FREDA BEDI CONT'D (#4)

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Saint Paul's College, Goa
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/19/24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pau ... llege,_Goa


Gate of the St. Paul's College (only vestige)

St. Paul's College was a Jesuit school, and later college, founded circa 1542 by saint Francis Xavier, at Old Goa. It was once the main Jesuit institution in the whole of Asia. It housed the first printing press in India, having published the first books in 1556.[1] The original building, however, was abandoned progressively after the outbreak of plague in 1578, and went into disuse as the college moved to new building known as the New College of Saint Paul.[2] It is an ASI protected Monument of National Importance in Goa.

The ruins were demolished in 1832. The only vestige of the original college and of the collegiate church consecrated on 25 January 1543 is the Gate of the College of St. Paul, that can be seen south of St. Cajetan's church. The arch with a niche at the top and a cross crowning it, is built of laterite and flanked by basalt columns. The legacy of St. Paul's College endures until today in the Rachol Seminary.[3]

History

In 1542 the first Jesuits arrived at India headed by Francis Xavier, co-founder of the new Society of Jesus. They were sent by King John III of Portugal to help on religious issues in the Portuguese Empire, under the Padroado agreement. In Goa, then capital of Portuguese India they established, at first temporarily, in the Seminary of the Holy Faith (Santa Fé) started by Miguel Vaz and Franciscan friar Diogo de Borba, under the patronage of governor Estevão da Gama in 1541.[4] Soon they renamed it "St. Paul's College" as it became the Jesuit' headquarters in Asia. The college had classes in grammar, rhetoric, and lectures on classical authors. It had also a school for 450 local students, teaching reading and writing, and an hospital. On 10 March 1554 the college got a grant from king John III of Portugal entitling it to the rents of the temples in Goa and nearby islands. It was also entitled to the gifts from local chiefs to the king.

The French traveler François Pyrard de Laval, who visited Goa c.1608, described the College of St Paul, praising the variety of the subjects taught there free of charge. Like many other European travelers who visited the College, he recorded that at this time it had 3000 students, from all the missions of Asia. Its Library was one of the biggest in Asia, and the first Printing Press was mounted there.

The first printing press


Title page of Garcia da Orta's Colóquios. Goa, 1563.

The art of printing first entered India through St. Paul's College in Goa. In a letter to St. Ignatius of Loyola, dated 30 April 1556, Father Gasper Caleza speaks of a ship carrying a printing press, setting sail from Portugal to Abyssinia (current-day Ethiopia) via Goa, with the purpose of helping missionary work. Circumstances prevented this printing press from leaving India, and consequently, printing operations began in Goa in 1556, established at the Jesuit College of St Paul in Old Goa.[5]

That year, D. João Nunes Barreto, who had been appointed Patriarch of Abyssinia, and his coadjutor Belchior Leitão[6] stood residing in Goa, offering his episcopal services till the appointment of the first Archbishop of Goa, D. Gaspar de Leão Pereira in 1560. He introduced the printing press to Goa. The individual responsible for the initiation of printing in India was João de Bustamante. Bustamante, an expert printer sent accompanying the printing press, along with his Indian assistant set up the new press and began to operate it. Among others, four books are known to have been printed by Bustamante: The first book published that year was called Conclusiones Philosophicas. A year later, the printing press published its second book, Catecismo da Doutrina Christã, five years after the death of its author, St. Francis Xavier. This was followed by the printing of Garcia da Orta’s Colóquios dos simples e drogas he cousas medicinais da Índia on 10 April 1563 by João de Endem. In 1568, the first illustrated cover page (the illustration being done with the relief technique of woodblock) was printed in Goa for the book Constituciones do Arcebispado de Goa. The earliest, surviving printed book in India is the Compendio Spiritual da Vide Christaa (Spiritual Compendium of the Christian life) of Gaspar Jorge de Leão Pereira, the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa.

Notable alumni
• Blessed Miguel de Carvalho (1579–1624), Jesuit priest, and Martyr of Japan
• Saint Joseph Vaz (1651–1711), Oratorian priest and 'Apostle of Ceylon'.

See also

• Printing in Goa
• Printing in Tamil language
• Francis Xavier
• Henrique Henriques
• St. Paul's College, Macao
• List of Jesuit sites

References

1. p.115, O'Malley, J W 1993, 'The First Jesuits', Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2. José Nicolau da Fonseca, An historical and archaeological sketch of the city of Goa: preceded by a short statistical account of the territory of Goa
3. Cosme Jose Costa sfx (2006). "St Paul's College & Rachol Seminary". Archdiocese of Goa and Daman. Archived from the original on September 15, 2013. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
4. Borges, pp.20–21
5. Manohararāya Saradesāya, A history of Konkani literature: from 1500 to 1992, Sahitya Akademi, 2000, ISBN 81-7201-664-6
6. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Melchior Carneiro". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Further reading

• Charles J. Borges, The economics of the Goa Jesuits, 1542–1759: an explanation of their rise and fall, Concept Publishing Company, 1994, ISBN 81-7022-505-1

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Rachol Seminary
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/19/24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachol_Seminary

It is interesting to examine why types of the local language of Goa (Marathi) were not prepared at this stage. Fr. G. C. Rodeles writes that Gonsalves did actually think of preparing "Canarese" types, but did not pursue the idea on account of the clumsy shapes of the characters, the irregularity of pronunciation and the limited area in which the language was spoken. 31 [Rodeles, op. cit., p. 161.] In a recent article Fr. Schurhammer points out that Gonsalves had actually started preparing types of the Devanagarii script. He writes: —

"By the end of the year 1577 there were cast about 50 letters in the Devanagari script, but brother Joao Gonsalves who prepared them died in the following year, and his companion Fr. Joao de Faria also having expired in the year 1582, there was none who was able to undertake the work. For this reason the Puranna was printed in Latin characters in the College of Rachol in the years 1616 and 1649 and in the College of St. Paul in the year 1654." 32 [Georg Schurhammer, " Uma obra rarissima impressa em Goa no ano 1588," Boletim do Institute Vasco da Gama, No. 73-1956, p. 8.]...

Such information as is available about the literature known to have been printed in Goa during the 17th Century, is given below: —

(i) 1616. Thomas Stephens. Discurso sobre a vinda de Jusu Christo Nosso Salvador ao Mundo (Discourse on the Coming of the Christ to the World). (No extant copy recorded).

This is the famous Purana by Fr. Stephens which is written in literary Marathi. The next two editions of this work were printed in 1649 and 1654. But none of these have survived to our day. The text of the fourth edition, printed in 1907 at Mangalore, 45 [Thomas Stephens, The Christian Puranna (Edited by J. L. Saldanha) Manglaore 1907.] was prepared from some manuscripts.

(ii) 1622. Thomas Stephens. Doutrina Christam. This work on Christian Doctrine in the form of a dialogue is written in the dialect spoken by Goa Brahmins. This was written by the author before the Purana, but was published after the Purana. A copy is available in the Government Library in Lisbon and another in the library of the Vatican in Rome. A facsimile edition prepared by Dr. Mariano Saldanha was published by the Portuguese Government in Lisbon in 1945.

(iii) 1632. Diogo Ribeiro. Declaracam da Dovtrina Christam. (A statement of the Christian Doctrine) This was written in the Brahmin dialect of Goa. A copy is available in the Government library in Lisbon.

All the three works mentioned above were printed at the Rachol College.

-- The Printing Press in India: It's Beginnings and Early Development Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Advent of Printing in India (In 1556)
by Anant Kakba Priolkar, Director, Marathi Samshodhana Mandala, Bombay.

The legacy of St. Paul's College endures until today in the Rachol Seminary.

-- Saint Paul's College, Goa, by Wikipedia

Rachol Seminary


Façade of the seminary, 2005

Motto: Luceas sicut luminare
Type: Major Seminary
Established: 1609; 415 years ago
Rector: Rev. Fr. Donato Rodrigues
Students: 42
Location: Rachol, Goa, India
15°18′36″N 74°0′5″E
Campus: Urban
Website: racholseminarygoa.org

The Rachol Seminary, also known as Patriarchal Seminary of Rachol, is the diocesan major seminary of the Primatial Catholic Archdiocese of Goa and Daman in Rachol, Goa, India.

Historical outline

The edifice that presently houses the seminary was constructed by the Jesuits with donations from the boy-king of Portugal, Dom Sebastião, in the area occupied originally by a Muslim fortress.


The coat of arms of the King of Portugal at the entrance of the Seminary

The foundation stone for the main quadrangular portion was blessed and laid on 1 November 1606 by Fr. Gaspar Soares. Three years later, on 31 October 1609, with the solemn celebration of the Vespers, the “College of All Saints” (Colégio de Todos os Santos) was blessed and inaugurated.[1] Somewhere between 1622 and 1640, the name of the college was changed to "College of St. Ignatius" (Colégio de S. Inácio). The change was to pay homage to St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, who had been canonized in 1622. The retable of the main altar of the Seminary Church testifies to this fact. The Seminary community still celebrates the feast of St. Ignatius, the titular of the Seminary Church, with a solemn high mass with Gregorian chant.


The Pipe organ on the choir loft of the Seminary Church

This festivity is preceded by a novena of preparation for the locals around and a week-long Retreat (Spiritual Exercises) for the seminarians. The Seminary also possesses a 19th-century Pipeorgan, that is played during liturgical services.

The Jesuits controlled the college for a century and a half. Having begun as a school for the training of natives, it gradually adopted the curriculum for training Jesuits and later even secular priests from 1646.

In 1759, the Prime Minister of Portugal, Marquis de Pombal expelled the Jesuits from Goa. Their institutions and properties were confiscated by the state and the college was shut down.[2] Three years later, in 1762, Archbishop-Primate Dom António Taveira da Neiva Brum e Silveira converted the abandoned College into the "Diocesan Seminary of the Good Shepherd" (Seminário do Bom Pastor) and placed it under the protection of the Infant Jesus. He entrusted to the native Oratorian Congregation of St. Philip Neri the work of priestly training. This was the first diocesan seminary erected in Asia, after the order passed by the Council of Trent (1563–1578) that all those desiring to dedicate themselves to the ecclesiastical ministry as diocesan (secular) clergy should pass through formation in a seminary. The retable of the altar of the internal Chapel of the seminary bears a picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. The Church, however, continued under the invocation of St. Ignatius of Loyola. In 1774, the ruling Royal Treasury Junta of Goa abruptly suppressed the seminary on the pretext that certain conditions were not being fulfilled, the real reason being economic.[3] In 1781, owing to a petition by the people of Salcete and the Municipality of Margao, the Court of Portugal ordered the seminary to be restored. The Municipality of Salcete financed the required repairs for the building. The college was thus reopened, and its management was entrusted to the Congregation of the Mission, popularly called Vincentians or Lazarists. At first, two Vincentian priests from the Convent of Rilhafolles, Portugal, were deputed at the instance of Queen Dona Maria I of Portugal. The seminary was also condecorated with the title of "Royal Seminary of Rachol" (Real Seminário de Rachol). Later, Vincentians from Italy also came to help in the administration of the seminary, bringing with them sacred relics and a vial containing the blood of a Roman saint and martyr, St. Constantius. These relics are preserved in the seminary Church even today. The seminary operated until 1790, when it was closed down for three years, after the Vincentians left the seminary. In 1793, the Oratorians were again deputed to run the diocesan seminary. They continued their work for about forty-two years.

Bad days dawned once again for the seminary, when in 1835 all religious institutes were extinguished in Portugal and in all its possessions. Consequently, the Seminary was run by the diocesan clergy[4] and came to be simply known as Seminário de Rachol.

In 1886, the Archbishop of Goa and Daman was bestowed the honorific title of Patriarch of the East Indies. Since then the seminary is known as the "Patriarchal Seminary of Rachol".

Curriculum of the seminary

The curriculum of priestly formation began at a rudimentary level and gradually grew in subject matter. Archbishop-Primate Dom João Crisóstomo de Amorim Pessoa (1862–1874) and Archbishop-Patriarch Dom António Sebastião Valente (1882–1908) were the two Prelates who, in their own times, conducted an overhauling of the studies: Preparatory Course, Philosophy Course and Theology Course. Dom Valente made a few additions to the main edifice, such as a new wing with forty rooms, a library, a dormitory for the novices, an infirmary and a Chapel. This Prelate, who had the formation of seminarians very close to his heart, presented a new and updated Regulamento for the life in the seminary. The standard of studies in the seminary acquired such a height that Pope Leo XIII, acceding to Archbishop-Patriarch Valente's exposition and request, by his Apostolic letter Quum Venerabilis Frater, granted the Seminary the faculty of bestowing the academic degree of "Bachelor in Divinity". The requirements, as extant in the Apostolic Letter, were very strict. The Apostolic Letter, having obtained the royal pleasure (beneplacitum regium), was executed in Goa only in 1894. Since then up to 1931, when the faculty stood abolished by virtue of the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XI Deus Scientiarum Dominus, thirty-five priests were conferred the said degree.

During the tenure of Archbishop-Primate Manuel de S. Galdino (1812–1831), an additional preparatory course was established at Mapusa (North of Goa). To accommodate increasing number of Theology students, Archbishop-Patriarch Valente built a two-storey new wing between 1890 and 1894. The first floor contained forty single rooms and a dormitory and study hall for beginners, while the second floor contained a library hall. Other students, called externos, were housed in rented cottages (comensalidades) under a Prefect of Discipline, from which they would commute to the Seminary for Mass and classes. With the setting up of the minor seminary of the Archdiocese at Saligão-Pilerne, from 1952 the additional Preparatory Course at Mapusa as well as the comensalidades at the Rachol Seminary ceased to exist. In 2002, a new Academic Block with some rooms, lecture halls and a spacious Auditorium over it was constructed.

At present the Seminary holds a three-year Philosophy Course, with concomitant graduation from the “Indira Gandhi National Open University”, Delhi (IGNOU). This is followed by a year of pastoral praxis in the parishes/institutions of the Archdiocese. The final phase is the four-year Theology Course. At the end of the Fourth Year of Theology, the students are ordained deacons. After further formation at the Pastoral Institute, and after exercising diaconal pastoral ministry in the parishes, they receive priestly ordination.

The Seminary of Rachol, with its motto LUCEAS SICUT LUMINARE, faithfully imparts holistic Catholic priestly formation to the aspiring candidates. Formation at the Seminary embraces the human, spiritual, academic and pastoral levels. Besides, there are several programmes organized on a regular basis in order to keep the young seminarians abreast with the realities of life and the needs of the Church. Institutions within the seminary, like the Literary and Cultural Association, the Catechetical Association, the Cell for Vocation Promotion, the St. Joseph's Outreach to aid the less fortunate, the Sports Association, etc. help the seminarians to put together their skills and cooperate with one another in various ventures. The choral society, established by Archbishop Valente, in 1897, known today as Coro de Santa Cecilia (Santa Cecilia Choir) provides the young students a rare opportunity to further their musical and choral talents for the glory of God.


The cloister (courtyard) of the Seminary

The seminarians are also shown how to love nature by active involvement in the agricultural activity of the seminary (paddy fields, vegetable gardens, fruit plants, flower gardens). Besides, the seminarians also visit prisons, slums, orphans, hospitals, senior citizens' homes, broken families and are involved in building Small Christian Communities in the vicinity of the parish of Rachol.

Multi-faceted service

This college has served the Church and humanity in varied ways. It was originally planned as a college for the education of the natives. It functioned as a Catechetical School for the training of catechumens, a hospital, an orphanage, a Primary School (in Portuguese), a Konkani School for the missionaries who came from Europe, a School of Catholic morality, before being finally erected into a seminary.

Since 1762, after the closure of the seminaries at Old Goa and Chorão Seminary, Rachol Seminary has produced many priests. Ecclesiastics have spread the Gospel to several parts of the world, including Mozambique, Angola, Cabo Verde, Kenya, Tanzania, Venezuela, Canada, Sri-Lanka, Pakistan, Burma, and Japan. Missionaries from this Seminary have also been pioneers in establishing various local Churches in the different states of India. Several students of Rachol have been elevated to the episcopate. The group of priests who got together in 1888 to form the well known Indian-born “Society of the Missionaries of St. Francis Xavier”(Pilar Fathers), as well as those priests who revived the Society in 1930, themselves studied at the Rachol Seminary.

Rachol Seminary also had the distinction of housing a printing press, the third one in Goa. It functioned for almost sixty years in the college in the 17th century. It brought forth sixteen books, the chief ones among them being the Krista Purana, a Konkani-Marathi discourse in verse of the history of salvation, written in the style of the Hindu Puranas; Doutrina Christam em Lingoa Bramana Canarim, a catechism in Konkani and Arte da lingoa Canarim, the first printed Konkani grammar. With the closure of the printing press at the college, the printing activity in Goa ceased, to reappear only in 1821, when the government of Goa imported a printing press from Bombay in order to publish the official weekly “Gazeta de Goa.” The corridors and walls of the Seminary are adorned with many valuable and rare frescos and paintings, many of which have suffered the ravages of time. Among these works of art, the paintings (copies) of the celebrated Goan artist Angelo da Fonseca, student of Rabindranath Tagore and pioneer in Indian Christian art, are worth mentioning.

Rachol has also produced historians, writers, grammarians, scientists, scholars, pastors, parliamentarians and university professors. Among the latter we can single out the saintly and very popular Ven. Fr. Agnelo Gustavo Adolfo de Souza, sfx, (Padr Agnel) who underwent his priestly formation and was ordained at the Rachol Seminary. He later joined the Society of St. Francis Xavier (Pilar Society), and spent the last 10 years of his life as Confessor and Spiritual Director of the seminarians at Rachol. Fr. Thomas Stephens (Konkani and Marathi writer), Francisco de Souza (author of Oriente Conquistado), Msgr. Rudolfo Sebastião Dalgado (Konkani writer and scholar, known as the God-father of the Konkani language), Fr. Antonio Francisco Souza (Science writer and thinker) are some of the well-known personalities associated with Rachol Seminary, either as staff or students. Swami Vivekananda is said to have made several trips to the seminary, from Margao, where he had put up during his visit to Goa in 1892. He consulted the library at Rachol and discussed Christian theology and spirituality with the Professors of the seminary. This visit of Vivekananda to Rachol was in preparation for his famous address at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago (11 to 27 September 1893), where Vivekananda represented India and Hinduism.

IV Centenary Jubilee Celebrations


The Santa Cecilia Choir in Concert (at Bom Jesus Basilica) at the closing of the IV Centenary Jubilee celebrations

On 1 November 2010, the Archbishop-Patriarch of Goa and Daman, Most. Rev. Filipe Neri Ferrão opened the IV centenary Jubilee celebrations with a solemn high mass. A series of programs were organized all through the year. Some of the main events were: a spiritual Retreat; an Essay Competition for seminarians all over India; a 4-day long International Seminar convened by Dr. Victor Ferrão on Science and Religion focusing on "Catholicity in the World of Science"; Bible sessions for the laity; lenten Retreat for the neighbouring faithful; Seminars for Catechists of the surrounding parishes; a Konkani Seminar Amchem Daiz on the contribution of Rachol to Konkani literature; a Konkani play Panz, by the noted Konkani writer Pundalik Naik; an English operetta Be the Moon, libreto by Fr. Simião Fernandes and music by Fr. Romeo Monteiro, on the heroic life of the saintly Goan priest and Apostle of Sri Lanka Joseph Vaz (canonised by Pope Francis in 2015); and an all-Goa level Football Tournament for Altar Boys. A grand Concert of Sacred Music, featuring 150 musicians and singers, presented by the Santa Cecilia Choir of the Seminary with the involvement of ex-students and laity and conducted by Rev. Romeo Monteiro, Professor of Music at the Seminary, on 11 April 2011, brought the curtains down on the jubilee celebrations. The chorus of Te Deum laudamus, sung by those gathered in the Basilica of Bom Jesus, Old Goa, was executed as finale of thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity for the 400 years of service that Rachol has rendered to the Church in Goa and to humanity at large.

See also

• Chorão Seminary

References

1. Amaro Pinto Lobo, Memoria Historico-Eclesiastica da Arquidiocese de Goa em commemoracao do quadricentenario da sua ereccao Canonica, 1533-1933, Tip."A Voz de S.Francisco Xavier",Nova Goa, 1933, pg. 275
2. Carlos Merces de Melo, The Recruitment and formation of the Native Clergy in India, 16th to 19th century: An historico-canonical study - Agencia Geral do Ultramar, Lisboa, 1955, pg. 181ff.
3. "St. Paul's College, Rachol Seminary". Archdiocese of Goa and Daman. 2017. Archived from the original on September 15, 2013. Retrieved April 27, 2017.
4. Amaro Pinto Lobo, Memoria Historico-Eclesiastica da Arquidiocese de Goa em commemoracao do quadricentenario da sua ereccao Canonica, 1533-1933, Tip."A Voz de S.Francisco Xavier".

External links

• Media related to Rachol Seminary at Wikimedia Commons

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The SOAS language student who was a Soviet spy
by Brian Evans [SOAS: A Celebration in Many Voices, 2007]
[Katie Price, SOAS Centenary Timeline https://blogs.soas.ac.uk/centenarytimel ... oviet-spy/]
December 10, 2015

-- To Lhasa in Disguise: An Account of a Secret Expedition Through Mysterious Tibet, by William Montgomery McGovern, Ph.D. (OXON.), Formerly Lecturer in Chinese and Japanese, School of Oriental Studies, Univ. of London, 1924

-- SOAS’ incognito academic [Dr William Montgomery McGovern] inspires world’s most famous fictional archaeologist, by SOAS University of London

Two years ago, I warned that MI6, the British intelligence agency, might be using graduates from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in Turkey....

-- The second SOAS scandal: Graduates of the University of Texas, by fikrikadim.com, March 8, 2024

1990 Commemorative Stamp depicting Soviet intelligence officer Konon Molody

Nearly 55 years after it happened, SOAS alumnus Brian Evans, a former Canadian diplomat and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta, recalls the discovery that fellow language student Gordon Lonsdale was actually Soviet intelligence officer Konon Molody.

I entered SOAS in early October 1954, a raw young man from the Canadian Prairies. New to London, it took me several tours of Russell Square that foggy morning before a break in the mist revealed Senate House and I was able to make my way to the School. I had come to study the history of China, but because I did not have a classical language – essential for entry – I opted to study Chinese, a logical choice.

In 1954 the academic staff at SOAS outnumbered the registered students, most of whom could sit around the huge round table in the student common room. My Chinese language class was much larger than the five of us full-time students in attendance. It was supplemented by members of the Foreign and Colonial Offices, the RAF, the British Army and the Royal Navy. The course, three or so hours each morning, was taught by a tag team of instructors each with his or her own method, style and Romanization. I was seated near the back, next to Ralph Evans, who went on to achieve fame as British ambassador in Beijing and negotiator of the agreement on Hong Kong. He was known as ‘Evans, FO’ and I was called ‘the other Evans’.

I was introduced to Chinese history by Otto Van Der Sprenkel, a Dutchman who wore large, broad-brimmed hats. He was inordinately fond of the Marx Brothers, and in the lunch hour he could be seen heading for a restaurant with a crocodile of students in tow to whom he recited Groucho’s witticisms in Chinese. One of his favourites was ‘Shangdi ai yi ge yatz!’ (Lord love a duck!)

I have fond memories of fellow students and of the academic staff at SOAS. We all drew closer together during the Suez Crisis, united against the Anglo-French action. In particular, I benefited from the teachings of W.G. Beasley, Dennis Twitchett, Michael Loewe, A.C. Graham and Jack Gray. And, of course, Cyril Birch, who later went on to Berkeley, California.

January 1961 marked the beginning of my last months at SOAS. I was writing my thesis at home in an attic flat in Muswell Hill and came in only now and then for mail and lunch with friends. One morning, late in January, I found a letter in the open boxes in the Common Room where most of us foreign students received our mail. It was marked ‘STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL’. On opening it, I found another envelope marked ‘PERSONAL, CONFIDENTIAL’. Inside was a typed note asking me to call a certain number because it was believed that I had some information of interest to Her Majesty’s Government. I went to a phone box on the corner of Russell Square, pushed Button A and shortly thereafter made my way to a nondescript building on the Thames side of Whitehall. There, I was seated facing a bright window, while my questioner, just a silhouette across the desk in front of me, paced back and forth. He wanted to know what I knew of Gordon Arnold Lonsdale, who had been arrested earlier that month outside Waterloo Station with a shopping bag full of microfilm showing details of the Britain nuclear submarine programme.

Gordon had been a language student at SOAS, a member of one of those mixed classes of Foreign and Colonial Office and armed service personnel, and I had been introduced to him when he first arrived because he was a fellow Canadian. When I had asked him where he was from, he said Edmonton. I said that that was a coincidence because that was where I was from, and I asked him what he had done there. He replied that he had been a used-car salesman, and he mentioned the name of a dealership that did not ring a bell with me. Subsequently, he cut me dead and avoided any conversation. He didn’t even offer me, as he did others, a partnership in his business scheme: looking after drink and cigarette machines on the US Air Force base at West Drayton. His classmates told of the wonderful parties he threw but noted that, although he frequently missed classes, due, he said, to eye problems, he was always on top of his studies. That was about all I could tell the man from MI5, before he told me the real story: how Gordon was not Canadian at all, he had never been to Edmonton (at last I knew why he snubbed me), he had collected his name from a child’s tombstone in an Ontario graveyard, and an obliging Ottawa office had issued him with a new Canadian passport. His trips to West Drayton were to meet his informant.

Gordon, a Soviet intelligence officer whose real name was Konon Trofimovich Molody, went to trial in May and was sentenced to 25 years as the biggest catch yet in the Cold War, later being swapped for Greville Wynne. He wrote his memoirs and mentioned his time at SOAS. He died picking mushrooms in some wood in Russia or Poland, a story that was confirmed to me in later years by a friend of his who became a friend of mine. Later, so I understand, my MI5 interrogator settled in Australia and wrote a book indicating that he had been a Soviet spy as well!

I received my PhD in May, shortly after Gordon was sentenced.

Brian Evans is a respected scholar of East Asian Studies and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta who has worked to foster greater understanding among the world’s peoples. His passion for China studies has benefited generations of students and his commitment to service has benefitted many community organizations. He is a Member of the Order of Canada.

