of Sixty Years. 223 * 



fun's departure from the autumnal equinox, and it is invariably obferved 

 in their aftronomy to account the different meafures of time as having begum 

 originally from the fame inftanto 



But of all the places in India; to which Europeans might have accefsl 

 Ujjein is probably the beft furnifhed with mathematical and aftronomica! 

 productions; for it was formerly a principal feminary of thofe fciences^ 

 and is frill referred to as the firft meridian: almoft any trouble and expenfe. 

 would be eompenfated by the poffeflion alone of the three copious treatifes* 

 on Algebra, from which Bha'scara declares he extracted his BijaGanita, 

 and which in this part of '■India are fuppofed to be entirely loft. But the? 

 principal object of the propofed inquiry would be, to trace as much as pof- 

 fible of that gradual progrefs, whereby the Hindu aftronomy has arrived at. 

 its prefent ftate of comparative perfection, whence might be formed mom 

 probable conje&ures of its origin and antiquity, than have yet appeared i 

 for, I imagine, there are few of M. Bailly's opinion that the caliyug, or anj*- 

 yug, had its origin, any more than our Julian period, in an a&ual objer^ 

 nation, who have confidered the nature and ufe of thofe cycles, of the rela- 

 tive bhaganas, or revolutions, of the planets, and the alterations*, which 

 the latter have at different times undergone ; concerning which feveral par- 

 ticulars M. Bailly, it muft be acknowledged, had but little informa- 

 tion f . What was the real pofition of the planets and the ftate of aftronomy 



* Inftances in Jupiter's mean motion. A'ryabhatta gave the. revolutions as 364224 in 4320000 

 folar years. Bha'scar in his Siromaui 364226455 in 4320000000 folar years. The Sutpa Siddhanta 

 364220 in 4320000 folar years; which latter, by the bija introduced fince, -are reduced to 364212 in the 

 fame period, 



+ But it is not thence to be inferred, that the Hindus did not exift as a nation,, or that they made no ob-'' 

 fervations of the heavens as long ago as 4890 years: all that is here meant, is, that the obfervation r.fcri- 

 bed to them by M. Bailly does not neceffarily follow from any thing that is knownof their aftronomy; 

 but on the contrary, from the nature of the fubjeel it appears, that the Galijug was, like the Julian Period, 



