A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v1.c9.s4.83

v1.c9.s4.83

“Another influx of Hindu learning took place under Harun, A. D. 786-808. The ministerial family Barmak, then at the zenith of their power had come with the ruling dynasty from Balkh, where an ancestor of theirs had been an official in the Buddhistic temple Naubehār i. e. navavihāra, the new temple (or monastery). The name Barmak is said to be of Indian descent, meaning paramaka, i. e. the superior (abbot of the vihāra?). Cf. Kern, “Geschichte des Buddhismus” in Indien, ii, 445, used all over the world. The influence which the decimal system of reckoning dependent on those figures has had not only on mathematics, but on the progress of civilisation in general, can hardly be over-estimated. During the 8th and 9th centuries the Indians became the teachers in arithmetic and algebra of the Arabs, and through them of the nations of the West. Thus, though we call the latter science by an Arabic name, it is a gift we owe to India."