Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c9.113

c9.113

But it appears, that neither the tables of Tirvalore or Chrisnabouram, nor any with which we are yet acquainted, are the most ancient to be found in India. The Brahmins constantly refer to an astronomy at Benares, which they emphatically style the ancient,⁸¹ and which they say is not now understood by them, though they believe it to be much more accurate than that by which they calculate. That it is more accurate, is improbable; that it may be more ancient, no one who has duly attended to the foregoing facts and reasonings, will think impossible; and every one, I believe, will acknowledge, that no greater service could be rendered to the learned world, than to rescue this precious fragment from obscurity. If that is ever to be expected, it is when the zeal for knowledge has formed a literary society among our countrymen in Bengal, and while that society is directed by the learning and abilities of Sir William Jones. Indeed, the farther discoveries which may be made with respect to this science, do not interest merely the astronomer and the mathematician, but every one who delights to mark the progress of mankind, or is curious to look back on the ancient inhabitants of the globe. It is through the medium of astronomy alone that a few rays from those distant objects can be conveyed in safety to the eye of a modern observer, so as to afford him a light, which, though it be scanty, is pure and unbroken, and free from the false colourings of vanity and superstition.