all these particulars, nothing could be more short sighted and unwise. Our object should have been to revert to the wise and well considered principles of Akbar's government, who left no document or question, uninvestigated, to ascertain the more true, ancient, and acceptable principle more trement and standard, by which the coinage and ponderary system was adjusted. The Benares bazar maund still attests this fact, being 14419.66 grains troy: the heavy weight of the Mharatta empire, and Hindoosthan, where the Mogul supremacy had not been established, is 14100 grains nearly, showing that the weight was known to the Hindoos, anteceRdent to Akbar's time. SIL, TE bHence in Shah Jehan's reign 92 copper pice of ten massas, or 80 rupees of 11 massas, that is, in either case 920 massas, were assigned to the seer; that is 15.625 (the true massa weight of Akbar deduced from experiment, and more ancient data), X 11.5=179.6825 grains troy, the old rupee of Shah Jehan, throughout Bengal, Behar, Goojrat, Khandeish, Orissa, Hindoost,han, and upper provinces. This last, 179.6875 X 80 14375 troy grains, which is used in all the lower provinces of Bengal and Bebar to this day, and is the true weight of the Bengal bazar seer, reported in the replies from Calcutta in 1821, to be 82 lbs. 2 oz. 2.055 drams avoirdupcise, or 14373.28 grains troy. With a view to facilitate the commercial transactions in Bengal, after Mr. Pitt's India Bill had passed the legislature in 1784, the Court of Directors, at the instance of the Bengal Government, adopted the pucka maund, or double of the then reduced factory maund of Surat, which was computed to be 35 tolas, the Surat tola 186.666 grains troy, that is 6633.275 grains troy: the double of which was then constituted the Bengal factory seer of 13066.55 grains. Forty of these made 74 lbs. 10 oz. 10 drams avoirdupoise, or 742lbs. avoirdupoise. My readers may form some idea from this circumstance of the financial wisdom and the commercial thrift of those days, which at once reduced the standard of the tola, as it respected the monetary system, making that, which preceding princes, Shah Jehan, Jehangeer, and Au rungzeeb, had only proposed as the weight of 11 massas, to stand now for 12; and further, by reducing the ponderary system exactly ten per cent, as indeed the words of the Government expressly declare. Thus the newly constituted British factory maund, in 1787, was 74 lbs. 10 oz. 10% drams, to which adding one tenth, or 7 lbs. 7 oz. 7 dr. we have 40 of the reduced Bengal and Behar seers of Shah Jeban of 920 massas, or of 80 X 179.6875 grains troy = 14375 grains X 40; that is, 82 lbs. 2 oz. 21 drams avoirdupoise. Knowing all these circumstances, it would be difficult to say with what show of honesty, justice, or good policy, we can still maintain a deteriorated currency, and in connection with it, a double, and doubly deteriorated system of weight. I Elementary tables. Years. - Lunar reckon- Months. Solar Tropical, or Astronomi- - Construction of the Punchungs or Calendars. — Tables. The Hindoo elementary measures of Time are thus given in the Umurkosh, Siddhants, Tuntrus, and Munavu Dhurum Shastur. 1st Table Sawun, or Luni-solar time. ghutika, dund, or ghuree, Vipul, 60= 3600 = 60= 1 77760000 = 1296000 = 21600 2880 = 360 = 12 = 6 = = 1 wurshu sumwutsur or year. 2= The elements of the Solar, Tropical, and Astronomical year, are exactly the same as the above, the ycar consisting of a complete revolution of the Sun through all the three hundred and sixty degrees, into which its course is supposed to be divided, and by a fiction, styled days. 2d Table of chundru lunar time. 2099520000 = 115640000 = 3888000 = 129600 10800 360 = 24 = 12 = 1 sumwutsur or year. The table of Sawun or Luni Solar time. Table of Chundru or Lunar time. Table of Sidereal time. 3d Table of Sidereal time, whether solar or lunar. The elements of this Table were first applied to the vague Indian years, as they are now in the reformed Astronomical reckoning throughout Southern India. The above elementary tables differ from the European, chicfly in the division of the year into three hundred and sixty parts, the division of the day into sixty ghutikas, instead of 24 hours both in civil and astronomical reckoning, and the subdivision downwards into portions of a 60th of the next higher quantity. We have here therefore at the very threshold of this inquiry a clear and satisfactory solu tion of one of the most difficult questions in Ancient History-whether the ancient year of 360 days is to be considered a complete year; or merely, a statement in round numbers. It is in fact, a fictitious division of the Sun's entire mean revolution into 360 parts, to which the luni-solar calendar is adjusted. On one or other of these tables the Hindoos in the different provinces of India adjust the minor details of their calendar, some observing one, some another. They reckon their years accordingly, and distinguish 4 different kinds. 1st. The Sawun Sumwutsur; which is the Luni Solar or natural year of 360 Solar days. 2d. The Chundru Sumwutsur; the Lunar or Synodical year of 354 Solar days. 3d. The Nakshatru Sumwutsur; or Lunar sidereal year of 324 Solar days. 4th. The Souryu Sumwutsur; the Solar, or more strictly speaking, the Astronomical, year of 3651 Solar days. There are also two modes of reckoning less in use, viz. 5th. Tue Burhusputyu Samwutsur; or Astronomical year of Jupiter, of about 3601 Sola days. 6th. The Devu Sumwutsur; or year of years of 360 times. 