Skya-S¢d%d®t¢ ' & | (jyotis), performed, in propitiation of the Sun, very severe reli. gious austerities. According to this, the Sirya-Siddhin ta revealed more than 2,184,360 years ago, that armount of time having clapsed, according ko Hindu rockoning, since the end of the folden Age झee below, under verse 48, for the computation of the period. As regards the actual date of the treatise, it is, like all dates in Hindu history and the history of Hindu hterature, exceedingly difficul to ascertain. It is the more difficult, because, unlike most, or all, of the astronomical treatises, the Sirya-Siddhवीnta attaches i8¢lf to the name of ne individual && its author, but professkes to be a direct revelation from the Sun (svg¢). A treatise of this name, however, is confessed]y among the eak est text-pooks of the Indian science, I was One of the five earlier works upon which was founded the Pafica-siddhan. taka. compendium of Astronomnies, of VazNha-nihira, one of the earliest astronomers w-hose works have (3 in parth, preserved to ug, and who is supposed to have lived about the beginning of the sixth cen tury of our er४; . A Stra-Siddhanta is also referred to by Brahmagupta who is assigmed to the cle of the same century and the commencement of the one following: Tho arguments by which Mr. Gentley (Hindu Astro nomy, p. 158, etc.) Attempts to prove 'nran-mihira , to have lived in the sixteenth century, and his professed work to be forgeries and impositious. ke sufficiently yefute by the testimony of al-Biriui (the same person as the Ab12-+-Railban Bo often quoted in the first article of this volune), who visited India under Mahmid of (hazaand vote in A.D. 1081 an account of the eountry; he speaks of Varaha-mihira and of his Phict-siddhantiks, assigning to both nearly the same age as its attributed to them by ahe moderm Hindus (see Roinad in the JoumRl Asiatique for Sept.Oct., 1844, vne Strie, v. 288; and also his Memoire Bu !'Inde). He also speaks of the Sory४-Siddhवंnta itself, and ascribes its authorship to Lake (Micrmoi sur l'Inde, pP. 381, BR2, whom Weber (Vorlesungen über Indische siteratur. geachichte, P. 220) conjecturally identifies with a Ladha who is cited by Brahmagupta. Eentley has endeavoured to show by internal evidence that the stry६-siddhante belongs to he end of the eleventh century ; see below under verses 29-34, where his method and results are explained, and their value estimated Uf the six yedanga, limbs of tle Veda,sciences auxiliary to the sacred scriptures, १stronoprly is a laimed to be the first and chief, as repre senting the eyes; getnnual being the mouth, ceremonial the hand, pro sody the feet, etc. (see Siddhjnta-vironmati, i 12-14). 'The importance of appronomy to the system of beligioug observanee lies in the fact that by it are determined the proper kimes of sacrifice Azd bhe like. There iE a specia}. yeatise, the Jyotisha of {L£g»dha, or Lagaba, which, attaching itself to bhe Vedic texts, and representing a more primitive phase of Hindu science, claims to be the astronomical vedange; but it is said to be of late data and of small impotance. =
