Prof. Weber seems finally himself
frightened at the Yavana spectre he has raised, for he
queries:--"Whether by the Yavanas it is really the Greeks who are meant
or possibly merely their Indo-Scythian or other successors, to whom the
name was afterwards transferred." This wholesome doubt ought to have
modified his dogmatic tone in many other such cases.
But, drive out prejudice with a pitch fork it will ever return. The
eminent scholar, though staggered by his own glimpse of the truth,
returns to the charge with new vigour. We are startled by the fresh
discovery that Asuramaya:* the earliest astronomer, mentioned
repeatedly in the Indian epics, "is identical with 'Ptolemaios' of the
Greeks." The reason for it given is, that "this latter name, as we see
from the inscriptions of Piyadasi, became in Indian 'Turamaya,' out of
which the name 'Asuramaya' might very easily grow; and since, by the
later tradition, this 'Maya' is distinctly assigned to Romaka-pura in
the West." Had the "Piyadasi inscription" been found on the site of
ancient Babylonia, one might suspect the word "Turamaya" as derived from
"Turanomaya," or rather mania.
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