M£ HINDU ASTRONOMERS 



All thtk s with numerous other inflances in the' annotations, and 

 commentaries of the S'iromaiii, whieh I refrain from adducing, left the 

 reader's patience (hould be tired, have eftabliihed to my sntire convic- 

 tion the geniiinenefs of the text of the Sphuta-Jidd'h.anta founded on* 

 a prior treatife entitled Brdhme-fidd'kdnta a 





I am not mnapprifed, that, under a feeling of great diftrufl: or un- 

 willingnefs to admit the concluflons which follow from this' pofition, a 

 varictyof h-ypothefes ■ might : be formed to a different eff eft. " Brahme-..- 

 g-upt-a$ fuppofinghim to be entirely an original writer, may have re- 

 ferred 'to an imaginary work- to give that kind of authority to his ' 

 performance which the Hindus mod fancy; or he may have fathered 

 on a purdnu a fynopfis of his own doclrine for the fame purpofe % 

 or fome other writer, from whatever motive, may have fabricated a 

 pretended extract of a purdiia containing the heads of Br'ahmeguptas " 

 fyftem, and have given currency to it on the flrcngth of the reference 

 in that aftronomer's treatife to an anterior work, Thefe and other 

 fuppofitions grounded on iurmife of fraud and forgery may be form- 

 ed. I fhall; not difcufs them : for I have no eoncern but with the facls«. 

 themfelves. Bhascara, writing 650 years ago, declares, 1 and fo do 

 all his commentators, that he has followed Brahmegupta as his guide* 

 They quote numerous paffages from liis work'; and ■■■Bha'scar a affirms 

 that Br ahmegupta took the numbers- of revolutions affigned to the 

 planets in the great period termed Culpa from an earlier authority*: 

 The commentators, who wrote from two to four centuries ago, adert/ 

 that thofe numbers were taken from a treatife in form of dialogue ; 

 between Bhagavat ■ (or Brahma) and Bhiuguv' inferted in ■> the- 

 ViflirLU-dlitrmottara-purdiicL and diftinguifhed by the title of Brahma or 

 Eaifamaha Sidd'hanta* They cite .(parallel paffages, which do in fad 



