Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c9.44

c9.44

27. Now, it is worthy of remark, that if the same be computed on Mayer's principles, that is, if we calculate how much the angular motion of the moon for 4383 years, 94 days, dated from the beginning of the Calyougham, must have been less than if her velocity had been all that time uniform, and the same as in the present century, we shall find it to be 5°, 43', 7", an arch which is only 1', 7", less than the former. The tables of Chrisnabouram, therefore, agree with those of Mayer, when corrected by the acceleration within 1', 7", and that for a period of more than four thousand years. From this remarkable coincidence, we may conclude, with the highest probability, that at least one set of the observations, on which those tables are founded, is not less ancient than the Calyougham; and though the possibility of their being some ages later than that epoch, is not absolutely excluded, yet it may, by strict mathematical reasoning, be inferred, that they cannot have been later than 2000 years before the Christian era.43