Page:A Short History of Aryan Medical Science.djvu/21

I.] to Cape Comorin, and from the Irawady and the Bay of Bengal to the Indus and the Western sea, came to be recognised as. It is a beautiful country with natural boundaries. It enjoys the six seasons of the year, and the position of its mountains and its seas gives it a variety of climate, inasmuch as it possesses the hottest, coolest, and the most temperate places of resort. The country was a cradle of learning for the whole world, and history bears witness to the fact that many a nation that now walks with its head erect would have been nowhere had it not borrowed considerably from the intellectual storehouse of the ancient Hindoos. This country was at the pinnacle of glory when other nations were either not in existence or were wallowing in crass ignorance. Most of the sciences, which the present century boasts of so much, were not unknown to the ancient Hindoos ; and one has but to look into their writings to see whether the truths propounded by them some thousands of years ago do not still endure in their natural freshness.

The Hindoos were the first to cultivate Astronomical Science (Jyotisha). All modern astronomers admit the great antiquity of their