as we declare our immunity from all the obligations of national law, we are fair marks for every species of treachery and barbarity, and thus admitting the incontrollable principle, what becomes of all the rest? Our wars in Asia are reduced to mere contests between brute beasts, and we place ourselves in the unenviable position of a party that cannot, by any possibility, be right. The abandonment of the law emanating from us all the evil engendered by that abandonment on our, or the other side-all that is done and suffered by ourselves -all that is done and suffered by our enemies, must be laid as a mighty heap of crime and suffering at our own doors. The barbarity of our enemies becomes merely defensive barbarity, and doing or suffering, we are responsible for the whole. Viewed through the medium of the incontrollable principle, the Sindh robbery is more than ever without justification--it is nothing but a mighty act of unparalleled wrong emanating from an abandonment, upon principle, of all the obligations of national law and common humanity. To this would Sir Robert Peel's principle reduce the Sindh question, and prove to the world, that when civilization and barbarism come in contact, civilization is the more barbarous of the two.

**It would appear from certain statements which we have seen in the public journals since this article was written, that our anticipations of the evils likely to arise from the transfer of Sindh to the protection of the British Government, are in a fair way to be speedily realised. Making every allowance for a not impossible party-bias in the writings of these Sindh correspondents, it would still appear that the introduction of new systems of taxation is severely felt by the people, and that there is every probability of their soon beginning to sigh for the old and more endurable forms of Talpoor exaction. We have dreaded, from the very first hour in which Sindh became a province of Hindostan, lest an over-anxiety on the part of the executive Government to prove the fertility of the country, and the cheering prospect of its rapidly affording not only due compensation, but ample remuneration for all that the conquest has cost, should give birth to an unjust and impolitic imposition of taxes-mischievous at any time, but especially so at the outset of a new career of Government, when it is, above all things, desirous to encourage, not to crush, the industrial energies of the people. We fear that our apprehensions were not altogether unfoun led. Recent accounts

from Sindh speak of "ill-timed and irritating schemes of taxtion;" "newly created imposts and restrictions;" and when it is added to this, that no great care is shown in the selection of agents to carry out a work of extreme delicacy and difficultyone requiring no small amount of knowledge, experience, tact, temper, and benevolence-making every allowance for a slight infusion of prejudice and party-spirit, we cannot but tremble for the consequences of this untimely application of the revenue

screw.

ART. III.-THE ASTRONOMY OF THE HINDUS.

BY REV. THOMAS SMITH, D.D.

1. History of Astronomy. With an Appendix, containing a View of the principal elements of the Indian Astronomy as contained in the Surya Siddhanta. (Library of (Library of Useful Knowledge.) London: Baldwin and Cradock.

2. The Use of the Siddhantas in the Work of Native Education. By Lancelot Wilkinson, Esq., Bombay, C.S.-Ass. Res. at Bhopal (Calcutta Asiatic Society's Journal), 1834.

THE

HE history of science is itself a science; and one of the most interesting and important of them all. To trace the stream of discovery from its lofty well-head, to follow its various windings, mark its frequent disappearances, its rapids and its stagnancies, is a work at once of the greatest interest, the greatest importance, and the greatest difficulty. The interest of the investigation is derived from our very nature and constitution as members of the great human brotherhood; in virtue of which nothing that belongs to man ought to be indifferent to man; and least of all that which has engrossed the attention and measured the enjoyment of the most gifted of our race. The importance of the study chiefly depends upon the fact, that experience is our grand guide in philosophy; and therefore it is in a great measure by a knowledge of what has been accomplished by our predecessors, and of the methods by which it has been accomplished, that we are to be guided in the direction of our own observations. The difficulty of tracing distinctly the progress of science will be well exemplified in the course of our present article, which we purpose to devote mainly to an examination of the antiquity of the Hindu Astronomy. But while the subject we have undertaken is confessedly a difficult one, we shall endeavour, as far as possible, to encounter the difficulty ourselves, and by divesting the subject in a great measure of technicalities, to render it accesible and even attractive to the general reader. In fact, we shall advance very little that is original, but shall be well contented if we can so

place the matter in an attractive light before our readers, as to inspire some of them with an interest in a subject from which they have probably been repelled by the technicalities that have hitherto adhered to it.

