Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c10.15

c10.15

It is usual to speak slightingly of Indian astronomers, and to affirm that the utmost of their learning consists in foretelling an eclipse: But to calculate an eclipse is no trifling matter even in our astronomy, and if the Bramins have such short and easy modes of computation as to make that business a trifle, to gain their methods is certainly an object worthy of enquiry, and the more so as our modes of calculation are excessively tedious and intricate: It is also reported that the Bramins have rules for computing the returns of places of comets. Now this is a matter astonishingly difficult and so complicated with every principle of mechanics and philosophy, that if they can possibly do it there requires (in my opinion) no other proof of their having formerly carried astronomy to the highest degree of perfection.