1874.] Bajendralala Mitra —The Yavancis of Sanskrit Writers. 275 
course, the testimony of the Hindu astronomers at his time, and there 
is not the slightest reason to doubt its accuracy.” * The train of his 
reasoning, however, soon overcomes his caution, and at the end of half a 
page he emphatically declares “ that Puli^a was a Greek, I do not doubt 
for a moment, notwithstanding that the Paul^a-siddhanta, judging from 
quotations, and rather numerous ones, is so thoroughly Hinduised that 
few or no traces of its Greek origin are left.” “ It may be deemed,” he 
continues, “ a trace of foreign origin that Pul^a calls “ solar” (saura) time, 
what otherwise is called “ civil” (savana) time, or as Utpala puts and exem¬ 
plifies it, “ what with us is £ civil time’ is with Paul^a-acharya ‘ solar time,’ 
a solar day being with him the interval from midnight till midnight or from 
sunrise to sunset. We should meet, perhaps, with a few more traces of 
Greek influence, if we had the whole work before us, hut nobody who is 
acquainted with the Hindu mind would ever expect a translation.”f 
Again, “ to return to the Paulica Siddhanta, it must have existed, like 
some of the other Siddhantas, in two editions. All the quotations from it are 
again in Ary a, which to my mind renders it probable that it was not long, 
say, at the utmost, 100 years, prior to Aryabhata and Varahamihira. Now 
it is interesting that Utpala quotes a Mula-Puliga-Siddhanta, an “ original 
Pulica Siddhanta,” and that this time the verse is in Anushtubli. It is 
only one verse, hut quite enough to prove that even this “ original work had 
been adapted to the exigencies of Hindu science, for it gives the number of 
revolutions of the fixed stars during the Four Ages.”J 
To summarize these remarks,—we have a few quotations from a work 
which is no longer extant; these quotations are so thoroughly Hinduised that 
they bear no mark to indicate that they are not indigenous ; they are not trans¬ 
lations ; but because they refer to solar time which, though well known from 
comparatively very olden time by the Hindus, corresponds with the Greek 
solar time, and because the Doctor will “ perhaps meet with a few more traces 
of Greek influence” in those quotations when better acquainted with them, 
he has not only “ no doubt for a moment” that their author “ Pul^a was a 
Greek,” but he summarily denounces the authenticity of those MSS. which 
write the name Pulastya and not Pulisha. This is a process of ratiocination 
which, I regret, I cannot appreciate. To my mind it has very much the 
appearance of forcing facts to subserve the purposes of a theory. The 
authority of Albiruni on the subject amounts to the mode in which the 
Sanskrit name is written in Arabic letters, and, bearing in mind the fact 
how Indian names get transmogrified in the Semitic character, may be set 
aside as of little import. That he called Pulisha a Greek on the authority of 
his Hindu informers, and not on that of a conjecture of his own, is at best a 
gratuitous assumption. I have nothing to say against the theory of two 
# Ibid., p. 48. f Ibid., p. 49. J Ibid., p. 50. 