That the Hindus have amongst them a considerable amount of astronomical knowledge, is a fact which is rendered unquestionable by their power of calculating the eclipses of the sun and moon with very considerable accuracy. That for a long period they have made no advancement, but have rather retrograded in their knowledge of the principles of the science, seems almost equally certain. It therefore follows, that the science of astronomy must have been cultivated among them at an early period; and the question is, as to the actual remoteness of that period. As no formal records exist of the progress of discovery among them, the determination of the important question of the antiquity of the astronomical systems must depend almost exclusively on internal evidence furnished by the systems themselves. It must, therefore, be our first course to furnish a short sketch of the form in which their systems present themselves to us at the present day.

The astronomical works of the Hindus are of two classes, viz., astronomical tables and systematic treatises. Of the former class, four sets are known to the astronomers of Europe. The first was brought from Siam by M. La Loubere in 1687. For some time, the tables were not intelligible to any of the European astronomers, but were at last satisfactorily explained by Cassini, one of the most illustrious astronomers of his age. Though brought immediately from Siam, they are of strictly Hindu origin; for they are constructed for a meridian 18° 15' to the westward of Siam. This meridian will very nearly coincide with the Hindu meridian of Lanka,* and also with that of Banares: and thus no doubt can exist as to the Intra-Gangetic origin of the Siamese tables + The second set of tables was sent from Chrishnabouram in the Carnatic, by the Jesuit Missionary Du Champ, about 1750. They were thoroughly understood by Du Champ himself, who illustrated them by a set of examples and rules, which render them easily intelligible to one who is acquainted with the details of European

* It is not exactly ascertained what is meant by the meridian of Lanka. This, as is well known, is the name usually given to the island of Ceylon. But the accuracy of the Indian tables is far too great to admit of the supposition of so much vagueness as would be implied in speaking of the meridian of a large island. The most probable supposition seems to be that the first meridian was that which bisected Ceylon.

May not the fact of the Siamese possessing and making use of the Hindu Astronomical tables indicate something in regard to the intercourse that subsistated an early period between India and the Eastern Peninsula ?

astronomy. The third set were sent by Patouillet, another Jesuit, and are generally known as the Narsapur tables. The fourth and most important set, because both the most complete, and professedly the most ancient, were taken to Europe by M. Le Gentil, who came to India for the purpose of observing the transit of Venus in 1769. These are known to the scientific world as the Tirvalore tables; from a small town so called on the Coromandel coast. It becomes a question of great importance, as well as considerable difficulty, to determine the period at which the Tirvalore tables were constructed; as, notwithstanding considerable discrepancies between the different sets, the principles of the whole are the same; at all events, it is with them that we have chiefly to do (except in so far as the others may illustrate or explain them), as they profess to be more ancient, by a very long period, than any of the others. It will, however, be needful for us, first of all, in order that the matter may be thoroughly intelligible, to give a general idea of the mode in which such a question as the present may be determined.

If a human artist had been entrusted with the construction of the universe, it is probable that he would have made all the planets revolve round the sun, in equal periods or years, consisting of a definite number of days. Had this been the actual structure of the solar system, the calculations of astronomy would have been destitute of all interest as of all difficulty. If the place of any planet on any day, and also the length of the common year were known, the places of each planet for any other day would be ascertained by the simplest arithmetical operation.

But the ways of Him who made the world are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. He has made no two of the planets perform their revolutions in the same period. Their revolutions are indeed regular, but the regularity is a regularity of irregularities. And it is thus that astronomy becomes useful to mankind, not only for the exercise of their talents, but also as the basis of chronology;-thus it is that the heavenly bodies subserve one of the great purposes for which they were appointed by their great Creator, to be "for signs and for seasons, for days and for years." As this is a point, a clear apprehension of which is essential to a right understanding of the whole subject, we shall illustrate it still further by a simple comparison. Suppose a common clock made with only one hand, which shall traverse the dial in an hour. Such a clock would indicate how much time had passed at any given moment from the last hour, but it would give us no means of