360 Solar days, or 1:9,600 Luni, Solar, or natural years. This Anomalistic period is the same as the prophetic year of sacred scripture prophecy. Lastly the 7th, Sta, and 9th, the Sumwutsur or year of the Pitrees the Prujapitees and Bruhma, or the year of lunation days (560 times 29 days) the Munwuntur and 1000 times 360 Kulpus, each of which is equal to 10,000 yoogs or cycles of 432,000 Sawun. years. Three practi cally useless. Of the first, or (Sawun) the Lu "The ancients," observes Sir Isaac Newton, when astronomy was yet in its infancy, "obviously set i Solar year. down 360 revolutions of the sun to the year, as the nearest round number; and 30 revolutions of the moon, to the month:"* whence the year, came at first to be distributed into twelve equal portions, and the asterisms of the heavens, into twelve signs: and the circle into 360 equal portions, and the whole duode The first nations, before they began to use artificial cycles, kept a reckaning of time by the courses of the sun and moon, Gen. ch. i. verse 15; and for knowing what days of every month in the year they were to celebrate na festivals or fasts, and to what gods it was requisite to have a calendar, in which calendar it was obvious to set down thirty days to a lunar month, and twelve lunar months to a solar year, these being the nearest round numbers, answering to the courses of the sun and moon: and hence it came to pass that the ancients reckoned the luni solar year to consist of twelve months, and 360 days, in which they supposed the sun moved round the heavens.. Har I do not find that in civil affairs any nation adhered to this luni solar calendar, where they found it differ from the courses of the sun and moon: but rather corrected it from time to time, taking a day or two from the mooth, as often as they found this month too long for the course of the moon, and adding a month to the year as often as they found twelve lunar months too short for the return of the four seasons and fruits of the earth." Sir Isaac Newton on the Ancient year. +I subjoin the passages from Sir Isaac Newton's account of the Ancient year, in corroboration of what is advanced respecting the Sawun year. "When therefore Cleobulus one of the seven wise men, or Hippocrates, or Herodotus, or Aristotle, or Plutarch, or Manettio, describe the ancient year of the Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians to consist of twelve equal months, or 360 days, or Cyrus, in allusion to those days cut the river Gindus into 360 channels: or the Athenians in allusion to the same days erected 360 (days) statues to Demetrius; they are to be understood of the calendar year of the ancients, not yet corrected by the courses of the sun and moon." "And when the Babylonians, as Diodorus tells us, say that there are twelve chief gods, and to every one of these assign a month, and a sign in the cimal division (the most appropriate to ordinary purposes as capable of more minute and commodious subdivision) owing its rise, in all probability to the same cause. The Sooryu Siddhant would seem to confirm the remarks of our great countryman, so far as regards antiquity; forasmuch as its definition and description, implies it to be a period of 12 months of 30 days, reckoning from sun rise to sun rise; and if further proof be needed, the numbers thereof, 360, 30, and 12, are each intricately worked up in all the different periods of the yoogs or cycles, the Munwunturs and Kulpus, which are severally divisible by them in even round numbers, and not divisible by the Solar Astronomical, Lunar, or Lunar Sidereal periods; these being of themselves mixed and indefinite quantities: besides all which, all the revolutions of the planets, and their periodical motions are referred solely and invariably to this system. The Sawun day is noted in the earliest astronoZodiac, and say that through these twelve signs the sun makes his course every year, and the moon every month, they describe the Chaldaic year to be solar, and to consist of twelve equal lunar months, answering to the twelve signs with their degrees, and mean the months and days in the calendar year, not yet corrected by the courses of the sun and moon: and by the relation and correspondence which those months have to the twelve signs, they fix them to the seasons of the year, by such corrections as were to be made for that purpose." "So then the luni-solar year with its calendar, was very ancient and universal, being used by Noah and propagated down from him to his posterity, and giving occasion to the division of the Zodiac into twelve signs, and that of a circle into 360 degrees, and to the invention of the Dieteris, Tetraeteris, and other ancient cycles for avoiding the trouble of correcting it every month by the moon, and every year by the sun, and continuing to be used in Egypt till the institution of their solar year of 365 days in Chaldea, and the nations adjacent, till the expedition of Cyrus over Gindus, and his taking of Babylon. In Greece till the days of the seven wise men, and the reign of the Persians and Greeks: and in Italy till the reign of the Latins, and was at length resolved by the Arabians into their lunar year.” |