1884.] G. Thibaut —Vardlia Miliim’s Panchasiddlicintikd. 259 
iKsnl- % ^ ura srwsif % . 
Translation. 
0 Champa (flower) thou hast three properties in thee : 
Colour, beauty and fragranee, 
(But) thou hast one defect, that the black-bee does not 
come near thee. 
lleply. The black-bee is the lover of flowers and it tastes the 
sweets of numerous flowers. 
I do not allow the friend of prostitutes to come near me. 
Notes from Vardlia Mihira’s PanchasiddlidntiJcd .— 
By G. Thibaut, Phil. De. 
PART I. 
The mean motions op the planets accordino to the 
Su'rta and Bomaka Siddha'ntas. 
We are at present fairly well-acquainted with the general character 
of Hindu Astronomy and—among European scholars at least—there 
prevails no longer any doubt that the system exhibited in works like the 
Surya Siddhanta, the Laghu-Aryabhatiya, etc. is an adaptation of Greek 
science. The time to which books like the Siirya Siddhanta must be 
ascribed from internal data, the date of Aryabhata,—if not the oldest, at 
least one of the oldest of the scientific Hindu Astronomers—which we 
know from his own statement, the fundamental similarity of the methods 
employed by the Greeks on the one and the Hindus on the other side, 
the fact of terms of unquestionably Greek origin being met with in 
Indian astronomical works, and lastly the testimony which the Hindu 
writers themselves bear to the proficiency of the Yavanas in the Jyotisha 
S'astra more than suffice to convince impartial judges that the enormous 
progress which a book of the class of the Siirya Siddhanta marks on 
works of the nature of the Jyotisha Yedanga was not effected without 
help coming from the West. 
But although the general fact of transmission is acknowledged the 
details of the process still stand in need of much elucidation, and we 
shall not be able to claim a full understanding of the position of the 
