Indian Chronology (Solar, Lunar and Planetary): A Practical Guide to the Interpretation and Verification of Tithis, Nakshatras, Horoscopes and other Indian Time-records, B.C. 1 to A.D. 2000 c8.3

c8.3

10. We account for it thus. Although mean new moon occurs every 29·53059 days, the actual new moon does not recur at exactly this interval. About the time when the moon is due to become new, she may be fast, or she may be slow, and we have to take this circumstance into consideration. Hindu astronomers have devised a table of the moon's anomaly which enables us to calculate exactly by how many degrees the moon is in advance of, or behind, her mean position at new moon or at any other time. The original tables of the moon's anomaly and equation of the centre, as these constants are called, will be found in Professor Jacobi's standard article on the subject in Vol. I of the *Epigraphia Indica*. For the sake of practical convenience, we may convert the degrees into time and further calculate the anomaly for each ·001 of the equation, and the result will be our Table IX. This table shows us exactly what time should be added to or deducted from mean time in order to arrive at the actual moment of occurrence of new moon.