Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c9.115

c9.115

Though these tables are scattered over an extensive country, they seem to have been all originally adapted, either to the same meridian, or to meridians at no great distance, which traverse what we may call the classical ground of India, marked by the ruins of Canoge, Palibothra and Benares. They contain rules that have originated between the tropics; whatever be their epoch, they are all, by their mean motions, connected with that of the Calyougham; and they have besides one uniform character which it is perhaps not easy to describe. Great ingenuity has been exerted to simplify their rules; yet, in no instance almost, are they reduced to the utmost simplicity; and when it happens that the operations to which they lead are extremely obvious, these are often involved in an artificial obscurity. A Brahmin frequently multiplies by a greater number than is necessary, where he seems to gain nothing but the trouble of dividing by one that is greater in the same proportion; and he calculates the era of Salivaganam with the formality of as many distinct operations as if he were going to determine the moon’s motion since the beginning of the Calyougham. The same spirit of exclusion, the same fear of communicating his knowledge, seems to direct the calculus which pervades the religion of the Brahmin; and in neither of them, is he willing to receive or to impart instruction. With all these circumstances of resemblance, the methods of this astronomy are as much diversified as we can suppose the same system to be, by passing through the hands of a succession of ingenious men, fertile in resources, and acquainted with the variety and extent of the science which they cultivated. A system of knowledge, which is thus assimilated to the genius of the people, that is diffused so widely among them, and diversified so much, has a right to be regarded, either as a native, or a very ancient inhabitant of the country where it is found.