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five furvey taken, in thefe volumes, of the literature of their earlieft poft-diluvian defcendants.

While I am bold to affirm that these are the chimeras of aftronomers, I will not fhrink from my duty as the hiftorian of the literature of India, by prefenting the reader with an account of fome actual obfervations, made in the moft remote æras, that can scarcely fail of exciting aftonishment, and may ftrike fome prejudiced minds with disgust, as if on this fubject, not less than the date of alphabetic writing in India, I was determined to oppose all established opinions concerning the origin and the progreffive advance of fcience in the Eaft; but, magna eft veritas, et prævalebit. The evidence is of high authority, and deserves every credit; and let it be remembered that we are difcuffing the literature of one of the highest and most il- ́ luftrious branches of the family of the father of the renovated world.

Paffing by the age of Greek fable, Atlas, Chiron, and Mufæus, the mere offspring of imagination, the oldeft authenticated Greek obfervations of the heavens extend no farther

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back than the age of Thales, about 600 years before Chrift; and these may be well fup. pofed, in that infancy of the science, extremely rude. Inftructed in Egypt, that prince of philofophers taught the Greeks the true time of the EQUINOX and the exact length of the tropical year. Anaximander flourished about fifty years afterwards, and is faid to have first made that important discovery, the OBLIQUITY OF THE ECLIPTIC.But all this extent of fcience must have been well known to the Brahmins at least 600 years before; for, the Indian annals, made with the requifite precifion, record an actual obfervation, that absolutely fixes the exact places of the folftitial points and the equinoctial colures, in the twelfth century before Christ ; and it was by this obfervation that Sir William Jones was enabled to fix the age of Menu's Institutes to the fame century.*

From a text of Parafara, an ancient Indian aftronomer, which records the obfervation, it appears, that, between the period when he flourished, and Varaha, a more re

Sir William Jones in Afiatic Refearches, vol. ii. p. 393, London, quarto edition.

cent

cent astronomer, who confirms it, and lived in the year 499 of the Chriftian æra, the equinox had gone back 23° 20'; that is to fay, the fouthern folftice, which, in Parafara's time, was in the middle of ASLESHA, a lunar manfion, denoting the stars in the face and mane of the Lion; and the northern in the first degree of DHANISHTHA, a lunar manfion, meaning the ftars in the arm of Aquarius; was found, in Varaha's age, to be, the former in the firft degree of CARCATA (Cancer), and the latter in the first of MACARA (Capricorn); in other words, about 1680 years had elapfed; and fince, in demonstrative proof of all this, Sir William Jones has taken the trouble to present us both with the original Sanscreet text, and an exact literal translation of that text, not the least doubt can be entertained of the truth of a ftatement which does fo much honour to the learning and industry of the ancient Hindoo race.

The doctrine of the feven revolving spheres through which the tranfmigrating foul muft migrate before it can reach the abode of the fupreme Brahme; the circular dance of the Brahmins, recorded by Lucian, and called,

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in India, the RAAS JATTRA, or facred dance, imitating the revolution of the planets round the fun; the pofitive affertion of Sir William Jones, that the works of the fage ACHARYA include a system of the universe founded on the principle of attraction, and the central pofition of that orb; and, also, that the names of the planets and zodiacal stars are found in the oldeft Indian records;* afford abundant proof, that, if the ancient Indians. were not abfolutely the inventors of aftronomy, they at least had arrived in the earliest poft-diluvian periods at an unexampled point of excellence in that wonderful fcience. But having, in the firft volume of the history, when confidering the Indian fphere and zodiac, entered very much at large into this fubject; having fhewn the ftriking fimilitude between the Chaldæan and Indian aftronomical fyftem, at least in its great outlines; and having in fact demonstrated that

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their spheres were the fame, with a trifling difference only, in the defignation of certain of the afterifms; it is unneceflary for me to dwell longer on this head of Indian litera

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* Afiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 430.

VOL. VII.

R

ture.

ture. I therefore pafs on to a fubject very deeply connected with it, and in any advanced state of the fcience abfolutely neceffary to it,

GEOMETRY.

i

On the commencement of the Geographical Differtation,* I had occafion to observe that the science of Geometry was, in all probability, invented in India. One reason urged by me in fupport of the obfervation, but by no means the strongest that may be adduced, was the frequent and wide overflowing of the great Indian rivers, not only of those regions where vaft Deltas have been formed at their place of ingrefs into the fea, but of those in the more northern latitudes of Upper Hindoftan, whofe rapid and defolating current, rufhing down from the Hindoo Caucafus, bore away the boundaries of the land they were meant to divide, and confounded the property of the natives. The Nile over

See Indian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 1.

fpreads

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