The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c7.382

v1.c7.382

⁵³ Dr. Weber surmises that Maya is the Sanskrit form of Ptolemaios, the author of the *Almagest*. He writes the word *asuramaya*; in Sanskrit writings it often occurs in the form of *mayadānava*; but *asura* and *dānava* are used as synonymous terms, both meaning a demon, a Titan, a giant, and therefore either term may be used at option as an epithet for Maya. Literally *maya* may be accepted as the Sanskrit rendering of *maios*; but it would leave the first two syllables, *ptole*, unaccounted for. Dr. Weber does not say in so many words that those syllables are represented by the epithet *asura*, but he so uses the epithet along with Maya as to indicate that he means it. No recognised law of Philology, however, will accept *asura* to be the Sanskrit equivalent of the Greek *ptole*. In the 13th Aśoka edict, Ptolemaios appears as Turamāya, and the *Mahābhārata*, if we take it to have been written after Aśoka, should have adopted the same spelling. Claudius Ptolemy, the author of the *Almagest*, lived in the second century (140-160) A.C., and the date therefore of the *Mahābhārata* has to be brought down to at least three centuries after that ; so that an Ionian may be represented as a giant fighting with a Hindu prince, without causing any misgiving in the minds of the readers of the narrative, as to its authenticity. But the *Mahābhārata*, in the course of its hundred thousand verses, nowhere alludes to Buddhism or Buddha, and must therefore, and on other grounds not worth naming here, date from before the birth of Śākya ; or at least the 6th century B. C., and to bring it down to the middle of the fifth century of the Christian era, on the strength of *maya* being similar in sound to the last two syllables of a Greek name, the first two syllables being overlooked, or represented by an epithet in direct opposition to all laws of Philology, would be to subvert all historical consistency. Nothing short of the intrepidity of a Wilford could accept such a major for a historical argument ; and I must confess my inability to appreciate the value of such a system of logic. Had the work of Maya as it originally existed been compared with the *Almagest*, or any other work on architecture by Ptolemy, and found to correspond, there would have been very good reason for accepting the surmise to be well-founded ; but in the absence of such proof, it is futile to urge it as an argument. The *Maya Śilpa*, as it now exists, treats of architecture solely as shown above, and the *Almagest* has "various problems of the ancients both in geometry and astronomy" for its subjects, and between the two there can be no comparison. Ptolemy also wrote a great work on geography, but that too cannot be compared with the *Maya Śilpa*. He is said by Dr. Weber to have built some palaces, but nobody has yet asserted that he ever wrote any treatise on architecture.