This is an extract from an interview originally featured in the book SOAS: A Celebration in Many Voices, first published in 2007 by Third Millennium Publishing Limited. The full text is on the Alumni pages of the SOAS website. [dead link]

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William Montgomery McGovern
by Wikipedia
Accessed: July 20, 2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M ... y_McGovern

-- To Lhasa in Disguise: An Account of a Secret Expedition Through Mysterious Tibet, by William Montgomery McGovern, Ph.D. (OXON.), Formerly Lecturer in Chinese and Japanese, School of Oriental Studies, Univ. of London, 1924

-- SOAS’ incognito academic [Dr William Montgomery McGovern] inspires world’s most famous fictional archaeologist [Indiana Jones], by SOAS University of London

The cadre reserved the greatest disapproval for William McGovern, an American lecturer from the School of Oriental Studies in London. McGovern was a member of a self-titled 'British Buddhist Mission' which visited Gyantse in 1922, but which was refused permission to visit Lhasa. The India Office had warned Bailey that the Mission, although otherwise composed of Oxford University graduates, 'are a queer crowd... (who), ...clearly show the cloven hoof'.[60]

McGovern returned with his fellows to India, but then secretly made his way back through Tibet in disguise, reaching Lhasa on 15 February 1923. He revealed his presence to the Tibetan authorities, who expelled him from Lhasa six weeks later. His subsequent book, and newspaper articles, widely publicised in Britain, made a number of comments on British policy in Tibet. [61]

McGovern's worst 'crime' in the Tibet cadre's eyes was his statement that there was a pro-Chinese party in Lhasa. Any evidence suggesting the Tibetans, particularly in Lhasa, in any way favoured the Chinese rather than the British was always denigrated. In this instance, Bailey obtained the assistance of Arthur Hinks, the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, with the result that the journal of the society published as strong an attack on McGovern's reliability and reputation as was legally possible to make. The journal claimed that 'whatever little value the story [of McGovern's journey] might have possessed is discounted by Dr. McGovern's obvious predilection for sensational journalism'. His conduct, they claimed, had done 'great disservice to good relations with Tibet', while his 'boast' that Indian frontier police were punished for failing to prevent his visit meant McGovern 'stands self-condemned'. Future references to him by cadre officers were inevitably derogatory; two decades later Bell described McGovern's book as 'a thriller' and incorrectly alleged that his disguise had been penetrated. [62]

The Government of India's embarrassment over the McGovern affair was compounded by Tibetan protests that McGovern had not been punished. Delhi had decided that the available penalty was so small as to be not worth enforcing, as it would only give McGovern more publicity. This led the Tibetans to suspect McGovern's journey was not an illicit one, and provided ammunition for conservative elements in Tibet to oppose Europeans' right to travel in Tibet.[63]

In retrospect it is difficult to see that McGovern’s visit had any great effect on Anglo-Tibetan relations, and it is perhaps surprising that none of the cadre officers, no strangers to illicit journeys themselves, revealed any admiration for McGovern. It may be that the cadre felt their failure to intercept McGovern reflected badly on the controls exercised by their government, and hence harmed their own prestige within the system.[64]

-- Tibet and the British Raj, 1904-47: The Influence of the Indian Political Department Officers, by Alexander McKay

Map of Tibet showing Dr. McGovern's Route to Lhasa

1922-1923. -- British scientific expedition. -- Experience of Dr. McGovern in Lhasa. - Dr. William W. McGovern, the scientific adviser of a British research mission to tibet made a perilous and significant visit to Tibet in 1923 reaching the Forbidden City of Lhasa. In July, 1922, the expedition called the British Buddhist Mission, sailed for India and proceeded to Tibet after receiving permission from the Indian government to travel to Gyantse via Yatung. The Tibetan government, however, refused it permission to continue to Lhasa. McGovern was forced with the others to return to India to keep his word of honor to the government of India but he had studied the country closely in order to return secretly in disguise. He spoke Tibetan fluently. Leaving Darjeeling on Jan. 10, 1923, he made a hazardous journey disguised as a coolie, straight through Sikkim, entering Tibet near Kampa Dzong thence north through the heart of Tsang Province to Shigatse and the Brahmaputra river and on to Lhasa. He arrived in Lhasa about the middle of February in time for the Tibetan new Year's festivities, when, for twenty-one days the city government is turned over to a government of monks and the Dalai Lama and his cabinet have no control. The results of McGovern's unusual experience in the Forbidden city where he enjoyed the patronage of the Dalai Lama's favorite minister, Tsarong Shape, the strong man of Tibet (although he was compelled to become a prisoner of state to escape the fanaticism of the temporary priestly regime) were the securing of numerous priceless manuscripts and an extraordinary opportunity for observing the life and institutions of the country. Many of his impressions have been recorded in printed form and by the cinematograph camera secretly used. After six weeks stay in Lhasa McGovern was permitted to return to India under escort.

Also in: S. Hedin, Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and adventures in Tibet.

-- The New Larned History for Ready Reference, Reading and Research: The Actual Words of the World's Best Historians Biographers and Specialists, Volume 10, by Josephus Nelson Larned

William Montgomery McGovern in 1923
Born September 28, 1897, New York City, U.S.
Died December 12, 1964 (aged 67), Evanston, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation Professor; Archaeologist; Adventurer
Genre: Non-fiction
Notable works: Colloquial Japanese; To Lhasa in Disguise; Jungle Paths and Inca Ruins; From Luther to Hitler: The History of Fascist-Nazi Political Philosophy
Spouse: Margaret Montgomery

William Montgomery McGovern (September 28, 1897 – December 12, 1964) was an American adventurer, political scientist, Northwestern University professor, anthropologist and journalist. He was a possible inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones.[1][2]

By age 30, McGovern had explored the Amazon and braved uncharted regions of the Himalayas, survived revolution in Mexico, studied at Oxford University and the Sorbonne, and become a Buddhist priest in a Japanese monastery. He was also a lecturer, war correspondent and military strategist.

Biography

Early life

McGovern was born in Manhattan, New York, on September 28, 1897, the son of Janet Blair (née Montgomery) and Felix Daniel McGovern, an army officer.[3] Time reported that he began to travel at the age of six weeks, once visiting Mexico with his mother "just to see a revolution."[4]

His formative years were spent in Asia. McGovern graduated with the degree of soro, or Doctor of Divinity, from the Buddhist monastery of Nishi Honganji in Kyoto, Japan at age 20 before going on to study at the Sorbonne and University of Berlin. He received his D.Phil. from Christ Church, Oxford in 1922—working his way through school by teaching Chinese at SOAS, University of London.[5]

Exploration

Shortly after graduation he began his first great expedition, to the remote mountain kingdom of Tibet. In his book To Lhasa in Disguise, McGovern claims he had to sneak into the country disguised as a local porter. As Time reported in 1938:

With a few Tibetan servants, he climbed through the wild, snowy passes of the Himalayas. There, in the bitter cold, he stood naked while a companion covered his body with brown stain, squirted lemon juice into his blue eyes to darken them. Thus disguised as a coolie, he arrived in the Forbidden City without being detected, but disclosed himself to the civilian officials. A fanatical mob led by Buddhist monks stoned his house. Bill McGovern slipped out through a back door and joined the mob in throwing stones. The civil government took him into protective custody, finally sent him back to India with an escort.[4]

Another expedition to Peru and the Amazon would follow a few years later, resulting in another book, Jungle Paths and Inca Ruins.

Wartime activities

Second Sino-Japanese War

In 1937, McGovern was named Far East correspondent by the Chicago Times, arriving in Tokyo with Thomas C. Quackenboss, a family friend and former student of McGovern's at Northwestern, as war began with China. Both men set off for Manchukuo to cover the invasion, only to see Thomas C. Quackenboss thrown into jail for taking photos in the streets. They went on to spend long stints on the front.

World War II

When the United States joined what had become World War II, McGovern joined the United States Naval Reserve, serving from 1941 to 1945. At Guadalcanal, he operated behind enemy lines, using his knowledge of Japanese to taunt enemy soldiers and interrogate captives. In the closing days of the war he served in the European Theatre, crossing the Rhine with General Patton.[6]

His most important job was not martial in nature however. Throughout the war he would rise at 5:30 AM to prepare a top-secret newspaper on enemy capabilities and intentions. This paper was considered required breakfast reading for President Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs.[6]

Academic career

At age 30, McGovern became assistant curator of the anthropology department at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. Two years later, was appointed a professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, a position he would hold for the rest of his life. As Professor of Far Eastern Studies his classes were perpetually oversubscribed, given his eminence and popularity. His lectures were never dull and frequently peppered with anecdotes from his time in the far east, particularly in Tibet and Japan. He insisted that his pupils learn at least one or two kanji characters a week as he carefully illustrated them on a large chalkboard at the front of the lecture hall and explained their meanings as he drew them. His students considered themselves fortunate to have landed a spot in one of his classes. His son, William M. McGovern jr., followed him into academia teaching law at Northwestern University School of Law in the early 1960s.

Between his time as a war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese War and the entry of the United States into World War II, McGovern lectured on government at Harvard University. In 1941, he published From Luther to Hitler: The History of Fascist-Nazi Political Philosophy.[7] During the postwar years, McGovern lectured on military intelligence and strategy at the Naval, Air and Army War Colleges.

Reputed to speak 12 languages and deaf in one ear, McGovern was an academic celebrity known for outlandish foreign dress and holding court in Northwestern's University Club.

Death

McGovern died after a long illness in Evanston at age 67 on December 12, 1964.[8]

Descendants

McGovern married his second cousin, Margaret Montgomery, and with her had four children—three daughters and a son.

Actress Elizabeth McGovern is his granddaughter.[9] University of Washington mathematics professor William Monty McGovern is his grandson.

Works

• Modern Japan - its political, military, and industrial organisation, 1920
• An Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism, 1922
• A Manual of Buddhist Philosophy, vol. 1, 1923
• To Lhasa in disguise, a secret expedition through mysterious Tibet, 1924
• Jungle Paths and Inca Ruins - the record of an expedition, 1927
• The Early Empires of Central Asia, 1939
• McGovern, William Montgomery (1941-01-01). From Luther to Hitler: The History of Fascist-Nazi Political Philosophy (1st ed.). Houghton Mifflin.
• Radicals and conservatives, 1957
• Strategic intelligence and the shape of tomorrow, 1961

Criticism

McGovern's work on Asian history, in particular his interpretations of Chinese classical sources, was criticized by a reviewer in the journal American Anthropologist: "Dr. McGovern has converted this dry and perplexing source material into a racy and jocular chronicle where fact and fancy are so thoroughly mixed that a general reader could not possibly differentiate them. Furthermore, there are numerous generalizations and speculations not justified by the sources."[10] His book From Luther to Hitler was criticized by a reviewer in the American Political Science Review: "Failure to distinguish clearly between basic assumptions and the doctrines deduced from them enables [him] to suggest a degree of continuity which dissolves upon closer examination."[11]

References:

1. "Keeper of the Past". 1999-09-21. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
2. "Top 6 Real Life Inspirations of Indiana Jones". Hotel & Resort Insider. Archived from the original on July 12, 2011. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
3. "Jazz Makes Wild Indians Tame, Not Wilder, In Brazil". The Hartford Courant. 1926-07-08. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012.
4. "Traveling Man". Time Magazine. 1938-02-28. Archived from the original on August 26, 2010. Retrieved 2009-05-13.
5. WILLIAM MONTGOMERY McGOVERN (1897-1964) PAPERS, 1919-1967
6. "Man about the World". Time Magazine. 1946-04-22. Archived from the original on December 2, 2007. Retrieved 2009-05-13.
7. "Our Very Own Indiana Jones". 2010. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
8. "Notices". Time Magazine. 1964-12-25. Archived from the original on July 15, 2010. Retrieved 2009-05-13.
9. "Katharine Watts Is Future Bride Of Law Alumnus; Engaged to William M. McGovern Jr., Who Is Harvard Graduate". The New York Times. 1958-06-22.
10. Wilbur, C. Martin (1940), "Europe and Asia (review section)", American Anthropologist, 32 (1): 151–154, doi:10.1525/aa.1940.42.1.02a00190
11. Lewis, John D. (Oct 1941), "From Luther to Hitler (review)", American Political Science Review, 35 (5): 968–969, doi:10.2307/1948260, JSTOR 1948260
2024

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Ramram Basu [Boshu] [Boshoo]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/26/24

[William Carey (missionary)] " Yesterday Ram Boshu was here to revise his piece against Brahmans, in order to its being printed. It is very severe; but it must be so to make them feel ...." ...

In 1801 Carey was appointed as the Professor of Bengali and Sanskrit at the Fort William College of Calcutta....His new appointment induced him to turn his attention to printing books on non-religious subjects for the use of his students. In the following passage taken from a letter dated June 15, 1801, he refers to his new appointment as "a very important charge," and indicates how his duties in that connection made it necessary for him to set about preparing text-books for the use of his students: —

"You must know, then, that a college was founded, last year, in Fort William, for the instruction of the junior civil servants of the Company who are obliged to study in it three years after their arrival. ... to my great surprise, I was asked to undertake the Bengali professorship. When the appointment was made, I saw that I had a very important charge committed to me, and that I had no books or helps of any kind to assist me. I therefore set about compiling a grammar, which is now half printed. I got Ram Boshu to compose a history of one of their kings, the first prose book ever written in the Bengali language; which we are also printing...

I am appointed teacher of the Sunscrit language; and though no students have yet entered in that class, yet I must prepare for it. I am, therefore, writing a grammar of that language which I must also print, if I should be able to get through with it; and perhaps a dictionary which I began some years ago." 13 [Eustace Carey, op. cit., pp. 414-17.]

