and whether any subsequent experiments have thrown light on a fubject fo abftrufe and obfcure: that the fublime aftronomy and exquifitely beautiful geometry, with which that work is illumined, should in any degree be approached by the Mathematicians of Afia, while of all Europeans, who ever lived, ARCHIMEDES alone was capable of emulating them, would be a vain expectation; but we must suspend our opinion of Indian aftronomical knowledge, till the Súrya fiddbánta fhall appear in our own language, and even then (to adopt a phrafe of CICERO) our greedy and capacious ears will by no means be fatisfied; for in order to complete an hiftorical account of genuine Hindu aftronomy, we require verbal translations of at least three other Sanfcrit books; of the treatise by PARASARA, for the firft age of Indian science, of that by VARAHA, with the copious comment of his very learned fon, for the middle age, and of those written by BHASCARA, for times comparatively modern. The valuable and now acceffible works of the laft mentioned philofopher, contain alfo an univerfal, or fpecious, arithmetick, with one chapter at least on geometry; nor would it, furely, be difficult to procure, through our feveral refidents with the Piwa and with SCINDHYA, the older books on algebra, which BHASCARA mentions, and on which Mr. DAVIS would justly fet a

very high value; but the Sanferit work, from which we might expect the most ample and important information, is entitled Chétráderfa, or a View of Geometrical Knowledge, and was compiled in a very large volume by order of the illuftrious JAYASINHA, comprising all that remains on that science in the facred language of India: it was inspected in the weft by a Pandit now in the fervice of Lieutenant WILFORD, and might, I am perfuaded, be purchased at Jayanagar, where Colonel POLIER had permiffion from the Rájá to buy the four Védas themfelves. THUS have I answered, to the best of my power, the three firft queftions obligingly tranfmitted to us by profeffor PLAYFAIR ; whether the Hindus have books in Sanfcrit expressly on geometry, whether they have any fuch on arithmetick, and whether a tranflation of the Súrya fiddhánta be not the great defideratum on the fubject of Indian aftronomy: to his three laft questions, whether an accurate fummary account of all the Sanferit works on that fubject, a delineation of the Indian celestial sphere, with correct remarks on it, and a description of the aftronomical inftruments used by the ancient Hindus, would not feverally be of great utility, we cannot but anfwer in the affirmative, provided that the utmoft critical fagacity were applied in diftinguishing fuch works, conftellations,

and inftruments, as are clearly of Indian origin, from fuch as were introduced into this country by Mufelman aftronomers from Tartary and Perfia, or in later days by Mathematicians from Europe.

V. FROM all the properties of man and of nature, from all the various branches of fcience, from all the deductions of human reafon, the general corollary, admitted by Hindus, Arabs, and Tartars, by Perfians, and by Chinefe, is the fupremacy of an all-creating and all-preserving fpirit, infinitely wife, good, and powerful, but infinitely removed from the comprehension of his moft exalted creatures; nor are there in any language (the ancient Hebrew always excepted) more pious and fublime addreffes to the being of beings, more fplendid enumerations of his attributes, or more beautiful defcriptions of his vifible works, than in Arabick, Perfian and Sanfcrit, especially in the Koran, the introductions to the poems of SADI, NIZA'M'I, and FIRDAUSI, the four Védas and many parts of the numerous Puránas: but fupplication and praise would not fatisfy the boundless imagination of the Vedanti and Sufi theologifts, who blending uncertain metaphyficks with undoubted principles of religion, have prefumed to reafon confidently on the very nature and effence of the divine fpirit, and afferted in a very remote age, what multitudes of

all

Hindus and Mufelmans affert at this hour, that all spirit is homogeneous, that the spirit of GOD is in kind the fame with that of man, though differing from it infinitely in degree, and that, as material substance is mere illufion, there exists in this universe only one generick spiritual substance, the fole primary cause, efficient, fubstantial and formal of all fecondary causes and of appearances whatever, but endued in its highest degree, with a fublime providential wisdom, and proceeding by ways incomprehenfible to the fpirits which emane from it; an opinion, which GOTAMA never taught, and which we have no authority to believe, but which, as it is grounded on the doctrine of an immaterial creator fupremely wife, and a conftant preferver fupremely benevolent, differs as widely from the pantheism of SPINOZA and TOLAND, as the affirmation of a propofition differs from the negation of it; though the last named profeffor of that infane philofophy had the bafeness to conceal his meaning under the very words of Saint PAUL, which are cited by NEWTON for a purpofe totally different, and has even used a phrase, which occurs, indeed, in the Véda, but in a fenfe diametrically oppofite to that, which he would have given it. The paffage, to which I allude, is in a speech of VARUNA to his fon, where he fays: "That fpirit, from which thefe created

"beings proceed; through which having pro"ceeded from it, they live; toward which they "tend and in which they are ultimately absorb“ed, that spirit study to know; that spirit is the "Great One."

The fubject of this discourse, gentlemen, is inexhaustible: it has been my endeavour to say as much on it as possible in the fewest words; and, at the beginning of next year, I hope to close these general difquifitions with topicks measureless in extent, but lefs abftrufe than that, which has this day been discussed, and better adapted to the gaiety, which feems to have prevailed in the learned banquets of the Greeks, and which ought, surely, to prevail in every symposiack assembly.