Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c9.28

c9.28

17. The tables, and methods, of the Brahmins of Tirvalore, are, in many respects, more singular than any that have yet been, described.²³ The solar year is divided, according to them, into twelve unequal months, each of which is the time that the sun takes to move through one sign, or 30°, of the ecliptic. Thus, Any, or June, when the sun is in the third sign, and his motion slowest, consists of 31ᵈ, 36ʰ, 38' and Margagy, or December, when he is in the ninth sign, and his motion quickest, consists only of 29ᵈ, 20ʰ, 53.²⁴ The lengths of these months, expressed in natural days, are contained in a table, which, therefore, involves in it the place of the sun’s apogee, and the equation of his centre. The former seems to be 77° from the beginning of the Zodiac, and the latter about 2°, 10', nearly as in the preceding tables. In their calculations, they also employ an astronomical day, which is different from the natural, being the time that the sun takes to move over one degree of the ecliptic; and of which days there are just 360 in a year.²⁵