-- The Printing Press in India: It's Beginnings and Early Development Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Advent of Printing in India (In 1556), by Anant Kakba Priolkar

Ramram Basu (c. 1751 – 7 August 1813) (Bengali: রামরাম বসু) was born in Chinsurah, Hooghly District in present-day West Bengal state of India.[1] He was the great grandfather of Anushree Basu, notable early scholar and translator of the Bengali language (Bangla), and credited with writing the first original work of Bengali prose written by a Bengali.

Ramram Basu initially joined as the munshi (scribe) for William Chambers [1748-93], Persian interpreter at the Supreme Court in Kolkata.

William Chambers, 1748 — 1793.
by whowaswho-indology.info
Accessed: 7/26/24

British Colonial Official and a Pioneer of Indology. Son of Robert Ch. (d. 1749), an attorney in Newcastle, and Anne Metcalf, younger brother of Robert Ch. Educated in Newcastle. Went to India before 1774. Political servant of E.I.C., apparently first in Madras. In 1775-92 interpreter of the Supreme Court at Bengal (in the As. Misc. called judge). Member of A.S.B. [Asiatic Society of Bengal] from its foundation. He was married with Charity Fraser and had a son, William Frederic Ch. (1786-1855, a physician), born in India. A good Persian and Hindūstānī scholar, apparently also knew Telugu.

Publications: Ed. with Sir William Jones: The Asiatic Miscellany. Calcutta 1787, himself contributed two translations: “An account of embassies and letters that passed between the Emperor of China and Sultan Shahrokh, son of Amir Timur. Extracted from the Malta us Sadein of Abdur Rezak”, 100-125, and “A short account of the Marratta State. Written in Persian by a Munshy, who accompanied Colonel Upton on his Embassy to Poonah”, 127-133.

– “A short History of the Origin and Progress of the Marratta State. Extracted from the Khazanah e Aamerah”, The Asiatic Miscellany vol. 2, Calc. 1786, 87-122 (transl. with text and notes).

– “Some Account of the Sculptures and Ruins at Mavalipuram”, As. Res. 1, 1788, 8° reprint 1798, 145-170 (originally written in 1784).

Sources: Briefly in D.N.B. 10, 1887, under his brother. Not in Br. Biogr. Arch. 1st ser. – but several articles on his brother and son, both also in Wikipedia.
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk has the years of birth and death.

-- William Chambers, whowaswho-indology.info

Sir Robert Chambers (14 January 1737 – 9 May 1803 [brother to William Chambers] was an English jurist, Vinerian Professor of English Law, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal....

Chambers was the son of Robert Chambers, an attorney. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle and awarded an exhibition at Lincoln College, Oxford, in May 1754. Chambers was admitted to the Middle Temple in the same year, and was called to the bar in 1761. In that year, he was also appointed to a fellowship at University College, Oxford. On 7 May 1766 he was appointed Vinerian Professor of English Law at the University of Oxford, in succession to William Blackstone....

Chambers left no publications, though he did consolidate a valuable collection of Sanskrit manuscripts while in India.

-- Robert Chambers (English judge), by Wikipedia

In 1781–82 Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier, a Swiss Protestant who served in the English East India Company’s army until 1775, had had copies of the Vedas made for him at the court of Pratap Singh at Jaipur. Polier’s intermediary was a Portuguese physician, Don Pedro da Silva Leitão… Jai Singh had assembled a substantial collection of manuscripts from religious sites across India, and in the time of his successor Pratap Singh the library had contained the samhitas of all four Vedas in manuscripts dating from the last quarter of the seventeenth century…

Polier records that he had sought copies of the Veda without success in Bengal, Awadh, and on the Coromandel coast, as well as in Agra, Delhi, and Lucknow and had found that even at Banaras “nothing could be obtained but various Shasters, [which] are only Commentaries of the Baids”…

It is perhaps significant that it was in a royal library, rather than in a Brahmin pathasala, that Polier found manuscripts of the Vedas. But the same is not true of the manuscripts acquired in Banaras only fifteen years later by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, during the period (1795–97) when he was appointed as judge and magistrate at nearby Mirzapur…

I cannot conceive how it came to be ever asserted that the Brahmins were ever averse to instruct strangers; several gentlemen who have studied the language find, as I do, the greatest readiness in them to give us access to all their sciences. They do not even conceal from us the most sacred texts of their Vedas.

The several gentlemen would likely have included General Claude Martin, Sir William Jones, and Sir Robert Chambers. These were all East India Company employees who obtained Vedic manuscripts (Jones from Polier) in the last decades of the eighteenth century.

Why was it so much easier for Polier, Colebrooke, and others to obtain what it had been so difficult for the Jesuits and impossible for the Pietists?...

-- The Absent Vedas, by Will Sweetman

-- Chambers's Information for the People, edited by William and Robert Chambers, Vol. 1, 1848

Then he worked as the munshi and Bengali teacher for Dr. John Thomas, a Christian missionary from England at Debhata in Khulna. Subsequently, he worked from 1793 to 1796 for noted scholar William Carey (1761–1834) at Madnabati in Dinajpur.[2] In 1800 he joined Carey's Serampore Mission Press with its celebrated printing press, and in May 1801 was appointed Munshi, assistant teacher of Sanskrit, at Fort William College for a salary of 40 rupees per month. As college pundits were charged not only with teaching but also with developing Bengali prose, there he began to produce a respected series of translations and new works and continued to hold that post until his death.

Basu created a number of original prose and poetical works, including Christastava, 1788; Harkara, 1800, a hundred-stanza poem; Jnanodaya (Dawn of Knowledge), 1800, arguing that the Vedas were fundamentally monotheist and that the departure of Hindu society from monotheism to idolatry was the fault of the Brahmins;[3] Lippi Mālā (The Bracelet of Writing), 1802, a miscellany; and Christabibaranamrta, 1803, on the subject of Jesus Christ.

In 1802, his Bengali textbook Rājā Pratāpāditya-Charit (Life of Maharaja Pratapaditya), written for the college's use, received a cash prize of 300 rupees. It was printed at the Serampore Mission Press, and is now credited as the first Bengali to create a work in prose and also as the first historiography in Bengali.[4] Basu also created Bengali versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and aided in Carey's Bengali translation of the Bible.

Despite his active engagement with western missionaries and Christian texts, Basu remained a Hindu [!!!], and died in Kolkata on 7 August 1813.

Other media

Bengali novelist Pramathanath Bishi wrote a historical novel named Carey Saheber Munshi (Sahib Carey's Munshi) based on Ramram Basu's life.[5] This was filmed in 1961 by Bikash Roy as Carey Saheber Munshi.

References

1. Murshid, Ghulam (2012). "Ramram Basu". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
2. Murshid, Ghulam (2012). "Ramram Basu". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
3. New religious movements, religious plurality, and the Bengal Renaissance
4. Guha, Ranajit (2013). History at the limit of World-History. University Press. quote (dedication): To the memory of Ramram Basu who introduced modern historiography in Bengali, his native language, by a work published two hundred years ago
5. Kunal Chakrabarti, Shubhra Chakrabarti (22 August 2013). Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis. ISBN 9780810880245. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
• Sachindra Kumar Maity, Professor A.L. Basham, My Guruji and Problems and Perspectives of Ancient Indian History and Culture, Abhinav Publications, 1997, page 218. ISBN 81-7017-326-4.

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Panchanan Karmakar [Punchanon]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/26/24

Karmakar was born in Balagarh in Hooghly in the mid-18th century; later, he shifted to Bansberia. His forefathers had been blacksmiths, but his grandfather Nimai Karmakar had chosen to change his profession. Nimai made a living from carving designs on swords, shields and armour of Mughal soldiers. Legend has it that he was awarded the title “Mullick” by the Nawab of Bengal Alivardi Khan.

-- For the tongue, the design: Panchanan Karmakar, blacksmith, birthed Bengali letter but was himself denied place in footnotes

Panchanan Karmakar
পঞ্চানন কর্মকার
Born: Jirat, Hooghly, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died: 1804

Panchanan Karmakar (Mallick) (died c. 1804) was an Indian Bengali inventor, born at Tribeni, Hooghly, Bengal Presidency, British India,[1] hailed from Serampore. He assisted Charles Wilkins in creating the first the Bangla type.[2] His wooden Bengali alphabet and typeface had been used until Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar proposed a simplified version.[3] Apart from Bangla, Karmakar developed type in 14 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Marathi, Telugu, Burmese and Chinese.[2]

Early life and career


Book cover of A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778) first printed Bengali book using Bengali font.

Karmakar was born in Tribeni.[4] His ancestors were calligraphers; they inscribed names and decorations on copper plates, weapons, metal pots, etc.[2]

Andrews, a Christian missionary, had a printing press at Hughli. In order to print Nathaniel Brassey Halhed's A Grammar of the Bengal Language, he needed a Bangla type.[2] Under the supervision of English typographer Charles Wilkins, Karmakar[5] created the first Bengali typeface for printing.[6][7][8]

In 1779, Karmakar moved to Kolkata to work for Wilkins' new printing press.[2] in Chinsurah, Hooghly. In 1801, he developed a typeface for British missionary William Carey's Bangla translation of the New Testament.[9] In 1803, Karmakar developed a set of Devnagari script, the first Nagari type to be developed in India.[2]

External links

Panchanan_Karmakar in Banglapedia

References

1. "Panchanan Karmakar - Banglapedia". en.banglapedia.org. Archived from the original on 2021-07-09. Retrieved 2021-07-04.
2. Islam, Sirajul (2012). "Panchanan Karmakar". In Islam, Sirajul; Hossain, Ayub (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Archived from the original on 2016-04-03. Retrieved 2016-03-21.
3. Ghulam Morshed. "Vidyasagar, Pundit Iswar Chandra". Banglapedia. Archived from the original on December 25, 2018. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
4. "পঞ্চানন কর্মকার". onushilon.org. Archived from the original on 2021-07-09. Retrieved 2021-07-04.
5. Greenspan, Ezra; Rose, Jonathan (September 2003). Book History - Ezra Greenspan, Jonathan Rose. ISBN 0271023309. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
6. Works [ed. by E.R. Rost]. - Horace Hayman Wilson -. 1865. p. 273. Retrieved 2015-06-02 – via Internet Archive. charles wilkins.
7. "পঞ্চানন কর্মকার, তাঁর হাতেই ছাপার হরফ পেল বাংলা". Eisamay (in Bengali). Retrieved 2024-06-10.
8. Sarkar, Krishna Kumar (2024-01-01). "Bangla Haraf Nirmata Panchanan Karmakar". Paschimbanga Itihas Samsad.
9. TNN (February 9, 2012). "Flower power resurrects Carey legacy". The Times of India. Archived from the original on January 5, 2017. Retrieved March 20, 2016.

[admin]

Gedrosia
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/28/24

-- The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as described by Arrian Q. Curtius Diodorus Plutarch and Justin: Being Translations of Such Portions of the Works of These and Other Classical Authors as Describe Alexander's Campaigns in Afghanistan the Panjab Sindh Gedrosia and Karmania With An Introduction Containing a Life of Alexander Copious Notes Illustrations Maps and Indices, by J.W. McCrindle M.A., Late Principal of the Government College Patna and Fellow of the Calcutta University Member of the General Council of the University of Edinburgh

Map showing Gedrosia in the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great


A map of Gedrosia from Munster's edition of Ptolemy's 'Geographia'

Gedrosia (/dʒɪˈdroʊʒə/; Greek: Γεδρωσία or Balochi: گِد رۏچ) is the Hellenized name of the part of coastal Balochistan that roughly corresponds to today's Makran. In books about Alexander the Great and his successors, the area referred to as Gedrosia runs from the Indus River to the north-eastern edge of the Strait of Hormuz. It is directly to the south of the countries of Bactria, Arachosia and Drangiana, to the east of the country of Carmania and due west of the Indus River which formed a natural boundary between it and Western India. The native name of Gedrosia might have been Gwadar as there are two towns by that name and a bay (Gwadar Bay) in central Makran.

Geography

Pliny the Elder while explaining the extent of India included four satrapies Arachosia, Gedrosia, Aria and Parapanisidae as western borders of India.[1]

People

According to Arrian, Nearchus mentions a race called Ichthyophagi ("fish-eaters") as inhabiting the barren shores of the Gwadar and Pasni districts in Makrān. During the homeward march of Alexander the Great, his admiral, Nearchus led a fleet in Arabian Sea along the Makrān coast and recorded that the area was dry and mountainous, inhabited by the Ichthyophagoi or Fish-Eaters.[1][2] They are also identified on the 4th century Peutinger Map, as a people of the Baluchistan coast. The existence of such tribes was confirmed by Sir Richard F Burton.[3]

Another group of people named as Oreitans were mentioned inhabiting modern Lasbela District in Balochistan province of Pakistan. Alexander the Great crossed Hub River through Lasbela on his way back to Babylon after conquering Northwestern India. Alexander mentions the river name as Arabius, and local people as Oreitans.[4]

History

Gedrosia (satrapy)

Main article: Gedrosia (satrapy)


Territory of Gedrosia, among the eastern territories of the Achaemenid Empire.


Gedrosia on the Peutinger Map

Gedrosia is a dry, mountainous country along the northwestern shores of the Indian Ocean. It was occupied in the Bronze Age by people who settled in the few oases in the region. Other people settled on the coast and became known in Greek as Ichthyophagi. The Persian king Cyrus the Great attacked to conquer this country but was defeated and lost his entire army (559-530 BCE). Finally after the defeat of the sons of Cyrus this country conquered by Darius the Great. although information about his campaign is comparatively late. The capital of Gedrosia was Pura, which is probably identical to modern Bampur, forty kilometers west of Irânshahr.

