Ancient India As Described By Ptolemy- Being a translation of the Chapters which Describe India and Central and Eastern Asia in the Treatise on Geography

About the Book Ancient India is a collection of personal accounts originally written in Greek by Ptolemy and translated into English by John W. McCrindle. It is regarded as a classic work on the ancient geography of India.

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.

About the Author John W. McCrindle was a Scottish classical philologist and educator who wrote several major works on references to India in ancient classical writings. He taught at Patna College and later at Krishnagar College.

Preface The gratifying reception, which their editions of Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India and McCrindle's Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian, have met with at the hands of scholars, has induced the publishers to bring out this, the third book of the series, McCrindle's Ptolemy. Though regarded as a classic on the Ancient Geography of India, the work has been long out of print and could not be procured in the market except at fancy prices. The text of the present edition is a facsimile reprint of the original edition published in Bombay in 1885 together with an Introduction and Notes, embodying the latest researches supplementing the commentary of Dr. McCrindle. Dr. McCrindle has time and again pointed out that Ptolemy relied on.

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.

Introduction Klaudios Ptolemaios (or, to spell it according to the Latin system, Claudius Ptolemæus') the celebrated astronomer, mathematician and geographer. was a native of Egypt. But neither the time nor the place of his birth, not any of the events of his life, is known. He appears to have resided in Alexandria, where he made astronomical observations during the first half of the second century A.D. He has been described as of the royal race of the Ptolemies and has even been called 'King of Alexandria.' But there is no ground for these statements. There are numerous instances to show that the name Ptolemy was common in Egypt.

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.

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