LXII KOYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



In submitting this hypothesis for verification I may say that I have 

 gone mo farther mjiself, than noting that the first Greek edition, the 

 " editio princeps " of tlie classical work of Arrian, the Roman prefect 

 01 Cappadocia, on India, was printed in the very year in which Jacques 

 Cartier first ascended the St. Lawrence. This may be a mere coinci- 

 dence, but it seems to encourage investigation. A Latin translation had 

 been published not long before. Every source of information about 

 India was of course, keenly scrutinized in those days, and as Arrian was 

 also a celebrated writer on philosophy (the Stoic pliilosophy) the asso- 

 ciation of ideas even if there were no other cause, would direct attention 

 to Indian philosophy. 



The suggested inquir}^ may be limited at first to the question whether 

 a knowledge of the name of the Indian philosopher and of his philosophy 

 did exist or could have existed in EurojDe (more especially in France), 

 at the beginning of the 16 th century. 



It might be impossible to trace the course by which it travelled 

 from India; just as we' are unable to recover the history of the great 

 debt which i science owes to India in the invention of what are called the 

 Arabic numerals, with their wonderful superiority to the Greek a,nd 

 Roman characters in their facilities for calculation. Yet we are sure 

 that the knowledge percolated through from India, whether by mer- 

 chants, or travellers, or writings. The shape of the figures themselves 

 IS a testimony, from the resemblance they bear to the initial letters of 

 the corresponding Sanskrit names for the numbers. 



New light will be welcomed. Only two derivations, so far as 1 

 know, have hitherto been in vogue ; the first from an original signifying 

 " nothing there '^ — ^which is disrespectful to the country — ^the other 

 from an Indian word meaning " village," which is disrespectful to the 

 inventive faculties of the discoverers. Neither has been accepted with 

 favour, and both are now, in effect, buried in polite oblivion. The field 

 is, therefore, open for fresh attempts.^ 



Whatever be the ouLeome of the inquiry, it is certain that when we 

 look on a map of the world, we find written broad across the forehead of 

 America, the name of an Indian philosopher, the reputed author, and 



^ The suggestion that the name " Canada " might possibly, like the term 

 " Indian " have been imported from India through Europe, has brought out 

 an additional example of the value of the personal meetings in societies like 

 the R. S. C. The impression on my mind concerning the various deriva- 

 tions proposed, given above, was derived from such books as those of 

 Archbishop Trench, Isaac Taylor, etc. At the meeting, after the address, 

 my attention was directed to the new and attractive work of Dr. S. E. Daw- 

 son, " The Saint Lawrence," published only last year, in which the native 

 origin of the name is advocated. 



