Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c9.23

c9.23

15. Another set of astronomical tables, now in the possession of the Academy of Sciences, was sent to the late M. De L'Isle from Chrisnabouram, a town in the Caranatic, by Fr Du Champ, about the year 1750. Though these tables have an obvious affinity to what has already been described, they form a much more regular and extensive system of astronomical knowledge. They are fifteen in number; and include, beside the mean motions of the sun, moon and planets, the equations to the centre of the sun and moon, and two corrections for each of the planets, the one of which corresponds to its apparent, and the other to its real inequality. They are accompanied also with precepts, and examples, which Fr Du Champ received from the Brahmins of Chrisnabouram, and which he has translated into French.²⁰