Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c12.7

c12.7

Till we can therefore find some of their more superior works, it must be rather from the form and construction of their astronomical tables and rules, and the properties implied in their accidental solutions of questions, & c., that we can judge what they formally knew, than otherwise; that they were acquainted with a differential method similar to Newton’s, I shall give many reasons for believing, in a treatise on the principles of the Hindoo Astronomy, which I began more than three years ago, but was prevented from finishing, by a troublesome and laborious employment that for two years gave me no leisure whatever; and which (though the short time I had to spare since has been employed in writing a comment on the works of Newton, and explaining them to a very ingenious native who is translating them into Arabic) I hope ere long to have an opportunity of completing: at present I shall only give an extract of a paper explaining the construction of some tables, which first led me to the idea of their having a differential method; it is part of one out of a number of papers that were written in the latter part of the year 1783, and the beginning of 1784, and of which several copies were taken by different people, and some of them sent to England: this particular extract, was to investigate the rules at pages 253, 254 and 255, of Mons. Gentil’s Voyage, of which the author says, ‘Je n’ai pu savoir sur quels principes cette table est fondee, & c.’ and is as follows: