Figure 9.—Antikythera Machine, Partial Reconstruction by Theophanidis (see footnote [16]).
A self-revolving instrument [or swayanvaha yantra]: Make a wheel of light wood and in its circumference put hollow spokes all having bores of the same diameter, and let them be placed at equal distances from each other; and let them also be placed at an angle verging somewhat from the perpendicular: then half fill these hollow spokes with mercury; the wheel thus filled will, when placed on an axis supported by two posts, revolve of itself.
Or scoop out a canal in the tire of the wheel and then plastering leaves of the Tȧla tree over this canal with wax, fill one half of this canal with water and the other half with mercury, till the water begins to come out, and then cork up the orifice left open for filling the wheel. The wheel will then revolve of itself, drawn around by the water.
Description of a syphon: Make up a tube of copper or other metal, and bend it in the form of an Ankus'a or elephant hook, fill it with water and stop up both ends. And then putting one end into a reservoir of water let the other end remain suspended outside. Now uncork both ends. The water of the reservoir will be wholly sucked up and fall outside.
Now attach to the rim of the before described self-revolving wheel a number of water-pots, and place the wheel and these pots like the water wheel so that the water from the lower end of the tube flowing into them on one side shall set the wheel in motion, impelled by the additional weight of the pots thus filled. The water discharge from the pots as they reach the bottom of the revolving wheel, should be drawn off into the reservoir before alluded to by means of a water-course or pipe.
The self-revolving machine [mentioned by Lalla, etc.] which has a tube with its lower end open is a vulgar machine on account of its being dependant, because that which manifests an ingenious and not a rustic contrivance is said to be a machine.
And moreover many self-revolving machines are to be met with, but their motion is procured by a trick. They are not connected with the subject under discussion. I have been induced to mention the construction of these, merely because they have been mentioned by former astronomers.
Siddhānta Siromaṇi, xi, 50-57, L. Wilkinson's translation,
revised by Bȧpu̇ deva S(h)ȧstri, Calcutta, 1861.