186 REMARKS on the 



60. On the grounds which have now been explained, the 

 following general conclunons appear to be eftablifhed. 



I. The obfervations on which the aftronomy of India is found- 

 ed, were made more than three thoufand years before the Chri- 

 ftian era ; and, in particular, the places of the fun and moon, at the 

 beginning of the Calyougham, were determined by actual ob- 

 fervation. 



This follows from the exact agreement of the radical places 

 in the tables of Tirvalore, with thofe deduced for the fame 

 epoch from the tables of De la Caille and Mayer, and efpe- 

 cially in the cafe of the moon, when regard is had to her acce- 

 leration. It follows, too, from the polition of the fixed ftars in 

 refpect of the equinox, as reprefented in the Indian zodiac ; 

 from the length of the folar year ; and, laftly, from the pofi- 

 tion and form of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as 

 their mean motions ', in all of which, the tables of the Brah- 

 mins, compared with ours, give the quantity of the change 

 that has taken place, juft equal to that which the action of the 

 planets on one another may be mown to have produced, in the 

 fpace of forty- eight centuries, reckoned back from the beginning 

 of the prefent. 



Two other of the elements of this aftronomy, the equation 

 of the fun's centre, and the obliquity of the ecliptic, when 

 compared with thofe of the prefent time, feem to point to a 

 period ftill more remote, and to fix the origin of this aftronomy 

 1000 or T2oo years earlier, that is, 4300 years before the Chri- 

 ftian era ', and the time necefTary to have brought the arts of 

 calculating and obferving to fuch perfection as they muft have 

 attained at the beginning of the Calyougham, comes in fupport 

 of the fame conclufion. 



Of fuch high antiquity, therefore, muft we fuppofe the ori- 

 gin of this aftronomy, unlefs we can believe, that all the coin- 

 cidences 



