No. 23. — 1881.] HINDU ASTRONOMY. 7 



body projected into the air comes back again to, and overtakes, 

 the earth, how can you idly maintain that the earth is falling 

 down in space? If true, the earth being the heavier body, 

 would perpetually gain on the higher projectile, and never 

 be overtaken." 



Bdskara-dsdriydr, the author of this work, was born in the 

 year 1036 of Sdlivdkana era, and composed it in the year 1072, 

 corresponding with the year 1150 of the Christian era, or about 

 500 years before Sir Isaac Newton made the discovery of 

 gravitation. 



XL— Now, lastly, about the Solar and Lunar Eclipses. The 

 doctrine is the same in the European and Hindu sciences, though 

 in Hindu mythology it is said that two serpents, called Baku and 

 Ketu, are hiding the sun and moon, and are causing the eclipses. 



Of all the phenomena of the heavens, it is the eclipses of the 

 sun and moon that attract the attention of man more than any 

 other. In early ages of antiquity eclipses were regarded as 

 alarming prognostications of public calamities and tokens 

 of divine displeasure. 



In Mexico, during the times of eclipses, the natives fast and 

 afflict themselves, thinking that the great spirit is in deep 

 sufferance. 



Some of the Indian tribes of North America imagine that 

 the moon has been wounded in a war. 



The prevailing notion among the Hindus, which they derived 

 from the mythological legends of poetry, is that certain serpents 

 swallow the sun and moon, sometimes partially, and sometimes 

 entirely. But the true Hindu science accounts for the eclipses 

 just in the same way as European science does. 



Suriya Sidd/idntam, 4th chapter, 9th verse : — "The moon is 

 the eclipser of the sun, coming to stand underneath it like a 

 cloud; the moon moving eastward enters the earth's shadow, 

 and the latter (i. e., the shadow) becomes its eclipser." 



