154 
ceive if there be sufficient similarity either in sentiment 
or science to prove the likelihood of an early communication 
between the Greeks and Hindoos. There is, in the first 
place, no doubt that the fame of Indian philosophers was 
sufficiently great and extended, 300 years before the 
Christian era, to induce the conqueror of Asia, and en- 
lightened pupil of Aristotle, Alexander, to visit and hold 
intercourse with some of the Indian Gymnosophists. 
From the researches of our celebrated countrymen, Jones 
Colebrooke, and Wilson, assisted by the labours of many 
German and French Orientalists, we can now obtain, by 
consulting a variety of works, as well as Transactions of 
Societies, a general idea of Hindoo science and literature, 
as treasured up in the ancient Sanscrit. To these sources, 
therefore, and the abstracts made from them, I have been 
indebted for the information which follows, and which I 
have incorporated, that the argument may be viewed in its 
integrity, instead of in isolated details. 
The very perfection and " highly polished grammatical 
structure,'''' of the language, with which so many others 
are connected, and from which, or from some very ancient 
common source, they must have been derived, prove the 
great attention paid by the Hindoos to literature. Works 
on grammar, lexicography, and metrics, form altogether 
one of the main branches of Sanscrit literature, (v. " The 
Hindoos," ascribed to the late Dr. Rosen.) The classified 
dictionary, containing 10,000 words, called Amera Cosha, 
has frequently been quoted. 
The Vedas have been mentioned as the most ancient, 
and also as the most important of the Hindoo works ; 
forming the basis of their religion, as well as the foun- 
dation of their social and political institutions. The four, 
called the Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva Veda, have 
their present arrangements attributed to the sage Vyasa. 
