A Concise History of Science in India c5.2

c5.2

The position is quite different with regard to sacerdotal texts, canonical literature, philosophical compendia, encyclopaedic works like the *Bṛhatsaṃhitā*, *Arthaśāstra* (work on polity), epics, *purāṇas*, lexicographies and so on in which scientific matters and concepts appear incidentally, mixed up with the non-scientific, but which are nevertheless exceedingly important from the point of view of the history of the development of scientific ideas. The scientific contents and their analyses will, however, appear in their proper places in the chapters concerned, but in this survey we shall give an account of such general sources, including the archaeological, and their chronological position, so that we may not have to refer to them again and again.