MATERIA INDICA

xxvi PRELlMINARY OBSERVATIONS.
As to dramatic poetry, the Sakontala of CALIDAS,
a work of great merit, has been translated by Sir
William Jones, who calls its author the Shakspeare
of India. The story upon which the play was
founded has also been translated into English by
Mr. Wilkins.
On the subjects of arithmetic and geometry, the
natives of India have many works: on the first,
perhaps, the m,?st celebrated is the Liliivati, translated
into English by Dr. John Taylor lI: ; a treatise on algebra,
the Vija-Ganita, and so accurately translated,
by every account, by Mr. Colebrooke, has excited
sufficient sensation in Europe; and there is, I
fancy, little doubt, but that the algebraic characters
brought into Europe from Arabia were originally
from India.
It is by no means my business here to enter upon
the great question connected with the astronomy of
the Hindoos, having neither science nor oriental
lore sufficient for the discussion; I shall therefore
merely observe, that there have been very serious
differences of opinion with respect to the age in which
the great astronomical work, the Surya Siddhanta,
was written. Mr. BENTLEY, at one period, affirmed
that he believed it to have been composed by Varalta,
A. D. 1060; in a posthumous work, however, he
appears to have altered his opinion, and adopted the
notion of Varalta's being an impostor of a recent
date; indeed, he would seem altogether latterly to
have become thoroughly sceptical on such points,
going so far as to doubt if the avatars or descents of
the Hindoo deities, under various forms of incarna.
* The same excellent scholar also translated a drama called
the Pra{Jodka Ckandrodga, or the Rise of the Moon of Intel.
lect.