4. Keay, Op. cit., page 157.
5. Ibid., page 136.
6. T. Burrow, The Sanskrit Language, London: Faber & Faber, 1955, page 64. See also: Thapar, Op. cit., page 58.
7. Burrow, Op. cit., page 65.
8. Keay, Op. cit., page 139.
9. Ibid., page 145. See also: Thapar, Op. cit., page 140.
10. Keay, Op. cit., page 145.
11. Guilds even acted as bankers, lending money on occasion to the royal court.
12. Keay, Op. cit., page 145.
13. Ibid., page 146.
14. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 162.
15. Burrow, Op. cit., page 43.
16. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 162; see also Keay, Op. cit., page 61 and Thapar, Op. cit., page 123.
17. Burrow, Op. cit., page 58.
18. Ibid., page 2.
19. Ibid., page 50.
20. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 170.
21. Keay, Op. cit., page 151.
22. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 172.
23. Keay, Op. cit., page 152.
24. Ibid. Inside India itself, the development (or non-development) of Sanskrit led to certain anomalies. In Kalidasa’s plays, for example, there was a theatrical convention that servants, people belonging to the lower castes, and all female and child characters, spoke and understood only Prakrit, showing that it was everybody’s first language. Burrow, Op. cit., page 60. Sanskrit is preserved in the drama only for the ‘twice-born’ principals – kings, ministers, learned Brahmans. Keay, Op. cit., page 153. Because Sanskrit was frozen, writers who lived a full millennium after Panini were forced to replace innovation with ingenuity. One consequences was that, eventually, sentences sometimes ran to several pages, and words might have more than fifty syllables. (In early Sanskrit, in contrast, the use of compounds is no different from, say, Homer.) Burrow, Op. cit., page 55. But although Sanskrit was understood by just a tiny minority of the population, that minority was all-important and, as we shall see, this did not inhibit the development or the spread of new ideas. Sanskrit acted as a cultural bond in India, as the vernacular languages fragmented and proliferated.
25. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 197.
26. Ibid., page 203.
27. Ibid., 204. See Thapar, Op. cit., page 158, for the plan of the Vishnu temple at Deogarh.
28. Heinrich Zimmer, Myths and Symbols of Indian Art and Civilisation, Princeton, New Jersey, and London: The Bollingen Series of Princeton University Press, 1972/1992, page 48.
29. Ibid., page 49.
30. Ibid., page 53.
31. Unlike in so many areas of the world, the sun was not worshipped in India. On the contrary, it was seen as a deadly power. The moon, however, was understood as life-giving. The dew followed its appearance and the moon also controlled the waters through the tides. Water was the earthly equivalent of amrita, the drink of the gods (and a word related to the Greek ambrosia). Water, sap, milk and blood were all different forms of amrita and its most conspicuous manifestations on earth were the three holy rivers – the Ganges, Sarasvati and Jumna. Sinners who expire near these rivers are released from all their sins. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 110.
32. Ibid., page 81.
33. Keay, Op. cit., page 152.
34. Ibid., page 174.
35. Thapar, Op. cit., page 190, for a detailed description.
36. Keay, Op. cit., page 206.
37. Ibid., page 214.
38. Ibid., page 208. See also: Thapar, Op. cit., page 195.
39. Keay, Op. cit., page 217, while Thapar, Op. cit., page 210 gives details of the income of the temple.
40. Keay, Op. cit., page 209.
41. Gernet, Op. cit., page 92.
42. Thapar, Op. cit., pages 143–146. Gernet, Op. cit., page 96.
43. Mukerjee, The Culture and Art of India, Op. cit., pages 269–271.
44. Ibid., pages 267ff.
45. Thapar, Op. cit., pages 161ff.
46. S. N. Das Gupta, ‘Philosophy’, in Basham (editor), Op. cit., pages 114ff.
47. Das Gupta, Op. cit., page 118.
48. Mukerjee, Op. cit., pages 255ff.
49. Thapar, Op. cit., page 162.
50. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 119. Thapar, Op. cit., page 185.
51. Boyer, A History of Mathematics, Op. cit., page 207.
52. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 147.
53. Tamil poems of the first four centuries AD make frequent references to Yavanas, Westerners familiar with Hellenic science and Roman technology. As was mentioned earlier, this word is seen by some as derived from ‘Ionian’. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 151 and W. W. Tam, The Greeks in Bactria and India, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1951.
54. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 154.
55. As discussed earlier (Chapter 12, note 87), the actual word ‘sine’ emerged through a mistranslation of the Hindu name, jiva.
56. Boyer, Op. cit., page 210. See also: Thapar, Op. cit., page 155.
57. Boyer, Op. cit., page 198.
58. Ibid., page 212.
59. D. E. Smith, History of Mathematics, New York: Dover, 1958, volume 1, page 167.
60. Joseph Needham et al., Science and Civilisation in China, volume 3, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1954, page 11n.
61. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 157.
62. Boyer, Op. cit., page 215.
63. Ibid., page 216. The mathematics of India have influenced the whole world. But Westerners should never forget that, historically, India’s international influence has been primarily on the countries to the east of her. In particular, Sanskrit literature, Buddhism and Hinduism, in their various guises, have helped shape south-east Asia. In terms of sheer numbers of people affected, certainly up to the medieval period, India’s influence on the world is second to none. Hindu doctors believed that life began in the ‘primal waters’, that the appearance of people (their physiognomy) recalled the appearance of different gods, and that fever was due to demons, as was indigestion, the commonest cause of illness. Basham (editor), Op. cit., page 148. Health was maintained by the proper balance of the three humours – phlegm, gall and wind (or breath), which depended on diet (blood was added later, as a fourth humour). The lungs were believed to transport water through the body and the navel was the ultimate source of the blood vessels. Hindus had a vast pharmacopoeia based on a theory that certain essences of herbs and foods corresponded to the humours in differing proportions. Honey was believed to have healing powers and was associated with amrita, the ‘elixir of immortality’. Ibid., page 149. There was, interestingly, no conception of brain disease – consciousness was centred on the heart. Dropsy, consumption, leprosy, abscess, certain congenital diseases and a number of skin complaints were recognised and described. The name of the Hindu god of medicine was Asvin and the best-known physician was Charaka, who described many real and not-so-real conditions. For example, he gave the name Ayurveda to the science of longevity. Ibid., page 150. All illnesses were seen as having an ethical element, resulting in some way from a moral lapse. There was a specialist tradition of elephant medicine.