238 dhruv raina
I engage to support an opinion (which the learned and industrious M Montucla
seems to treat with extreme contempt) that the Indian division of the zodiac was
not borrowed from the Greeks or Arabs, but having been known in this country
from time immemorial and being the same in part with other nations of the old
Hindu race... 47
But then they were also gradually transforming and refi ning the portrait
Bailly had left behind. Th us Jones recognized that in Davis’ translation
resided the hope that it would ‘convince M. Bailly that it is very possible for
an European to translate and explain the Surya Siddhanta .’^48Playfair’s programme and Colebrooke’s recovery
of Indian algebraic texts
In order to recapitulate a point made earlier, the French Jesuits of the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries were the inaugurators of a tradition, which
was to inspire the histories of Le Gentil and Jean-Sylvain Bailly. 49 B a i l l y ’ s
history inspired the work of the British mathematician John Playfair and
provided a stimulus to subsequent generations of British Indologists writing
on Indian mathematics; though they were to disagree with the details of
Bailly’s Histoire , adding some nuance here and digressing from it in another
context. 50 Th e antediluvian hypothesis proposed by Bailly was the source
of both fascination and controversy, and was the outcome of his attempt
to juxtapose observations of ancient Indian astronomy with astronomi-
cal theory of his day; 51 from which he went on to draw the inference that
ancient Indian astronomy was the source of Greek astronomy. 52 However,
this reading was located within Jesuit historiography which sought to
accommodate Indian history within the Christian conception of time. 53
Bailly’s work was introduced to English-speaking readers through an
article authored by John Playfair entitled ‘Remarks on the Astronomy of the
Brahmins’ published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.^5447 Jones 1790a.
48 Jones 1790b.
49 Raina 1999.
50 Raina 2001a.
51 According to this hypothesis astronomy originated among the Indians, but the Indians in turn
had received it from an even more ancient people. Th e traces of this exchange had been lost in
antiquity.
52 Bailly 1775.
53 Raina 2003.
54 Playfair 1790.