called the Indian arithmetic the "sandgrain calcu lus." Eighteen centuries ago at least, the Hindus had elaborate systems of arithmetical mnemonics, based on numerical values attached to letters of the alphabet. "They reached a stage of algebraic science," says Weber, "which was not arrived at in Europe till the close of the last century; and, if their writings had been known a century earlier, they would certainly have created a new epoch."2 Aryabhatta, their greatest astronomer and mathematician, in the fourth century determined. very closely the relation of the diameter of a circle to the circumference, and applied it to the measurement of the earth. They invented methods also for solving equations of a high degree. In the time of Alexander they had geographical charts; and their physicians were skilful enough to win the admiration of the Greeks. Their investigations in medicine have been of respectable amount and value, lending much aid to the Arabians, the fathers of European medical science, especially in the study of the qualities of minerals and plants. In much of their astronomy they anticipated the Arabians; their old Siddhântas, or systematic treatises on the subject, indicating a long period of previous familiarity with scientific problems. And in such honor did they hold this science that they ascribed its origin to Brahma. They made Sarasvati, their goddess of numbers, the parent of nearly a hundred children, who were at once musical modes and celestial cycles.5 They gave names to the great constellations, and noted the motions of heavenly bodies three thousand 1 Lassen, II. 1140. 2 Lecture on India. Lassen, II. 1138-1146. 4 Weber, Vorlesungen, p. 238. years ago. The Greeks appear to have derived much aid from their observations of eclipses, as well as to have been in some astronomical matters their teachers. Lassen mentions the names of thirteen astronomers distinguished in their annals. A Siddhânta declares that the earth is round, and stands unsupported in space. The myth of successive foundations, such as the elephant under the tortoise, is rejected for good and sufficient reasons in one of these works, as involving the absurdity of an endless series. "If the last term of the series is supposed to remain firm by its inherent power, why may not the same power be supposed to reside in the first, that is in the earth itself?" 1 Aryabhatta appears to have reached by independent observations the knowledge of the earth's movement on its axis; 2 and to have availed himself of the science of his time in calculating the precession of the equinoxes and the length of the orbital times of planets.3 Especially attractive to Hindu genius were Grammar and Philosophy. They alone among nations Grammar. have paid honors to grammarians, holding them for divine souls, and crowning them with mythical glories. Panini in the fourth century B. C. actually composed four thousand sutras, or sections, in eight books, of grammatical science, in which an adequate terminology may be found for all the phenomena of speech.1 1 Siddhanta Siromani, quoted by Muir, IV. 97. * Colebrooke (Essay II.) quotes his words: "The starry firmament is fixed: it is the earth which, continually revolving, produces the rising and setting of the constellations." 3 See Lassen, II. 1143-1146. Also, Craufurd, Ancient and Modern India, ch. viii. The views of Lassen and Weber as to the origin and age of Hindu astronomy are criticised by Whitney, whose opinions are entitled to very high respect. These criticisms, however, do not affect the substance of what is here stated. 4 Lassen, II. 479. His works have been the centre of an immense literature of commentation, surpassed in this respect by the Vedas alone. No people of antiquity investigated so fully the laws of euphony, of the composition and derivation of words. "It is only in our own century, and incited by them," says Weber, "that our Bopp, Humboldt, and Grimm have advanced far beyond them." The Hindu Grammar is the oldest in the world. The Nirukta of Yâska belongs probably to the seventh century B.C., and quotes older writings on the same subject.2 In whatsoever concerns the study of words and forms of thought, the Hindus have always been at home; anticipating the Greeks, and accomplishing more at the outset of their career than the Semitic race did in two thousand years. Yet not more than the Semites are they inclined to pure history. There are, it should seem, no History. reliable Hindu annalists. The only sources of important historical information are the records of royal endowments and public works preserved in the temples, and the inscriptions on monuments and on coins, fortunately discovered in large numbers, and covering many periods otherwise wholly unknown. The scattered Brahmanical Chronicles of several kingdoms are but dynastic lists and meagre allusions. The Buddhists, on the other hand, have made a really serious study of history, though even they have not had enough of the critical faculty to distinguish fact from legend. is only by careful study, and comparison with Greek, Chinese, and other testimony, that their voluminous records can be made to yield the very great wealth of historical truth they really contain. There are in fact 1 Lecture on India (Berlin, 1854), p. 28. 2 Renan, Langues Sémitiques, 365. It only two general histories of India from native sources; one quite recent, and the other dating from the fourteenth century. A most valuable Indian chronicle is, however, the Buddhist Mahâvanśa, which gives a more complete and trustworthy account of Ceylon, reaching from the earliest times down to the last century, than we possess of any other Oriental State except China.1 For determining chronology, there are as yet few landmarks; both Brahmans and Buddhists making free use of sacred and mystic numbers, with whose multiples they strive to express a haunting sense of interminable space and time. But though the mythology of the latter deals in extravagances beyond all parallel, they far surpass the Brahmans in serious historical purpose, in observation of human affairs, and in the taste for recording actual events.2 Their earliest Sutras are of great value in the investigation of an epoch of which we have scarcely any other record. This superiority as chroniclers is due in part to their freedom from caste; a system whose theoretic immobility and practical lack of motive, either for the backward or the forward look, forbid the growth of a historic sense. They differ from the Brahmans also in a deeper interest in the human for its own sake. A philosophy which wholly absorbs man in Deity cannot allow that independent value to the details of life, the recognition of which is an indispensable condition of historical study. How to escape the flow of transient events, and know only the Eternal One, was the Brahmanical problem; and it would seem quite incompatible with even observing the details of posi 1 Lassen, II. 13, 16. Of the services of Buddhist literature to the geographical and historical study of India, see a just recognition in St. Martin's Géographie du Veda (Introd.), Paris, 1860. tive fact, not to speak of tracing the chain of finite causes and effects. It is only remarkable that the Brahmans should have shown any capacity whatever in this direction. Especial notice is therefore due to the opinion of a thoroughly competent scholar that they have not indulged in conscious invention, and the falsification of facts, to such extent as would justify European writers in casting stones at them on this account.1 The historic sense is indeed by no means wanting, at least in certain directions. We are told that, in every village of the Panjâb, the bard, who fills in India the place which in Europe is taken by the "Herald's Office," can give the name of every proprietor who has held land therein since its foundation, many hundreds of years ago, and that the correctness of these records is capable of demonstration.2 would, in fact, be far from becoming, in the present state of Sanskrit studies, to deny that the Hindus have ever written genuine history. The destructive effect of the climate of India on written documents is of itself a discouragement to literary pursuits, and to the preservation of records. Force of the It Yet we cannot overlook their natural propensity to reluct at limitation by positive facts, and to the contempla- objective authority of details. This was not tive element. owing, as in a great degree with the Semites, to intensity of passion and the worship of autocratic caprice, but to a stronger attraction towards pure thought. Whatever they may have accomplished in astronomy and medicine, an ideal generalization was always easier to them than observation. 1 Lassen, II. 7. * Griffin's Rajahs of the Panjâb, p. 494. The |