Alberuni's IndiaAn account of the religion, philosophy, literature, geography, chronology, astronomy, customs, laws and astrology of India about . n it, being always visible without everdisappearing. All that Balabhadra 23roduces is foolish both in wordsand matter, and I cannot find why he felt himself calledupon to write a commentary if he had nothing betterto say. If he tries to refute the theory of the flatness of theearth by the planets revolving round the horizon ofMeru, this argument would go nearer proving thetheory than refuting it. For if the earth were a flatexpanse, and ever
Alberuni's IndiaAn account of the religion, philosophy, literature, geography, chronology, astronomy, customs, laws and astrology of India about . n it, being always visible without everdisappearing. All that Balabhadra 23roduces is foolish both in wordsand matter, and I cannot find why he felt himself calledupon to write a commentary if he had nothing betterto say. If he tries to refute the theory of the flatness of theearth by the planets revolving round the horizon ofMeru, this argument would go nearer proving thetheory than refuting it. For if the earth were a flatexpanse, and everything highon earth were parallel to theperpendicular height of Meru,there would be no change ofhorizon, and the same horizonwould be the equinox for allplaces on earth. On the words of Aryabhataas quoted by Balabhadra wemake the following A B be the globe of the earth ronnd the centreH. Further, A is a place on the earth in the 66th de-gree of latitude. AVe cut off from the circle the arcA B, equal to the greatest declination. Then B is theplace in the zenith of which the pole stands. Further, we draw the line A C touching the globe in. CHAPTER XXIIi. 245 the point A. This line lies in the plane of the horizonas far as the human eye reaches round the earth. We join the points A and H with each other,and draw the line H B C, so that it is met in C bythe line A C. Further, we let fall the perpendicularA T on H C. Now, it is evident that— A T is the sine of the greatest declination ; T B the versed sine of the greatest declination ; T H the sine of the complement of the greatest declination. And as we here occupy ourselves with Aryabhata,we shall, according to his system, change the sines inJcardajd t. A ccor d ingly— AT = = T = 298. Because the angle H A C is a right angle, we havethe equation— H T : T A = T A : T C. And the square of A T is 1, If we divide itby T H, we get as quotient 622. The difference between this number and T B is 32
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectastrology, bookyear19
