NOTE A.-Hindu Accounts of Sandrocotus, King of the Prasii, and the celebrated B. On the Origin of Casts in India; toge- ther with an account of the different In reading the Names of Persons and Places, the THOUGH an accurate inquiry into the Astronomy of the Hindūs, can only be made by "such as may have particularly studied that science; we hope, nevertheless, to be excused for offering a few observations on the subject, founded on the opinions of those, whose knowledge in astronomy have obtained for them the high reputation they enjoy in the learned world. The late Monsieur Bailly, in his Traité de l'Astronomie Indienne et Orientale, men tions four sets of tables, brought to Europe at different times, from distinct places, and by different persons: one from Siam, by M. de la Loubiere, who was sent thither as ambassador, by Louis the 14th; two that were found by M. Bailly in the Depôt de la Marine, at Paris, which had been placed there by M. de Lisle,* who had received them from the Fathers Patouillet and Duchamp, correspondents of the missionaries in India; and a fourth, which was brought from the coast of Coromandel, by M. le Gentil, and which he had procured from Brahmins at Tirvalore. These four sets of tables and precepts of astronomy, procured, as has been observed, at different times, and distinct places, some of them extremely distant from the others, M. Bailly says, all, evidently, came from the same original; * Joseph Nicolas de Lisle, a celebrated astronomer, the friend of Newton and Halley. He was born at Paris in 1688, and died there in 1768. + A town in N. L. 10° 44′ near to Negapatnam, on the coast of Coromandel. |