This edition also comes with a commentary and an introduction by the translator who has time and again pointed out that Ptolemy majorly relied on Indian sources even in his description of other parts of Asia and this work further explains that the people of Central Asia were known to the Sanskrit scholars. Ancient India as described by Ptolemy is illuminating for the serious student and layperson alike.
Indian sources even in his description of other parts of Asia and in this work we have attempted to show that the peoples of Central Asia were known to Sanskrit writers. As Gerini has dealt with Ptolemy's account of Further India and the Indian Archipelago in his masterly "Researches on Ptolemy's Geography," no attempt has been made here to comment on this portion of Ptolemy. Mr. G. E. Fawcus, C.L.E., O.B.E., Director of Public Instruction, Behar and Orissa, has laid us under a deep debt of gratitude by permitting us to associate his name with this work. We must also express our special obligations to Messrs. George Routledge & Sons, Limited, for permission to the present publishers to issue new editions of McCrindle's works on Ancient India.
We may be permitted to hope that the present volume will meet with the same welcome from students and scholars as was accorded to the first two books of this series.
He was the first systematic writer on Greek astronomy whose works are now extant; but his astronomical labours are chiefly based on those of Hipparchus, who lived about 300 years before him, and whose calculations he adjusted to his own time. Ptolemy's great astronomical work is entitled Megale syntaxis tes Astronomais, and is commonly known by its Arabic title Almagest (which means 'the [Al] great work').
It contains an exposition of the system of the world, of the order and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, a treatise on rectilineal and spherical astronomy, and a complete description of the astronomical instruments used by the Greeks. His system was universally accepted, until it was superseded by that of Copernicus.
His Geography (Geographike Huphegesis or Geographiké syntaxis) is a work of equal historical importance. As an authority it maintained its ground till the commencement of maritime discovery in the fifteenth.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
For privacy concerns, please view our Privacy Policy
Hindu (875)
Agriculture (85)
Ancient (994)
Archaeology (567)
Architecture (526)
Art & Culture (848)
Biography (586)
Buddhist (540)
Cookery (160)
Emperor & Queen (489)
Islam (234)
Jainism (271)
Literary (866)
Mahatma Gandhi (377)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist