Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c10.18

c10.18

I am far from attributing any superior excellence to the present race of Bramins, especially those of the districts about Calcutta, but I am of opinion that a great deal of knowledge may be found in their books and that some curious and useful matters may be learnt from among themselves: Of the skill and abilities of the ancient Bramins I have not the least doubt, though it is a matter of difficulty how long their successors might have retained that knowledge: I am even of opinion that the intent of the first Indian legislature in the institution of the caste of the Bramins was something similar to that of the late society of the Jesuits, and the *Chaldean Astronomers*, the *Persian Magi*, the *Sooth Sayers of Babylon*, the *wise men of the East* and all the astrologers, stargazers, and magicians that the prophets of the Bible seem to be afraid of, and yet affect to ridicule, were nothing more than either the Bramins themselves or some of their disciples that were infected with the rage of governing, and giving advice, and travelled about to every court and kingdom like the Jesuits, making use of their knowledge in the sciences as a recommendation to matters of more importance: It would be too long to enumerate reasons for this opinion from history; I shall therefore only just hint that the sun-dial of Ahaz mentioned in scripture seems to have been made by the Bramins of Hindoostan; for the shadow of a sun-dial made for the latitude of Jerusalem could not possibly have gone back, as that of the dial of Ahaz did, and consequently the dial was made for some place between the tropics, and its style must have also been a gnomon; but we know that a dial made for any particular latitude will also serve for another if it is properly drawn and situated, and as the Jews were too ignorant to place it themselves, some Bramin might have done it (for we know that Ahaz followed almost every particular of the Gentoo worship and also encouraged their customs and arts) and Isaiah of course had taken the opportunity to retail its usual property, as a miracle: That the shadow of a sun-dial made for the latitude of Jerusalem can not possibly go back is evident from this principle, that whenever the latitude of the place and the declination of the sun are of the same name, and the latitude less than the declination; the foot of the gnomon will fall without the convex part of the hyperbola described by the shadow; and consequently a tangent may be drawn from that point to the curve, which shows when the shadow goes back; but that the gnomon fall wholly within conic section in all other cases; and from this principle I discovered in my way to India a method of working azimuths at sea between the tropics that may be done with 1/20th part of the trouble of the usual methods, and gives the variation of the compass much more exact.