the planets along with it revolves round the earth (V.0). The moon is of course & satellite of the earth, and makes no difference in the old and new astronomy. But where could be get the theory of the planets describing ovals round the sun It is not imported from the west, but is a direct corollary from the ele. 'ments of the planets themselves. For, if we plot the calculated places of a planet with respect to the sun, the former will be found to describe something like an oval round the latter.
- Indeed, I believe that this view of the solar system was held
by our ancient astronomers. We cannot bnppose that they could be so ignorant as not to see this simple deduction. The late Pandit Bápudeva S'Astrí gave otber arguments in support of this doctrine of the ancient astronomers (see his pamphlet Bhábhrama-Vichára), though I am inclined to think that the S'ástrí vent rather too far in drawing the inference that our astronomers supposed the earth to be a planet of the sun. 4. This system, formulated anew by our author, forcibly reminds one of Tycho Brahe, and bearing in mind Chandras ſekhara's life, we may regard him as the veritable Tycho of India, Like Tycho, our author belongs to a noble family, which had for a series of years claimed independence. Tycho's early.eduça- tion was in Latin, and what Latin is to Europe, Sanskrit is to India. Young Chandrasekhara was early acquainted with the sacred lore of Sanskrit. His knowledge was so far advanced as to enable him to compose verses- in it, as-Tycho could in Latin Tycho had been destined to lead-a-soldier's life, but his uncle who adopted him made him study-law. While he was so engaged, kis attention was first drawn to astronomy: by the prediction of Digitized by Google
