Tamil Astronomy

Abstract

In 1825 Lieutenant Colonel John Warren published a book of over 500 quarto pages entitled Kala Sankalita with the subtitle A Collection of Memoirs on the various modes according to which the nations of the Southern Parts of India divide time (1). This truly remarkable work was compiled over a period of eleven years from information from natives, “originally intended for the sole use of the Honorable Company’s College of Fort. St. George,” but ultimately extended to a far-reaching study of Indian calendariography and astronomy. Though it was repeatedly consulted by Burgess, Thibaut, and others, its contents have by far not been adequately exploited for our knowledge of the development of Hindu astronomy. The present discussion of a single short chapter, pp. 334 to 348, will demonstrate this fact.