134 Notice on the oldest work on Silfism. [No. 2. 



came to the Musalmans opinions are divided. Some think from 

 Greece and others from India. What has not come from India ! I 

 have observed that people in India smile when they are pleased, and 

 cry to express grief, and as this habit also prevails in Europe, I am 

 convinced it has been introduced from India, and I should think 

 by the great mercantile road of ancient times because in Arabia and 

 Syria I observed the same extraordinary practice. If these learned 

 persons would only mention the works on Pantheism which have been 

 translated from the Sanskrit into Arabic, or the Sufies who in 

 early times have visited India. It is true we read of translations 

 of some few medical and astrological works, but it is equally true 

 that this does not imply that also works on Pantheism have been 

 translated. But supposing it did. We cannot point out a single 

 principle in Avicenna or any other Arabic author on medicine which 

 has been taken from the Sasruta. These translations from the 

 Sanskrit were, therefore, sounds in the desert air. I have seen at 

 Cawnpore a very elaborate work in Arabic on the Copernican system 

 of astronomy, which was written under Akbar. This system can be 

 expressed in one word and it changes the whole aspect of the science. 

 Tet observatories have been built in India after that time and astro- 

 nomical tables have been calculated with great expense and labour, 

 and this system has been completely ignored, though astronomy is 

 not connected with religion. Notwithstanding this and similar 

 examples, people consider themselves excessively learned, if they 

 start a theory so silly as that the Musalmans have taken from the 

 Brahinans, a system of philosophy and asceticism, which is intimate- 

 ly connected with their own religion, and which in the form in which 

 we find it among the Sufies, never existed in India ; and we are ex- 

 pected to receive this theory as a fact, though not one single histori- 

 cal proof is adduced in confirmation. 



Bayazyd Bistamy who died in 261 says, apud Darashikoh, Hasandt 

 aVdrifyn, " The seed of theosophy a^.*^ has been put into the ground 

 at the time of Adam, at the time of Noah it came forth from the 

 ground, at the time of Abraham it was in flower, at the time of 

 Moses the grapes began to grow, at the time of Christ they came 

 to maturity, and at the time of Mohammad pure wine was made 

 of them, and the drunkards among his followers indulge in it, 



