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J. M'Creery, Printer, Black-Horse-Court, London.

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Some account of Ancient Authors who

have described India.

CHAPTER XIII.

On the Ancient Commerce and Communications with India by European Na

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OF

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page

NOTE A.-Hindu Accounts of Sandrocotus, King of the Prasii, and the celebrated Capital of Palibothra

B.

On the Origin of Casts in India; toge

. 327

ther with an account of the different
Classes of Brahmins, and their re-
spective Pursuits

C. Historical Sketch of the Mahrattas.

. 336

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339

D. Additional Remarks on the Astronomy
of the Hindus, by M. Delambre.

E. On some Practices peculiar to the Hin

347

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In reading the Names of Persons and Places, the Vowels are understood to be pronounced as in the Italian Language.

ON

Ancient and Modern India.

CHAPTER VIII.

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ON THE ASTRONOMY AND OTHER SCIENCES
OF THE HINDŪS.

THOUGH an accurate inquiry into the As-
tronomy 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

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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.

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