Page 48 (part 7)

All these astronomical elements, differing more or less with the Greeks of Alexandria, the Arabs, the Persians and the Tartars, exhibit no resemblance whatever with those of the Hindus. The latter, therefore, borrowed nothing from their neighbours. Condensing Bailly's remarks, he comes to the following conclusions: -- If the Hindus did not borrow their epoch, they must have possessed a real one of their own, based on their own observations; and this must be either the epoch of the year 1491 after, or that of the year 3102 before our era, the latter preceding by 4592 years the epoch 1491. We have to choose between these two epochs and to decide which of them is based on observation. But before stating the arguments which can and must [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * For a detailed scientific proof of this conclusion, see page 121 of Mr. Bailly's work, where the subject is discussed technically. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 660 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. decide the question, we may be permitted to make a few remarks to those who may be inclined to believe that it is modern observations and calculations which have enabled the Hindus to determine the past positions of the heavenly bodies. It is far from easy to determine the celestial movements with sufficient accuracy to ascend the stream of time for 4592 years, and to describe the phenomena which must have occurred at that period. We possess to-day excellent instruments; exact observations have been made for some two or three centuries, which already permit us to calculate with considerable accuracy the average motions of the planets; we have the observations of the Chaldeans, of Hipparchus and of Ptolemy, which, owing to their remoteness from the present time, permit us to fix these motions with greater certainty. Still we cannot undertake to represent with invariable accuracy the observations throughout the long period intervening between the Chaldeans and ourselves; and still less can we undertake to determine with exactitude events occurring 4592 years before our day. Cassini and Maier have each determined the secular motion of the moon, and they differ by 3m. 43s. This difference would give rise in forty-six centuries to an uncertainty of nearly three degrees in the moon's place. Doubtless one of these determinations is more accurate than the other; and it is for observations of very great antiquity to decide between them. But in very remote periods, where observations are lacking, it follows that we are uncertain as to the phenomena. How, then, could the Hindus have calculated back from the year 1491 A.D . to the year 3102 before our era, if they were only recent students of astronomy? The Orientals have never been what we are. However high an opinion of their knowledge we may form from the examination of their Astronomy, we cannot suppose them ever to have possessed that great array of instruments which distinguishes our modern observatories, and which is the product of simultaneous progress in various arts, nor could they have possessed that genius for discovery, which has hitherto seemed to belong exclusively to Europe, and which, supplying the place of time, causes the rapid progress of science and of human intelligence. If the Asiatics have been powerful, learned and wise, it is power and time which have produced their merit and success of all kinds. Power has founded or destroyed their empires; now it has erected edifices imposing by their bulk, now it has reduced them to venerable ruins; and while these vicissitudes alternated with each other, patience accumulated knowledge; and prolonged experience produced wisdom. It is the antiquity of the nations of the East which has erected their scientific fame. If the Hindus possessed in 1491 a knowledge of the heavenly motions [[Vol. 1, Page]] 661 THE BEGINNING OF KALI-YUG. sufficiently accurate to enable them to calculate backwards for 4,592 years, it follows that they could only have obtained this knowledge from very ancient observations. To grant them such knowledge, while refusing them the observations from which it is derived, is to suppose an impossibility; it would be equivalent to assuming that at the outset of their career they had already reaped the harvest of time and experience. While on the other hand, if their epoch of 3102 is assumed to be real, it would follow that the Hindus had simply kept pace with successive centuries down to the year 1491 of our era. Thus, time itself was their teacher; they knew the motions of the heavenly bodies during these periods, because they had seen them; and the duration of the Hindu people on earth is the cause of the fidelity of its records and the accuracy of its calculations. It would seem that the problem as to which of the two epochs of 3102 and 1491 is the real one ought to be solved by one consideration, viz., that the ancients in general, and particularly the Hindus, calculated, and therefore observed, eclipses only. Says Bailly: -- Now, there was no eclipse of the sun at the moment of the epoch 1492; and no eclipse of the moon either 14 days before or after that moment. Therefore the epoch 1491 is not based on an observation. As regards the epoch 3102, the Brahmins of Tirvalour place it at sunrise on February 18th. The sun was then in the first point of the Zodiac according to its true longitude. The other tables show that at the preceding midnight the moon was in the same place, but according to its average longitude. The Brahmins tell us also that this first point, the origin of their Zodiac, was, in the year 3102, 54 degrees behind the equinox. It follows that the origin -- the first point of their Zodiac -- was therefore in the sixth degree of Libra. There occurred, therefore, about this time and place an average conjunction; "and indeed this conjunction is given in our best tables: La Caille's for the sun and Maier's for the moon." There was no eclipse of the sun, the moon being too distant from her node; but fourteen days later, the moon having approached the node, must have been eclipsed. Maier's tables, used without correction for acceleration, give this eclipse; but they place it during the day when it could not have been observed in India. Cassini's tables give it as occurring at night, which shows that Maier's motions are too rapid for distant centuries, when the acceleration is not allowed for; and which also proves that in spite of the improvement of our knowledge we can still be uncertain as to the actual aspect of the heavens in past times. Therefore we believe that as between the two Hindu epochs, the real one is the year 3102, because it was accompanied by an eclipse which could be observed, and which must have served to determine it. This [[Vol. 1, Page]] 662 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. is a first proof of the truth of the longitude assigned by the Hindus to the sun and the moon at this instant; and this proof would perhaps be sufficient, were it not that this ancient determination becomes of the greatest importance for the verification of the motions of these bodies, and must therefore be borne out by every possible proof of its authenticity.