32 ‘प्रस्थं सिद्धान्तसम्राजं सम्राद रचयति स्फुटम् । सुटयै श्रीजयसिंहस्य जगद्यथाहयः कृती ॥ अरबीभाषया अन्थो मिजास्तीनामकः स्थितः। गणानां सुबोधाय गीर्वाण्या प्रकटीकृतः । How then is this inconsistency to be explained? The problem, it must be confessed, is not easy of solution. The only possible solution seems to be that knowing as the author must have done bhat the science of Geometry (शिल्पशाख ) was first culti. vated in India and hence imported to Greece and other countries, and that it was in his time completely lost, he gave it a divine origin to inspire his people with greater respect for it. This incidentally lands us into the question whether Geometry was first discovered in India or in Greece, This is no place to enter into an exhaustive treatment of the Bubject, nor is it possible to arrive at an incontrovertible solu: tion of the question in the present state of our knowledge Suffice it to say that a nation to which the world owes the ingenious invention of numerical symbols and the decimal notation, a nation which made great advances in Algebra and Arithmetic, and a nation which made independent astronomical observations, arrived at a fairly accurate calculation of the solar year of 360 days with an intercalary month every three years, was acquainted with the phases of the moon, and had made observations of a few of the fixed starg*= nation 8o far ad. vanced in the cultivation of mathematics and astronomy cannot be supposed to be completely ignorant of the elements of geometry. It will not be amiss to quote the views of a few western scholars on this subject: " • 'Though no date can be fixed to the commencement of geometry in India, yet the certainty which we now have that algebra and the decimal arithmetic have come from that quarter, the recorded visits of bhe earlier Greek philosophers to Hindustan (bhough we allow weight rather to the tendency to suppose that philo sophers visited India bhan to the strength of the evidence
- vide Imperial Gazetteer of India' Vol, VI, pp. 104•6 by W. W. Epnter
