Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c10.13

c10.13

In the Newtonian chronology it is supposed that Chiron made a sphere, and formed the constellation into such figures, respecting the argonautic expedition, as we now have upon our globes; as Aries for the golden fleece; Taurus for the brazen footed bull; Gemini for the two Argonauts, Castor and Pollux & c; this chronology is partly founded on a supposition that Chiron’s sphere was made for the use of the Argonauts and that the equinoctian coloure* at that time passed through the middle of the constellation Aries. This hypothesis, however, has met with great contradictions, for it is positively asserted that the Hindoos have similar constellations, and figured almost exactly in the same manner as those that are attributed to Chiron. Now either Chiron received his sphere from the Indians and the improbability of the coloures* position whence he received it will render the time of the Argonautic expedition doubtful; or else the Indians had their astronomy from the Greeks and therefore may have some of their other productions; at least it implies a communication, and it is probably that not only the true system of the world but many parts of the Grecian literature might be derived from the Bramins. Indeed there are many reasons to believe that the true system extended over many other nations before it was heard of in Greece, for it would have been useless to have multiplied astronomical observations on a false hypothesis and we know that the Babylonian astronomers had a series of near 2000 years observations at the time of Alexander the Great. As to the orbs and epicycles of Ptolemy they are but of modern date, in comparison with the ancient Pythagorean system; and the ignorance of the later Greeks and Romans is evident from the ridiculous explications of ancient monuments (plainly relating to the true system) given by some of the old mythologists, examples of which mode are seen in Boulanger, Costard and others, and I have lately met with a similar instance in the Imag Deorum* of V. Catori, respecting the copy of an ancient Persian monument, in which Apollo dragging a bullock by the horns, apparently has a relation to the doctrine of mutual attraction; and where the figure of the sun in a circular plain intersecting a cone, evidently points out both the centre of force and the form of the earth's orbit; in the same manner that Bullialdus has done in his treatise on the philosaic astronomy.