Several scholars have argued that the Persian satrapy Maka is identical to Gedrosia (which is a Greek name). One argument is the similarity of the name Maka to the modern name Makran, a part of Pakistan and Iran that is situated a bit more to the east. However, it is more likely that Maka is to be sought in modern Oman, which was called Maketa in Antiquity.[5]

Alexander's campaign

Gedrosia became famous in Europe when the Macedonian king Alexander the Great tried to cross the Gedrosian desert and lost one third of his men.

Following his army's refusal to continue marching east at the Hyphasis River in 326 BCE, Alexander the Great crossed the area after sailing south to the coast of the Indian Ocean on his way back to Babylon. Upon reaching the Ocean, Alexander divided his forces in half, sending half back by sea to Susa under the command of Nearchus.[6] The other half of his army was to accompany him on a march through the Gedrosian desert, inland from the ocean.[7] Throughout the 60-day march through the desert, Alexander lost at least 12,000 soldiers, in addition to countless livestock, camp followers, and most of his baggage train.[8] Some historians say he lost three-quarters of his army to the harsh desert conditions along the way.[9] However, this figure was likely based on exaggerated numbers in his forces prior to the march, which were likely in the range of no fewer than 30,000 soldiers.[10]

There are two competing theories for the purpose of Alexander's decision to march through the desert rather than along the more hospitable coast. The first argues that this was an attempt to punish his men for their refusal to continue eastward at the Hyphasis River.[11] The other argues that Alexander was attempting to imitate and succeed in the actions of Cyrus the Great, who had failed to cross the desert.[10]

After the death of Alexander, this region became part of the holdings of Seleucus, who held Aria, Arachosia, and Gandhara, in addition to Gedrosia.

Mauryan Empire

The territories, known collectively as Ariyana were later lost to the Mauryan Empire of ancient India under the reign of Chandragupta Maurya.[12] Gedrosia, along with Saurashtra, were regions in ancient India that formed an important part of the Maurya Empire, before being attacked by Indo-Greeks from the west.[13]

Delu is said to have been a prince of uncommon bravery and generosity; benevolent towards men, and devoted to the service of God. The most remarkable transaction of his reign is the building of the city of Delhi, which derives its name from its founder, Delu. In the fortieth year of his reign, Phoor, a prince of his own family, who was governor of Cumaoon, rebelled against the Emperor, and marched to Kinoge, the capital. Delu was defeated, taken, and confined in the impregnable fort of Rhotas.

Phoor immediately mounted the throne of India, reduced Bengal, extended his power from sea to sea, and restored the empire to its pristine dignity. He died after a long reign, and left the kingdom to his son, who was also called Phoor, and was the same with the famous Porus, who fought against Alexander.

The second Phoor, taking advantage of the disturbances in Persia, occasioned by the Greek invasion of that empire under Alexander, neglected to remit the customary tribute, which drew upon him the arms of that conqueror. The approach of Alexander did not intimidate Phoor. He, with a numerous army, met him at Sirhind, about one hundred and sixty miles to the north-west of Delhi, and in a furious battle, say the Indian historians, lost many thousands of his subjects, the victory, and his life. The most powerful prince of the Decan, who paid an unwilling homage to Phoor, or Porus, hearing of that monarch's overthrow, submitted himself to Alexander, and sent him rich presents by his son. Soon after, upon a mutiny arising in the Macedonian army, Alexander returned by the way of Persia.

Sinsarchund, the same whom the Greeks call Sandrocottus, assumed the imperial dignity after the death of Phoor, and in a short time regulated the discomposed concerns of the empire. He neglected not, in the mean time, to remit the customary tribute to the Grecian captains, who possessed Persia under, and after the death of, Alexander. Sinsarchund, and his son after him, possessed the empire of India seventy years. When the grandson of Sinsarchund acceded to the throne, a prince named Jona, who is said to have been a grand-nephew of Phoor, though that circumstance is not well attested, aspiring to the throne, rose in arms against the reigning prince, and deposed him.

-- The History of Hindostan, Translated from the Persian. To Which are Prefixed Two Dissertations; The First Concerning the Hindoos, and the Second on the Origin and Nature of Despotism in India, by Alexander Dow, Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel in the Company's Service, 1812

References

1. Wink, André (2002). Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th Centuries. BRILL. ISBN 978-0-391-04173-8.
2. Arrian, Indica, 29:
3. El-Medinah, p. 144
4. The Macedonian Empire: The Era of Warfare Under Philip II and Alexander
5. "Gedrosia". Archived from the original on 2013-09-24. Retrieved 2021-04-29.
6. Bosworth (1988), p. 139
7. Bosworth (1988), p. 142
8. Bosworth (1988), p. 145
9. Plutarch, The Life of Alexander, 66.
10. Bosworth (1988), p. 146
11. Heckel (2002), p. 68
12. ^Ray, Himanshu Prabha (2003). The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-01109-9. In spite of the vagueness of the historical texts, the consensus among scholars is that the treaty concluded between Candragupta Maurya and Seleucus acknowledged Indian control of territories to the west of the Indus. These included Gedrosia, Paropamisadae (the region of Kabul and Begram) and Arachosia (the Kandahar region).
13. The Journal of the Bihar Research Society. Bihar Research Society. 1949. p. 74. Gedrosia and Saurashtra had formed important parts of the Mauryan empire before the Indo-Greek adventurers attacked in on the west.

Bibliography

• Bosworth, A. B. (1988). Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. Canto. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521406796.
• Heckel, Waldemar (2002). The Wars of Alexander the Great. Essential Histories. Osprey. ISBN 9781841764733.
• Saul, David (2009). War: From Ancient Egypt to Iraq. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 9781405341332.

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Alexandria Carmania
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/28/24

Alexandria Carmania
Αλεξάνδρεια η εν Καρμανία
City

The area of Carmania where the Alexandria Carmania was located, noted with red colour on the map of the Empire of Alexander the Great
Country: Iran
Founded by: Alexander the Great

Alexandria Carmania (Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια η εν Καρμανία, Alexandreia hē en Karmania) was one of the seventy-plus cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

The town was founded by Alexander in January 324 BC after his army had reunited with Nearchus and his men who had beached their boats near the mouth of the Minab River.[8][9][10]

Location

The exact site of the city in Carmania is still unknown but several locations have been proposed:

• The most commonly cited location is the village of Gulashkird, Iran[11] (Lat. 27° 56' 57"N Long. 57° 17' 57"E)
• The unexplored ruins to the north and northwest of Gulishkird.[12]
Mercator 1569 world map showing Alexandria.
• The village of Gav Koshi nearby to the east of Gulishkird has also been popular.
• Sykes says it was in Rudbar 5km north of Gulishkird, based on surface finds of Greek pottery he made in that location.[13]
• A less likely option is the village of Shahr-i Dakyanus (Town of the emperor Decius) near Jiroft, Iran.[14][15][16][17]
• Sites at Sirjan and Tepe Yahya have also been postulated.[18]
• Fraser, taking a typically conservative position thinks that Alexandria in Carmainai never existed.[19]
• The 1569 world map of Gerardus Mercator, taken from Ptolemy's second century world map, shows Alexandria Carmania further to the west on the Salarus River, in the arid area north of the modern town of Haregī, Iran.


Mercator 1569 world map showing Alexandria.

The main contenders are all within a few kilometres of each other and that area would seem a logical one. Provided with reliable water from the Minab river, the location was on the convergence of the main passes from Afghanistan, the route into Gedrosia and had good access to the nearby Indian Ocean ports at Hormosia. The location would also provide control of the arable parts of Carmania.

The city still existed in the medieval period being known as Camadi, when Marco Polo visited.[20] If Galashkird is the now lost city it was described by Arab geographer Mukaddasi who described it as "a strongly fortified town with a castle Kushah," and lush orchards and fields supported by extensive qanat irrigation.

See also

• List of cities founded by Alexander the Great

References

1. Getzel M. Cohen, The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia, University of California Press 2013 page 200
2. William Woodthorpe Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India (Cambridge University Press, 2010) p481.
3. P. Leriche, “Alexandria,”, Encyclopædia Iranica, I/8, pp. 830-831.
4. J. G. Droysen, Geschichte des Hellenismus, (1878).
5. V. Tscherikower, Die hellenistischen Städtegrunden, (1927).
6. E. Badian, Alexander the Great, (1950).
7. G. A. Koshelenko, Grecheskiĭ polis na ellinisticheskom vostoke, (1979.)
8. Ammianus Marcellinus XXIII 48
9. Ptolemy VI 8 14
10. Pliny, Natural History 6. 107 110
11. G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge University Press 2011. page 317
12. Lewis Vance Cummings, Alexander the Great (Grove Press, 2004)page 402 p402
13. Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes, A History of Exploration from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Taylor & Francis, 1949
14. I. Gershevitch, The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 2 Cambridge University Press 1985 page 248.
15. Cook, J. M., The Persian Empire, (Book Club Associates, London, 1983)
16. Ala-ad-Din Ata Malik Juvaini, The History of the World Conqueror. (Harvard University Press, 1958) page477.
17. William Vincent, Samuel Horsley, William Wales, ----- de La Rochette, The Voyage of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates: Collected from the Original Journal Preserved by Arrian, and Illustrated by Authorities Ancient and Modern (T. Cadell (jun.) and W. Davies, 1797) page 304
18. Alexandria at Encyclopedia Iranica.
19. Fraser, P. M., Cities of Alexander the Great, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996)
20. The travels of Marco Polo vol 1, chapter16.

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The 1,000-year-old manuscript and the stories it tells: One of the greatest treasures of Cambridge University Library is a Buddhist manuscript that was produced in Kathmandu exactly 1,000 years ago. The exquisitely-illustrated Perfection of Wisdom is still revealing fresh secrets.
by University of Cambridge
May 9, 2015
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features ... s-it-tells

When Sujātabhadra picked up his reed pen and put his name to the manuscript, he was part of a rich network of scholarship, culture, belief and trade

-- Camillo Formigatti

One thousand years ago, a scribe called Sujātabhadra put his name to a manuscript known as the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight-Thousand Stanzas (Skt. Aṣṭasahāsrikā Prajñāparamitā). Sujātabhadra was a skilled craftsman working in or around Kathmandu – a city that has been one of the hubs of the Buddhist world from around 500 CE right up until the present day.

The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight-Thousand Stanzas is written in Sanskrit, one the of the world’s most ancient languages, using both sides of 222 oblong sheets made from palm leaf (the first missing sheet has been replaced with a paper sheet). Each leaf is punctured by a pair of neat holes, a reminder that the palm leaf pages were originally bound together with cords passing through these holes. The entire palm leaf manuscript is held between richly ornate wooden covers.

Today the fabulous manuscript that would have taken Sujātabhadra and fellow craftsman many months — perhaps even a year — to complete is held by the Manuscripts Room at Cambridge University Library. Over the past 140 years, it has been studied by some of the foremost specialists of the medieval Buddhist world.

A digitisation project has now made the manuscript accessible online to scholars worldwide and has revealed fresh evidence about the origins of some of the earliest Buddhist texts.



The presence of the Perfection of Wisdom, safe in the temperature-controlled environment of one of the world’s greatest libraries, many thousands of miles from its birthplace, is especially poignant at a time when the people of Nepal are struggling to survive in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake.

Buddhist texts are more than scriptures: they are sacred objects in themselves. Many manuscripts were used as protective amulets and installed in shrines and altars in the home of Buddhist followers. Examples include numerous manuscripts of the Five Protections (Skt. Pañcarakṣā), a corpus of scriptures that includes spells, enumerations of benefits and ritual instructions for use, particularly sacred in Nepal.

Manuscripts produced in Nepal, Tibet and Central Asia during the period from the 5th until the 19th century are evidence of the thriving ‘cult of the book’ that was the subject of a recent exhibition at Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The Perfection of Wisdom is also an important historical document that provides valuable information about the dynastic history of medieval Nepal. Its textual content and illustrations, and the skills and materials that went into its production, reveal the ways in which Nepal was one of the most important hubs within a Buddhist world that spanned from Sri Lanka to China.

The text is lavishly illustrated by a total of 85 miniature paintings: each one is an exquisite representation of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (beings who resolve to achieve Buddhahood in order to help other sentient beings) – including the historical Buddha Śākyamuni and Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future. The figures represented in the miniatures include also the embodied Perfection of Wisdom goddess (Prajñāparamitā) herself on the Vulture Peak Mountain near Rājagṛha, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Māgadha, in today’s Bihar state.

The settings in which these deities are depicted are drawn in meticulous detail. The Bodhisattva Lokanātha, surrounded by White and Green Tārās, is shown in front of the Svayambhu stupa in Kathmandu – a shrine sacred for Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhists, damaged in the recent earthquake. The places depicted in the miniatures represent a kind of map of Buddhist lands and sacred sites, from Sri Lanka to Indonesia and from South India to China.

The Perfection of Wisdom is one of the world’s oldest illuminated Buddhist manuscripts and the second oldest illuminated manuscript in Cambridge University Library. Its survival – and its passage through time and space – is little short of miraculous.

Without the efforts of a certain Karunavajra, quite probably a Buddhist lay believer, it would have been destroyed in 1138 — in that period the governors challenged the king in a struggle for power over the Kathmandu Valley.

