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29O ON THE ANTIQUITY OF 



luminaries of heaven, and from whom both Greeks 

 and Hindus* as their similarity in language and re- 

 ligion fully evinces, had a common descent. 



The same writer afterwards intimates, that " the 

 " time when Indian astronomy received its most 

 " considerable improvement, from which it has now, 

 " as he imagines, wholly declined, was either the. 

 " age when the Arabs, who established themselves 

 *' in Persia and Sogdiana, had a great intercourse 

 " with the Hindus, or that, when the successors of 

 " Chengiz united both Arabs and Hindus under one 

 " vast dominion." It is not the object of this essay- 

 to correct the historical errors in the passage last- 

 cited, nor to defend the astronomers of India from 

 the charge of gross ignorance in regard to the figure 

 of the earth and the distances of the heavenly bodies : 

 a charge, which Montucla very boldly makes on the 

 authority, I believe, of father Souciet. I will only re- 

 mark, that, in our conversations with the Pandits, we 

 must never confound the system of the Jyautishicas, 

 or mathematical astronomers, with that of the Paura- 

 nicas, or poetical fabulists ; for to such a confusion 

 alone must we impute the many mistakes of Euro- 

 peans on the subject of Indian science. A venerable 

 mathematician of this province, named Ramachandra, 

 now in his eightieth year, visited' me lately at Crish- 

 nanagar ; and part of his discourse was so applicable 

 to the inquiries, w r hich I was then making, that, as 

 soon as he left me, I committed it to writing. " The 

 " Pauranies," he said, " will tell you, that our earth is 

 * c a plane figure studded with eight mountains, and 

 " surrounded by seven seas of milk, nectar, and 

 " other fluids; that the part which we inhabit 

 * f is one of seven islands, to which eleven smaller 

 " isles are subordinate; that a God, riding on a 

 huge elephant, guards each of the eight regions ; and 



