JSTRONOMT of the BRAHMINS. x6$ 



nomy of the planets, contained in the tables of Chrifna- 

 bouram * ; but the length to which this paper is already ex- 

 tended, will allow only a few of the moft remarkable particu- 

 lars to be felecled. 



In thefe tables, which are for the epoch 1491, the mean mo- 

 tions are given with considerable accuracy, but without an ap- 

 pearance of being taken from Ptolemy, or any of the aftro- 

 nomers already mentioned. Two inequalities, called the fchl- 

 gram and the manda, are alfo diftinguifhed in each of the pla- 

 nets, both fuperior and inferior f. The firft of thefe is the 

 fame with that which we call the parallax of the earth's orbit, 

 or the apparent inequality of a planet, which arifes not from 

 its own motion, but from that of the obferver ; but whether 

 it is afcribed, in the Indian aftronomy, to its true caufe, or to 

 the motion of the planet in an epicycle, is a queftion about 

 which the tables give no direct information. The magnitude, 

 however, of this equation is affigned, for each of the planets, 

 with no fmall exactnefs, and is varied, in the different points 

 of its orbit, by a law which approaches very near to the truth. 

 The other inequality coincides with that of the planet's cen- 

 tre, or that which arifes from the eccentricity of its orbit, and 

 it is given near the truth for all the planets, except Mercury, by 

 which, as is no wonder, the firft aflronomers were, every where, 

 greatly deceived. Of this inequality, it is fuppofed, juft as 

 in the cafes of the fun and moon, that it is always as the 

 fine of the planet's diftance from the point of its floweft mo- 

 tion, or from what we call its aphelion, and is confequently 

 greateft at 90 ° from that point. 



It were to be wifhed that we knew the etymology of the 

 names which are given to thefe inequalities, as it might ex- 

 plain the theory which guided the authors of the tables. The 

 titles of our aftronomical tables, the terms aphelion, heliocentric 



or 



* Aft. Ind. p. 173, &c. 

 f Ibid. p. 177. 



