﻿ifO ON THE ASTRONOMICAL COMPUTATIONS 



*' observed to vary twenty- seven degrees north and 

 *' south. The same variation is observed in the other 

 ** nacshatras : it is therefore rightly said, that the 

 *« chacra moves eastward. The chdera means all the 

 *' nacslmtras. The planets are always found in the 

 ** nacshairas, and the cranti-pata-gati is owing to 

 *' them, not to the planets ; and hence it is observed 

 *< in the text, that the pa fa draws chandra to a dis- 

 " tance equal to the cranli degrees," 



Here, to my apprehension, instead of a revolution 

 cf the equinoxes through all the signs in the course of 

 the Platonic year , which would carry the first of Vai- 

 scch through all the seasons, is clearly implied a libra- 

 tion of those points from the third degree of Pisces 

 to the twenty-seventh of Aries, and from the third of 

 Virgo to the twenty-seventh of Libra, and back again 

 in 7200 years; but, as this must seem to Europeans 

 an extraordinary circumstance to be stated in so an- 

 cient a treatise as the Su/ya Siddhanta, and believed 

 by Hindu astronomers ever since, 1 hope the above 

 quotations may attract the attention of those who are 

 qualified for a critical examination of them, and be 

 compared with whatever is to be found in other Sastras, 

 on the same subject. Whatever may be the result of 

 such an investigation, there is no mistaking the rule for 

 determining the ayanansa, which was at the beginning 

 of the present year 19 21', and consequently the 

 vernal equinox in Pisces io° 39' of the Hindu sphere; 

 or, in other words, the sun entered Mesha or Aries, 

 and the Hindu year began when he was advanced 19 

 21' into the northern signs, according to European ex- 

 pression. 



Call Tug, &c. the colure passed through the yoga star of Rcvati* 

 It is plain, that in tins passage Revati applies either to the par- 

 ticular yo«a star of that name or to the last, or twenty-seventh 

 hfar mansion, in which it is situated. (See a former note.) la 

 «a„h uaahatra, or planetary mansion, there is one itar called the 

 yoga, whose latitude, longitude, and righc ascension the Hindus 

 fcave determined and inserted in their agronomical tables. 



