lected and condensed as including all the astronomical science of his time, there are two, the Romaka and the Pauliça, the names of which suggest directly—the first the scientific culture of the Roman world, and the other Paulus, a celebrated Alexandrian astronomer of the third century A.D.[1]
We apparently find, likewise, the names of Manetho (fourth century A.D.) in Manittha or Manimda; of Spensippus in Sporedjivadja; and of Ptolemy in Asoura Maya, whom the Sounya Siddhânta designates as the founder of astronomy, and who another treatise says was born at Romakapouri, "the city of the Romans."
In this order of ideas the natives of India have never tried to deny their sources. The Gavanas, we read in the Gargi Samhitâ, are barbarians; but this science (astrology) has been constituted by them, and they must be revered as saints. M. Weber affirms that a treatise on astrology bearing their name, the Gavana Castra, was reputed to have been written in the land of the Gavanas by the god Sourya in person, when, expelled from heaven by the resentment of his divine rivals, he came down and was born again in the city of the Romans.[2]
We find, further, that the Greek calendar appears to have survived Hellenic domination in northern India. General Cunningham, in 1862, read in the inscriptions of the Indo-Scythians the names of the Macedonian months Artemisios and Appellaios. Since then the names of two other months of that calendar—Panemos and Daisios—have been found in inscriptions in the Kharosthis character.
Another era of Grecian origin, that of the Seleucidæ, seems likewise to have furnished the Hindus their first historical computation.[3] It should be observed, in fact, that their most ancient era, that of the Mauryas, dates from the year 312 B.C., or the beginning of the era of the Seleucidæ. This had been adopted by the Grecian sovereigns of India, as is attested by a coin of Plato, struck in the year 166 B.C.
Beginning with the Indo-Scythians, India generally adopted the era of the Cakas, which began, not, as had been long supposed, with the expulsion of the Scythians, but with the coronation of their prin-
- ↑ The Romaka Siddânta employs, as a measure of time, the Guga of 2,850 years or 1,040,953 days, giving a tropical year of 365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes, and 12 seconds, which is exactly the figure proposed by Ptolemy and Hipparchus.—Burgess, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
- ↑ The term Romakapouri does not necessarily imply the city of Rome; the name was probably extended to Alexandria and perhaps also to Byzantium. In other writings we find the name Gavanapouri, the city of the Greeks (or Ionians), applied to Alexandria.
- ↑ Till then, the Hindus hardly seem to have sought for a common measure of time except for astronomical or mythological purposes.