“We know that Karunavajra saved the manuscript because he added a note in verse form,” said Dr Camillo Formigatti of the Sanskrit Manuscripts Project. “He states that he rescued the ‘Perfection of Wisdom, incomparable Mother of the Omniscient’ from falling into the hands of unbelievers who were most probably people of Brahmanical affiliation.”

Cambridge University Library acquired the manuscript in 1876. It was purchased for the Library by Dr Daniel Wright, a civil servant working for the British government in Kathmandu.

“From the second half of the 19th century, western institutions were hugely interested in the orient - and museums and libraries were busy building collections of everything eastern,” said Dr Hildegard Diemberger of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit. “Colonial administrators were almost literally given ‘shopping lists’ of manuscripts to acquire in the course of their travels.”

A new phase in the study of ancient Asian materials began in earnest at the end of the seventeenth century, around the time when Jean-Paul BIGNON (1662-1743) became president of the Academie des Sciences (1692), began his reform of the Academy of Sciences (1699), became director of the Journal des Savants, gave it its lasting form (1701), and reorganized Europe's largest library (the Royal Library in Paris that evolved into the Bibliotheque Nationale de France). It was Bignon who stacked the College Royal with instructors like Fourmont (Leung 2002:130); it was Bignon whom Father Bouvet wanted to get on board for his grand project of an academy in China (Collani 1989); it was Bignon who employed Huang, Freret, and Fourmont to catalog Chinese books at the library and to produce Chinese grammars and dictionaries; it was Bignon who ordered Calmette and Pons to find and send the Vedas and other ancient Indian texts to Paris (see Chapter 6); and it was Bignon who supported Fourmont's expensive project of carving over 100,000 Chinese characters in Paris (Leung 2002). The conversion of major libraries into state institutions open to the public, which Bignon oversaw, was a development with an immense impact on the production and dissemination of knowledge, including knowledge about the Orient. So was the promotion of scholarly journals like the Journal des Scavans (later renamed Journal des Savants) that featured reviews of books from all over Europe and fulfilled a central function in the pan-European "Republique des lettres"....

From the early 1730s Father Calmette devoted himself intensively to the study of the Vedas and wrote on January 24, 1733:

Since the King has made the decision to form an Oriental library, Abbe Bignon has graced us with the honor of relying on us for research of Indian books. We are already benefiting much from this for the advancement of religion; having acquired by these means the essential books which are like the arsenal of paganism, we extract from it the weapons to combat the doctors of idolatry, and the weapons that hurt them the most are their own philosophy, their theology, and especially the four Vedam which contain the law of the brahmins and which India since time immemorial possesses and regards as the sacred book: the book whose authority is irrefragable and which derived from God himself. (Le Gobien 1781:13.394)

...
Pons and Calmette, who came from the same little town of Rodez in southern France, had both been eager to find the Vedas, and both collaborated closely with Abbe Bignon in procuring precious Indian books for the Royal Library in Paris....

It was Pons who had tried to buy a copy of the Veda for 60 rupees in 1726, only to find out that he had fallen victim to a scam. From 1728 to 1733, he was superior of the Bengal mission, and it is during this time that he studied Sanskrit. As superior in Chandernagor he became an important channel for the European discovery of India's literature. He spent on behalf of Abbe Bignon and the Royal Library in Paris a total of 1,779 rupees for researchers, copyists, and manuscripts in Sanskrit and Persian. They included the Mahabharata in 17 volumes, 24 volumes of Puranas, 31 volumes about philology, 22 volumes about history and mythology, 7 volumes about astronomy and astrology, and 8 volumes of poems, among other acquisitions (Castets 1935:47).

-- The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App

Scholars are able to pinpoint with remarkable precision the date that Sujātabhadra recorded his name as scribe in the ‘colophon’ (details about the publication of a book).



“Using tables that convert the dates used by Nepalese scribes into the calendar we use today, we can see that Sujātabhadra added his name and the place where he completed the manuscript on 31 March, 1015. The study of mathematics, astrology and astronomy were central aspects of ancient and medieval South Asian culture, and time reckoning was very accurate — both the lunar and the solar calendar were employed,” said Formigatti.

-- Rules of the Siamese Astronomy, for calculating the Motions of the Sun and Moon, translated from the Siamese, and since examined and explained by M. Cassini, a Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Excerpt from "A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam", Tome II, by Monsieur De La Loubere

-- Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India About A.D. 1080, by Dr. Edward C. Sachau, Professor in the Royal University of Berlin and Principal of the Seminary for Oriental Languages; Member of the Royal Academy of Berlin, and Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, Honorary Member of the Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London, and of the American Oriental Society, Cambridge, USA, 1910

-- Ancient Indian Astronomy in Vedic Texts, by R.N. Iyengar

-- Royal Astronomical Society [Astronomical Society of London], by Wikipedia

-- Some Purana References, from "Astronomical Dating of the Mahabharata War, by Dieter Koch"

-- Astronomical Dating of the Mahabharata War, by Dieter Koch

-- Determination of the Date of the Mahabharata: The Possibility Thereof, [Reprinted from Vishveshvaram and Indological Journal, Vol. XI

-- French Jesuit Scientists in India: Historical Astronomy in the Discourse on India, 1670-1770, by Dhruv Raina

[Al-Biruni] wrote an extensive commentary on Indian astronomy in the Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind mostly translation of Aryabhatta's work.

-- Al-Biruni, by Wikipedia

In India Alberuni recommenced his study of Indian astronomy, this time not from translations, but from Sanskrit originals, and we here meet with the remarkable fact that the works which about A.D. 770 had been the standard in India still held the same high position A.D. 1020, viz., the works of Brahmagupta. Assisted by learned pandits, he tried to translate them, as also the Pulisasiddhanta (vide preface to the edition of the text, § 5), and when he composed the [x], he had already come forward with several books devoted to special points of Indian astronomy. As such he quotes: —

(i.) A treatise on the determination of the lunar stations or nakshatras, ii. 83.

(2.) The Kayal-alkusufaini, which contained, probably beside other things, a description of the Yoga theory, ii. 208.

(3.) A book called The Arabic Khandakhadyaka, on the same subject as the preceding one, ii. 208.

(4.) A book containing a description of the Karanas, the title of which is not mentioned, ii 194.

(5.) A treatise on the various systems of numeration, as used by different nations, i. 174, which probably described also the related Indian subjects.

(6.) A book called “Key of Astronomy,” on the question whether the sun rotates round the earth or the earth round the sun, i. 277. We may suppose that in this book he had also made use of the notions of Indian astronomers.

(7.) Lastly, several publications on the different methods for the computation of geographical longitude, i. 315. He does not mention their titles, nor whether they had any relation to Hindu methods of calculation.

Perfectly at home in all departments of Indian astronomy and chronology, he began to write the [x]. In the chapters on these subjects he continues a literary movement which at his time had already gone on for centuries; but he surpassed his predecessors by going back upon the original Sanskrit sources, trying to check his pandits by whatever Sanskrit he had contrived to learn, by making new and more accurate translations, and by his conscientious method of testing the data of the Indian astronomers by calculation. His work represents a scientific renaissance in comparison with the aspirations of the scholars working in Bagdad under the first Abbaside Khalifs.

Alberuni seems to think that Indian astrology had not been transferred into the more ancient Arabic literature, as we may conclude from his introduction to Chapter Ixxx.: "Our fellow-believers in these (Muslim) countries are not acquainted with the Hindu methods of astrology, and have never had an opportunity of studying an Indian book on the subject,” [!!!] ii. 211. We cannot prove that the works of Varahamihira, e.g. his Brihatsamhita and Laghujatakam, which Alberuni was translating, had already been accessible to the Arabs at the time of Mansur, but we are inclined to think that Alberuni’s judgment on this head is too sweeping, for books on astrology, and particularly on jataka, had already been translated in the early days of the Abbaside rule. Cf. Fihrist, pp. 270, 271.

As regards Indian medicine, we can only say that Alberuni does not seem to have made a special study of it, for he simply uses the then current translation of Caraka, although complaining of its incorrectness, i. 159, 162, 382. He has translated a Sanskrit treatise on loathsome diseases into Arabic (cf. preface to the edition of the original, p. xxi. No. 18), but we do not know whether before the [x] or after it.

What first induced Alberuni to write the [x], was not the wish to enlighten his countrymen on Indian astronomy in particular, but to present them with an impartial description of the Indian theological and philosophical doctrines on a broad basis, with every detail pertaining to them. So he himself says both at the beginning and end of the book. Perhaps on this subject he could give his readers more perfectly new information than on any other, for, according to his own statement, he had in this only one predecessor, Aleranshahri. Not knowing him or that authority which he follows, i.e. Zurkan, we cannot form an estimate as to how far Alberuni’s strictures on them (i. 7) are founded. Though there can hardly be any doubt that Indian philosophy in one or other of its principal forms had been communicated to the Arabs already in the first period, it seems to have been something entirely new when Alberuni produced before his compatriots or fellow-believers the Samkhya by Kapila, and the Book of Patanjali in good Arabic translations. [!!!] It was this particular work which admirably qualified him to write the corresponding chapters of the [x]. The philosophy of India seems to have fascinated his mind, and the noble ideas of the Bhagavadgita probably came near to the standard of his own persuasions. Perhaps it was he who first introduced this gem of Sanskrit literature into the world of Muslim readers.

Preface:

Over the past forty years or so, a theory has been forged in university departments of history and cultural studies that much of what is thought to be ancient in India was actually invented -- or at best reinvented or recovered from oblivion -- during the time of the British Raj. This of course runs counter to the view most Indians, Indophiles, and renaissance hipsters share that India's ancient traditions are ageless verities unchanged since their emergence from the ancient mists of time. When I began this project, I was of the opinion that "classical yoga" -- that is, the Yoga philosophy of the Yoga Sutra (also known as the Yoga Sutras) -- was in fact a tradition extending back through an unbroken line of gurus and disciples, commentators and copyists, to Pantanjali himself, the author of the work who lived in the first centuries of the Common Era. However, the data I have sifted through over the past three years have forced me to conclude that this was not the case.

The present volume is part of a series on the great books, the classics of religious literature, works that in some way have resonated with their readers and hearers across time as well as cultural and language boundaries, far beyond the original conditions of their production. Some classics, like the works of Shakespeare for theater, are regarded as having defined not only their period but also their genre, their worldview, their credo. As the sole work of Indian philosophy to have been translated into over forty languages, the Yoga Sutra would appear to fulfill the requirements of a classic. But if this is the case, then the Yoga Sutra is a very special kind of classic, a sort of "comeback classic." I say this because after a five-hundred-year period of great notoriety, during which it was translated into two foreign languages (Arabic and Old Javanese) and noted by authors from across the Indian philosophical spectrum, Patanjali's work began to fall into oblivion. After it had been virtually forgotten for the better part of seven hundred years (700), Swami Vivekananda miraculously rehabilitated it in the final decade of the nineteenth century. Since that time, and especially over the past thirty years, Big Yoga -- the corporate yoga subculture -- has elevated the Yoga Sutra to a status it never knew, even during its seventh- to twelfth-century heyday. This reinvention of the Yoga Sutra as the foundational scripture of "classical yoga" runs counter to the pre-twentieth-century history of India's yoga traditions, during which other works (the Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vasistha, and various texts attributed to figures named Yajnavalkya and Hiranyagarbha) and other forms of yoga (Pashupata Yoga, Tantric Yoga, and Hatha Yoga) dominated the Indian yoga scene. This book is an account of the rise and fall, and latter day rise, of the Yoga Sutra as a classic of religious literature and cultural icon.

-- The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, by David Gordon White

As regards the Puranas, Alberuni was perhaps the first Muslim who took up the study of them. At all events, we cannot trace any acquaintance with them on the part of the Arabs before his time. [!!!] Of the literature of fables, he knew the Pancatantra in the Arabic edition of Ibn Almukaffa.

Judging Alberuni in relation to his predecessors, we come to the conclusion that his work formed a most marked progress. His description of Hindu philosophy was probably unparalleled. His system of chronology and astronomy was more complete and accurate than had ever before been given. His communications from the Puranas were probably entirely new to his readers, as also the important chapters on literature, manners, festivals, actual geography, and the much-quoted chapter on historic chronology. He once quotes Razi, with whose works he was intimately acquainted, and some Sufi philosophers, but from neither of them could he learn much about India.

In the following pages we give a list of the Sanskrit books quoted in the [x]: —

Sources of the chapters on theology and philosophy: Samkya, by Kapila; Book of Patanjali; Gita, i.e. some edition of the Bhagavadgita.

He seems to have used more sources of a similar nature, but he does not quote from them.

Sources of a Pauranic kind: Vishnu-Dharma,Vishnu Purana, Matsya-Purana, Vayu-Purana, Aditya-Purana.

Sources of the chapters on astronomy, chronology, geography, and astrology: Pulisasiddhanta; Brahmasiddhanta, Khandakhadyaka, Uttarakhandakhddyaka, by Brahmagupta; Commentary of the Khandakhadiyaka, by Balabhadra, perhaps also some other work of his; Brihatsamhita, Pancasiddhantika, Brihat Jutakam, Laghu-jatakam, by Varahamihira; Commentary of the Brihatsamhita, a book called Srudhava (perhaps (Sarvadhara), by Utpala, from Kashmir; a book by Aryabhata, junior; Karanasara, by Vittesvara; Karanatilaka, by Vijayanandin; Sripala; Book of the Rishi (sic) Bhuvanakosa; Book of the Brahman Bhattila; Book of Durlabha, from Multan; Book of Jivasarman; Book of Samaya; Book of Auliatta (?), the son of Sahawi (?); The Minor Manasa, by Puncala; Srudhava (Sarvadhara?), by Mahadeva Candrabija; Calendar from Kashmir.

