Indian tenets. Scientific facts passed also from Alexandria to India. This is shown plainly by the Greek origin of some of the technical terms used by the Hindoos. Hindoo astronomy was influenced by Greek astronomy. Most of the geometrical knowledge which they possessed is traceable to Alexandria, and to the writings of Heron in particular. In algebra there was, probably, a mutual giving and receiving. We suspect that Diophantus got the first glimpses of algebraic knowledge from India. On the other hand, evidences have been found of Greek algebra among the Brahmins. The earliest knowledge of algebra in India may possibly have been of Babylonian origin. When we consider that Hindoo scientists looked upon arithmetic and algebra merely as tools useful in astronomical research, there appears deep irony in the fact that these secondary branches were after all the only ones in which they won real distinction, while in their pet science of astronomy they displayed an inaptitude to observe, to collect facts, and to make inductive investigations.
We shall now proceed to enumerate the names of the leading Hindoo mathematicians, and then to review briefly Indian mathematics. We shall consider the science only in its complete state, for our data are not sufficient to trace the history of the development of methods. Of the great Indian mathematicians, or rather, astronomers,—for India had no mathematicians proper,—Aryabhatta is the earliest. He was born 476 A.D., at Pataliputra, on the upper Ganges. His celebrity rests on a work entitled Aryabhattiyam, of which the third chapter is devoted to mathematics. About one hundred years later, mathematics in India reached the highest mark. At that time flourished Brahmagupta (born 598). In 628 he wrote his Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta ("The Revised System of Brahma"), of which the twelfth and eighteenth chapters belong to mathematics. To the fourth or fifth century belongs
