon, extending over a period of nineteen centuries 
before his time. The sole authority for this is Simplicius, 
who himself believed that the record sent never reached 
its destination, as no work then extant of Aristotle re- 
ferred to it, and, as Delambre remarks, the whole thing 
is probably a fable. : 
Our author proceeds to give a very elaborate and 
interesting account of the Hindu mathematics and 
methods of astronomical calculation. Colebrooke, in the 
article which we have already quoted, rightly remarks 
that these are interesting, not in a scientific (no observ- 
ations being given that can be verified), but in an 
historical point of view. History, however, requires 
chronology as her handmaid; and the date of the 
beginning of Hindu astronomy seems very difficult to 
determine with even approximate accuracy. Mr. Bren- 
nand’s view is that it is really very ancient, but that it 
suffered an eclipse during the rise of Buddhism, and was 
afterwards revived. Now this took place about’ five 
centuries before the Christian era, but Buddhism first 
became recognised as a State religion under Asoka about 
the middle of the third century before Christ. During 
its rise amongst the people, it is thought that there was 
a great destruction of manuscripts, and, as Mr. Brennand 
| points out, we are sometimes rather apt to forget how 
difficult it would be, without the aid of printing, to keep 
intact scientific knowledge which had been acquired. 
One of the great revivers of. astronomy amongst the 
Brahmins was a mathematician named Aryabhatta, 
who is supposed to have lived not long before the time 
of the Christianera. He taught the diurnal rotation of 
the earth, and explained the true cause of solar and lunar 
eclipses ; he is said also to have noticed the motion of 
the equinoctial points, but to have restricted it to a 
periodical oscillation. It is suggested that the allegory 
of the death of Durga (which, in the nature of its sym- 
bolism, reminds us of the weeping for Tammuz, which 
the Israelites adopted from the Babylonians, as Ezekiel 
was horrified to see it practised by them) was invented 
by the Brahmins to represent and keep in memory the 
decline of their favourite science, afterwards revived. 
We must now pass on to the age of Brahmagupta, which 
was probably about six centuries after Christ, or nearly 
the time of Mohammed. As compared with Aryabhatta, 
his teaching appears to have been in some respects 
retrograde, but his principal work was a revised and 
corrected edition of the ancient sacred work, “The 
Brahma Siddhanta,” from some earlier copy which had 
been preserved. 
The word “ Siddhanta”, it may be remarked, signifies 
“established conclusion,” and a number of astronomical 
treatises exist under this title, though their exact date 
Kk 