As regards some of these authors, Sripala, Jivalarman, Samaya (?), and Auliatta (?), the nature of the quotations leaves it uncertain whether Alberuni quoted from books of theirs or from oral communications which he had received from them.

Source on medicine: Caraka, in the Arabic edition of 'Ali Ibn Zain, from Tabaristan.

In the chapter on metrics, a lexicographic work by one Haribhata (?), and regarding elephants a “Book on the Medicine of Elephants,” are quoted.

His communications from the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and the way in which he speaks of them, do not give us the impression that he had these books before him. He had some information of Jaina origin, but does not mention his source (Aryabhata, jun. ?) Once he quotes Manu’s Dharmasastra, but in a manner which makes me doubt whether he took the words directly from the book itself. 1 [The places where mention of these books occurs are given in Index I. Cf. also the annotations on single cases.]

The quotations which he has made from these sources are, some of them, very extensive, e.g. those from the Bhagavadgita. In the chapter on literature he mentions many more books than those here enumerated, but does not tell us whether he made use of them for the [x]. Sometimes he mentions Hindu individuals as his informants, e.g. those from Somanath, i. 161, 165, and from Kanoj, i 165; ii. 129.

In Chapter i. the author speaks at large of the radical difference between Muslims and Hindus in everything, and tries to account for it both by the history of India and by the peculiarities of the national character of its inhabitants (i. 17 seq.). Everything in India, is just the reverse of what it is in Islam, “and if ever a custom of theirs resembles one of ours, it has certainly just the opposite meaning” (i. 179). Much more certainly than to Alberuni, India would seem a land of wonders and monstrosities to most of his readers. Therefore, in order to show that there were other nations who held and hold similar notions, he compares Greek philosophy, chiefly that of Plato, and tries to illustrate Hindu notions by those of the Greeks, and thereby to bring them nearer to the understanding of his readers.

The role which Greek literature plays in Alberuni’s work in the distant country of the Paktyes and Gandhari is a singular fact in the history of civilisation. Plato before the doors of India, perhaps in India itself! A considerable portion of the then extant Greek literature had found its way into the library of Alberuni, who uses it in the most conscientious and appreciative way, and takes from it choice passages to confront Greek thought with Indian. And more than this: on the part of his readers he seems to presuppose not only that they were acquainted with them, but also gave them the credit of first-rate authorities. Not knowing Greek or Syriac, he read them in Arabic translations, some of which reflect much credit upon their authors. The books be quotes are these: —

Plato, Phaedo.
Timoeus, an edition with a commentary.
Leges. In the copy of it there was an appendix relating to the pedigree of Hippokrates.
Proclus, Commentary on Timoeus (different from the extant one).
Aristotle, only short references to his Physica and Metaphysica. Letter to Alexander.
Johannes Grammaticus, Contra Proclum.
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Commentary on Aristotle’s [x].
Apollonius of Tyana.
Porphyry, Liber historiarum philosophorum (?).
Ammonias.
Aratus, Phoenomena, with a commentary.
Galenus, Protrepticus.
[x]
[x]
Commentary on the Apophthegms of Hippokrates.
De indole animoe.
Book of the Proof.
Ptolemy, Almagest.
Geography.
Kitab-almanshurat.
Pseudo-Kallisthenes, Alexander romance.
Scholia to the Ars grammatica of Dionysius Thrax.
A synchronistic history, resembling in part that of Johannes Malalas, in part the Chronicon of Eusebius. Cf. notes to i. 112, 105.

The other analogies which he draws, not taken from Greek, but from Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish, Manichaean, and Sufi sources, are not very numerous. He refers only rarely to Eranian traditions; cf. Index II. (Persian traditions and Zoroastrian). Most of the notes on Christian, Jewish, and Manichaean subjects may have been taken from the book of Eranshahri (cf. his own words, i. 6, 7), although he knew Christianity from personal experience, and probably also from the communications of his learned friends Abulkhair Al- khammar and Abu-Sahl Almasihi, both Christians from the farther west (cf. Chronologic Orientalischer Volker, Einleitung, p. xxxii.). The interest he has in Mani’s doctrines and books seems rather strange. We are not acquainted with the history of the remnants of Manichaeism in those days and countries, but cannot help thinking that the quotations from Mani’s “Book of Mysteries” and Thesaurus Vivificationis do not justify Alberuni’s judgment in this direction. He seems to have seen in them venerable documents of a high antiquity, instead of the syncretistic ravings of a would-be prophet.

That he was perfectly right in comparing the Sufi philosophy — he derives the word from [x], i. 33 — with certain doctrines of the Hindus is apparent to any one who is aware of the essential identity of the systems of the Greek Neo-Pythagoreans, the Hindu Vedanta philosophers, and the Sufis of the Muslim world. The authors whom he quotes, Abu Yazid Albistami and Abu Bakr Alshibli, are well-known representatives of Sufism. Cf. note to i. 87, 88. ...

P. 225. Vasishtha, Aryabhata.—The author does not take the theories of these men from their own works; he only knew them by the quotations in the works of Brahmagupta. He himself states so expressly with regard to Aryabhata, Cf. note to p. 156, and the author, 1. 370.

-- Al-Beruni's India, Vol. 1, by Dr. Edward C. Sachau

... the Sufi-Vedanta-Neoplatonic amalgam of Prince Dara as reported by Bernier.

-- The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App

Aryabhata (476–550 CE)[5][6] was the first of the major mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy....

Aryabhata mentions in the Aryabhatiya that he was 23 years old 3,600 years into the Kali Yuga, but this is not to mean that the text was composed at that time. This mentioned year corresponds to 499 CE, and implies that he was born in 476. [6th century][6] Aryabhata called himself a native of Kusumapura or Pataliputra (present day Patna, Bihar)...

It has been claimed that the aśmaka (Sanskrit for "stone") where Aryabhata originated may be the present day Kodungallur which was the historical capital city of Thiruvanchikkulam of ancient Kerala.[11] This is based on the belief that Koṭuṅṅallūr was earlier known as Koṭum-Kal-l-ūr ("city of hard stones"); however, old records show that the city was actually Koṭum-kol-ūr ("city of strict governance"). Similarly, the fact that several commentaries on the Aryabhatiya have come from Kerala has been used to suggest that it was Aryabhata's main place of life and activity; however, many commentaries have come from outside Kerala, and the Aryasiddhanta was completely unknown in Kerala.[9] K. Chandra Hari has argued for the Kerala hypothesis on the basis of astronomical evidence.[12]...

It is fairly certain that, at some point, he went to Kusumapura for advanced studies and lived there for some time.[14][/i] Both Hindu and Buddhist tradition, as well as Bhāskara I (CE 629), identify Kusumapura as Pāṭaliputra, modern Patna.[9] A verse mentions that Aryabhata was the head of an institution (kulapa) at Kusumapura, and, because the university of Nalanda was in Pataliputra at the time, it is speculated that Aryabhata might have been the head of the Nalanda university as well.[9] Aryabhata is also reputed to have set up an observatory at the Sun temple in Taregana, Bihar.[15]

What Does Megasthenes Say About The Kings Who Ruled?

1. He calls Sandracottus the king of the Prassi and he mentions the names of Xandramus as predecessor and Sandrocyptus as successor to Sandracottus. There is absolutely no resemblance in these names to Bindusara (the successor to Chandragupta Maurya) and Mahapadma Nanda, the predecessor.

2. He makes absolutely no mention of Chanakya or Vishnugupta, the Acharya who helped Chandragupta ascend the throne.

3. He makes no mention of the widespread presence of the Baudhik or Sramana tradition [Rishi tradition] during the time of the Maurya empire.

4. He claims the capital is Palimbothra or Palibothra, and that the city exists near the confluence of the Ganga and the Eranaboas (Hiranyabahu). But the Puranas are clear that all the 8 dynasties after the Mahabharata war had their capital at Girivraja (Rajagriha), located in the foothills of the Himalayas. There is no mention of Pataliputra in the Puranas. So, the assumption made by Sir William that Palimbothra is Pataliputra has no basis in fact and is not attested by any piece of evidence. If the Greeks could pronounce the first P in (Patali) they could certainly have pronounced the second p in Putra, instead of bastardising it as Palimbothra. Granted the Greeks were incapable of pronouncing any Indian names, but there is no reason why they should not be consistent in their phonetics.

5. The empire of Chandragupta was known as Magadha Empire. It had a long history even at the time of Chandragupta Maurya. In Indian literature, this powerful empire is amply described by its name but the same is absent in Greek accounts. It is difficult to understand as to why Megasthenes did not use this name “Magadha” and instead used the word Prassi, which has no equivalent or counterpart in Indian accounts.

-- Historical Dates From Puranic Sources, by Prof. Narayan Rao

The Mahaguru saw that it was time to tame the vicious King Ashoka, who was controlling vast swathes of India with brutal displays of force. He approached the king’s residence in the city of Kusumapura, taking on the guise of a monk named Indrasena collecting alms.

-- Kusumapura, by nekhor.org

Unfortunately, we do not have rich, reliable historical sources for the Mauryas. We have only extremely tenuous information about them -- most of it about "Asoka" -- from very late Buddhist "histories", which are in large part fantasy-filled hagiographies having nothing to do with actual human events in the real world. Moreover, as Max Deeg has argued, not only did the inscriptions remain in public view for centuries, but their script and language remained legible to any literate person through the Kushan period (at least to ca. AD 250). This strongly suggests that the inscriptions influenced the legendary "histories" of Buddhism that began to develop at about that time.

-- Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith

The German translation of Lama Taranatha's first book on India called The Mine of Previous Stones (Edelsteinmine) was made by Prof. Gruenwedel the reputed Orientalist and Archaeologist on Buddhist culture in Berlin. The translation came out in 1914 A.D. from Petrograd (Leningrad).

The German translator confessed his difficulty in translating the Tibetan words on matters relating to witchcraft and sorcery. So he has used the European terms from the literature of witchcraft and magic of the middle ages viz. 'Frozen' and 'Seven miles boots.'

He said that history in the modern sense could not be expected from Taranatha. The important matter with him was the reference to the traditional endorsement of certain teaching staff. Under the spiritual protection of his teacher Buddhaguptanatha, he wrote enthusiastically the biography of the predecessor of the same with all their extravagances, as well as the madness of the old Siddhas.

The book contains a rigmarole of miracles and magic….

"Vikrtideva was a well-informed Bengali-Pandita. He went to Nalanda and busied himself much about Dharma and all the Upadesas. Though, when he left his motherland, he promised his original Guru to be a monk, he did it later, as he had desire of the flesh, took a wife and had three children: One boy and two girls. But in dream AvaIokitesvara said as he had broken the order of his Guru, he would die within three years of an infectious disease and would go to hell, he got very much frightened, cut himself off from his family and took vows. But the prophesy was fulfilled, after three years he got the contagion and died. There his acarya saw in his mind, how he was taken away by the beadles of the Yama, but five gods and Hayagriva with Aryavalokitesvara at their head struck the hell-beadles and Aryavalokitesvara shed tears and ran towards him to bring his body back. And while he was brought back visibly to the Parivara of the Arya, he came back to life again. As he had seen the face of Avalokitesvara, he had greater power, gained success in his spiritual dignity and the Siddhi…"

-- Mystic Tales of Lama Taranatha: A Religio-Sociological History of Mahayana Buddhism, by Lama Taranatha

xxxxxx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata

Again, in the context of the war, it is natural for writers, especially of epics, to describe portents as happening to presage evil. The Samhitas devote chapters to describe these portents. The Ketucara, on the appearance of comets, is full of portents, as also separate chapters devoted to portents like rare or unnatural, impossible or terrible phenomena. These have been included in the work.11 [See, e.g., Udyoga, 143; Bhisma, 2, 3; Karna, 94, 100; S'alya, 11, 27; Mausala, 2.] But most investigators have not interpreted these portions properly, for which a detailed study of the chapters on Ketucara and Utpatas in the Brhatsamhita of Varahamihira would be advantageous. For example, the mention of the new moon together with solar eclipse occurring on Trayodasi, the sun and the moon being eclipsed on the same day (the same month), and that on Trayodasi, Mercury moving across the sky, (i.e., north-south), the dark patch on the moon being inverted, the lunar eclipse at Karttika full moon, the solar eclipse at Karttika new moon, and again the solar eclipse at the time of the mace-fight, are all intended by the writer to be impossible things occurring. The mention of the red moon indistinguishable from the red sky (digdaha), eagles falling on the flag, appearances of comets of different colours and in groups are all portents. Ignorance of the fact that the ‘grahas’ of different colours mentioned in Bhismaparva, chapter 3, are not planets but comets, has added to the confusion, because these scholars do not realise that, in the Samhitas, the word ‘graha’ means primarily comets, (vide the chapter on Ketucara in the Brhatsamhita).

It would be clear from the above, that all the skill shown in distorting the meanings of words and trying to show when these impossible or rare phenomena and contradictory planetary combinations would actually occur, has been wasted. Excepting the time of the year when the war might have happened, there is nothing in the Mahabharata [3rd century BCE–4th century CE] to fix the year definitely. We do not have adequate data to fix either the happenings or when the work, even part by part, was written.

-- Determination of the Date of the Mahabharata: The Possibility Thereof, [Reprinted from Vishveshvaramand Indological Journal, Vol. XIV (1976) pp. 48-56.], Excerpt, from Collected Papers on Jyotisha, by T.S. Kuppanna Sastry (Former Hony. Professor, Sanskrit College, Madras), 1989

A thousand years on from its production, the manuscript is still yielding secrets. In the course of digitising the manuscript in 2014, Formigatti identified 12 of the final verses to be the only surviving witness of the Sanskrit original of the Ripening of the Victory Banner (Skt. Vajradhvajapariṇāmanā), a short hymn hitherto considered to have survived only in its Tibetan translation. The popularity of this hymn is borne out by the fact that the Tibetan version of the text is also found in manuscript fragments found in Dunhuang, a city-state along the Silk Route in China.

The production of this precious manuscript is evidence not only of the thriving communication channels that existed across the 11th century Buddhist world but also of a well-established network of trade routes. The leaves used to make the writing surface came from palm trees. Palms do not flourish in the dry climate of Nepal: it’s thought that palm leaves would have come from North East India.

“The University Library’s manuscript of Perfection of Wisdom shows us that ten centuries ago Nepal, which westerners often perceive as ‘remote’ and ‘isolated’, had flourishing connections stretching many thousands of miles,” said Formigatti.

“When Sujātabhadra picked up his reed pen and put his name to the manuscript, he was part of a rich network of scholarship, culture, belief and trade. Buddhist manuscripts and texts travelled huge distances. From the fertile plains of Northern India, they crossed the Himalayan range through Nepal and Tibet, reaching the barren landscapes of Central Asia and the city-states along the Silk Route in China, finally arriving in Japan.

“The Perfection of Wisdom is perhaps the most representative textual witness of the Buddhist cult of the book, and this manuscript written, decorated and worshipped in 11th century Nepal, is one of the finest specimens of Buddhist book culture still extant.”

[admin]

ART. XIV.-Brief Notes on the Age and Authenticity of the Works of Aryabhata, Varâhamihira, Brahmagupta, Bhaṭṭotpala, and Bhâskarâchârya.
by Dr. Bhau Daji, Honorary Member R.A.S.
The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, New Series, Volume the First
1865
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jo ... frontcover

[Communicated by F. HALL, Esq., July 4, 1864].

I. ÂRYABHATA.

THE name of this celebrated astronomer is written either

Aryabhata or Aryabhatta, but generally with one t only. In an old manuscript of the Brahma Sphuța Siddhânta of Brahmagupta, copied in Samvat 1678, or A.D. 1621, the name occurs about thirty-three times,1 and is invariably written Âryabhaṭa; and a double ț cannot be introduced without violating the Âryâ metre. Bhaṭṭa Utpala, in his commentary on the Vârâha Sanhitâ, cites a passage from Varâha Mihira as follows:

लङ्कार्धरात्रसमये दिनप्रवृत्तिं जगाद चार्यभटः ।

Here the word has only one ț, and would not scan with two. This scholiast almost always writes, when quoting Âryabhata, :. In a commentary by Someṣvara on the Aryabhatîya Sûtra, of which the manuscript in my possession was copied about three hundred years ago, the name is spelt with only one ț:

आचार्यार्यभटोक्तसूत्रविवृतिः ।

In a copy of the Mahâ Aryasiddhânta, dated Şaka 1676, A.D. 1598, is the following line:

इत्यार्यभटप्रोक्तात्सिद्धान्ताद्यन्महाकालात् ।

Bhaṭṭa Utpala and Someșvara sometimes call him Âchâryabhața or Âchârya Âryabhaṭa; Brahmagupta, in his Siddhânta, chap. x. 62, Âryâḥ, and in chap. xxi. 40, Âchâryabhața. In his Khanda Khâdya Karana, copied Samvat 1783, he is called Acharya Aryabhata or Aryabhata. In a commentary on it by Âmarâja, he is simply called Achâryabhata. Hence it appears to me clear that the proper spelling of this name is Âryabhaṭa.

1 Colebrooke states that Brahmagupta cites Aryabhata "in more than a hundred places by name." Misc. Ess. vol. ii. p. 475. He evidently includes citations or allusions by the learned commentator Chaturveda Pṛthůdaka Svâmin, whose commentary I regret I do not possess.

The works attributed to Aryabhata, and brought to light by European scholars, are :—

An Aryasiddhânta (Mahâ Ârya Siddhânta), written, according to Bentley, in the year 4423 of the Kali Yuga, or A.D. 1322.1

Another Aryasiddhânta, called Laghu, a smaller work, which Bentley supposed was spurious, and the date of which, as stated in the text, was interpreted to mean the year of the Kali Yuga 3623, or A.D. 522. Of both these works Mr. Bentley possessed imperfect copies. He assumed a comparatively modern work, attributed to Âryabhața, and written in A.D. 1322, as the genuine Aryasiddhânta, and, reasoning on this false premiss, has denounced as spurious the real and older work, and has, further, been led into the double error of condemning the genuine works of Varâha Mihira, Brahmagupta, Bhaṭṭa Utpala, and Bhâskarâchârya, containing quotations and references to the older work, as modern impostures, and of admitting as genuine a modern treatise (the Jâtakârnava) as the work of Varâha Mihira.

Colebrooke, not having the works of Aryabhața before him, suggested that the older work might be a fabrication, but, from citations and references to Âryabhața in the works of Brahmagupta and Bhaṭṭa Utpala, came to a singularly accurate conclusion as to the age of Aryabhata, whose works he thought were different from either treatise in the possession of Bentley. "We shall, however," writes Colebrooke, "take the fifth [century] of Christ as the latest period to which Âryabhaṭṭa can, on the most moderate assumption, be referred."3 In one place, indeed, Colebrooke correctly guesses that the Laghu Ârya Siddhânta is either the Âryâshtaṣata or the Daṣagîtikâ.*

-- Colebrooke's Misc. Ess. vol. ii. p. 477.

1 A Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy. London, 1825, p. 128 2 Ibidem, pp. 168, 169.

4 Ibid. p. 467.

The following passage in the Mahâ Âryasiddhânta explains itself:

इत्यार्यभटप्रोक्तात्सिद्धान्ताद्यग्रहाकालात् ।

पाठैर्गतमुच्छेदं विशेषितं तन्मया स्वोक्त्या ॥

"That (knowledge) from the Siddhânta, propounded by Aryabhata, which was destroyed, in recensions, by long time, I have, in my own language, thus specified." [???]

In another copy, the verse commences differently, having Vrddha for iti; i.e. the first Aryabhata is called Vṛddha, or old, whilst himself is the modern Aryabhata.

Strange to say, the date corresponding to A.D. 1322, mentioned by Bentley, is not to be found in my copies. But I believe he was here, for once, correct.

In the first volume of the Transactions of the Madras Literary Society, a paper was published by Mr. Whish, evidently founded on the works of Aryabhața senior. But, although Mr. Whish's paper is not available to me, I am positive he did not recognize his Aryabhaṭîya Sûtra as the work of Aryabhața senior.[???]

Professor Lassen has some admirable remarks on Aryabhata.1 He observes: "Of Aryabhatta's writings we have the following. He has written a short outline of his system, in ten strophes, which composition he therefore called Daṣagitaka; it is still extant. A more extensive work is the Aryashṭaṣata, which, as the title informs us, contains eight hundred distichs, but has not yet been rediscovered [???]. The mean between these works is held by the Aryabhaṭṭiya, which consists of four chapters, in which the author treats of mathematics in one hundred and twenty-three strophes.3 In it he teaches the method of designating numbers by means of letters, which I shall mention again by and by. Besides, he has left a commentary on the Sûrya Siddhânta, which has been elucidated by a much later astronomer, and is, probably, the work called Tantra by Albîrûnî.[??? This may be the same which was communicated to the Arabs, with two other Siddhântas, during the reign of the Khalif Almansûr, (which lasted from A.D. 754 till 775), by an Indian astronomer who had come to his court, but of which only the book properly so called, i.e. that of Brahmagupta, had been translated into Arabic, by order of that Khalif, by Muhammed bin Ibrâhîm Alfazârt, and had received the title of the great Sind-hind. (See Colebrooke's Misc. Ess. ii. p. 504 seqq.) From this juxtaposition it appears that sufficient materials are at hand for investigating the doctrines of this founder of mathematical and astronomical science in India. Therefore it would be very desirable if a mathematician and astronomer, provided with a competent knowledge of Sanskrit, were to undertake to fill up this great gap in the knowledge which we have hitherto possessed of the history of both these sciences."

1 Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. ii., p. 1136.

2 See Colebrooke's Misc. Ess. ii. p. 467. To the friendly offices of Mr. Gundert, a German missionary in India, I am indebted for a copy of this work, from a MS. in the possession of the Râjâ of Kerkal, in Malabar. It is here called Daşagitaka Sutra. I have also received from him a copy of the Aryabhaṭṭiya.

3 C. M. Whish names this work in the first dissertation mentioned in note 1, p. 1134, as well as in the second: On the Quadrature of the Circle, etc., in Trans. of the Roy. As. Soc. iii. p. 509. Also Masûdî and Albîrûnî record it; see Reinaud's Mémoire, etc., pp. 321 and 322,

To my learned friend Dr. Fitzedward Hall we are indebted for the first and accurate statement that, "as reference is made, in the Arya Siddhânta, to Vṛddha Âryabhaṭṭa, there should seem to have been two writers called Aryabhaṭṭa." This correct reference Dr. Hall was enabled to make from having possessed himself of "two copies of the Arya Siddhânta, both imperfect, and very incorrect." "This treatise is in eighteen chapters; and I more than suspect it to be the same composition which Mr. Bentley also had seen in a mutilated form," & [i.e. the Mahâ Ârya Siddhânta].

Āryabhaṭa (c. 920 – c. 1000)[1] also known as Arya Diya Jankhi was an Indian mathematician and astronomer, and the author of the Maha-Siddhanta. The numeral II is given to him to distinguish him from the earlier and more influential Āryabhaṭa I. Scholars are unsure of when exactly he was born, though David Pingree dates of his main publications between 950–1100.[1][2] The manuscripts of his Maha-Siddhanta have been discovered from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Bengal, so he probably lived in northern India.[2]

-- Aryabhata II, by Wikipedia

1 See Wilson's Mackenzie Coll. i. p. 119, No. v. The title is Sûrya Siddhântaprakâşa, and it contains the Sûtras of the Sûrya Siddhânta, with Aryabhatta's commentary, and explanations of it by a later author of the sixteenth century. The work contains three chapters with the superscriptions: Ganita, i.e. Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry, Kálakriya, by which very likely the doctrine of the calculation of the great periods must be understood; the title Gola of the third chapter designates the Globe, but is intended to denote Astronomy, Albirûnî mentions a Tantra of Aryabhatta;, see Reinaud's Mémoire, p. 335. In the commentary of Paramadisvara on Aryabhatta's explanation of the Surya Siddhânta (called Surya-Siddhânta-vyâkhyâna, and surnamed by the special title Bhattiyadipika, the title of which Mr. Gundert has communicated to me, and which work is likely to be the same with the one adduced in the Mackenzie Collection, vol. ii. p. 121, named Aryabhaṭṭa-vyâkhyâna), the work of Aryabhatta is called TantraBhaṭṭîya.

2 On the Arya-Siddhânta. By Fitzedward Hall, Esq., M.A. Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. vi. p. 559.

In an "Additional Note on Aryabhaṭṭa and his Writings," by the Committee of Publication, appended to Dr. Hall's paper, the learned writer under the initials W. D. W. [???] brings to light the contents of Bhûta Vishnu's "Commentary on the Daṣagîtikâ of Aryabhaṭṭa," from a manuscript of the Berlin Library, a copy of which was supplied to him by Prof. Weber.

From the nature of the contents given in Appendix A, it is clear to me that the treatise which is described as "a brief one, containing only about one hundred and fifty stanzas," consists not only of the Daṣagîti Sûtra, with a commentary by Bhúta Vishņu, but also of the Aryâshṭasata of Aryabhata, which was hitherto believed to be unrecovered. The learned writer correctly remarks that the treatise is undoubtedly the same as Bentley's Laghu Ârya Siddhânta, and also that "the other Arya Siddhânta, judging it from the account given of it by Bentley, appears to be, in comparison with this, a quite ordinary astronomical treatise, representing the general Hindu system with unimportant modifications." Yet he falls very nearly into the same error as Colebrooke, when he proceeds to remark: "Yet it seems clear that Brahmagupta and others have treated them as works of the same author, and have founded upon their discordances a charge of inconsistency against Âryabhaṭṭa." The fact is, as we shall see, that Brahmagupta, Bhaṭṭa Utpala, and Bhâskara Âchârya know and cite only the elder Aryabhata.

The next and last paper is on some fragments of Âryabhaṭṭa, by Dr. H. Kern in the Jour. Roy. As. Soc. vol. xx. pp. 371 seqq. After briefly noticing the works known to former writers as the works of Aryabhaṭa, and after alluding to the conclusion Dr. Hall arrived at, that there were two authors of the same name, he adds: "If the same course were adopted in regard to all the works ascribed to Aryabhaṭṭa, or to an Âryabhaṭṭa, if the contents were compared with the numerous fragments scattered in different works, chiefly commentaries, one might indulge the hope that the question of the authorship of Aryabhaṭṭa would be settled in a satisfactory manner."

1 Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. vi. pp. 561 and 564.