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each other. However, Greek influence was certainly not limited only to this period. The Parthian empire which lasted until 226 A. D. was not averse to Hellenistic culture. Only with the establishment of the Sassanid empire reaction against foreign ideas became strong and Zoroastrianism was restored as a kind of national religion. It is not excluded that even during the time of the Sassanid empire (226-651) Greek learning was still received in India. According to some scholars this is the case in the field of astronomy. A famous Indian astronomer Varāhamihira wrote about 500 a work Pañcasiddhāntikā which testifies to a strong Greek influence. Terms like anaphā, sunaphā and durudharā which indicate zodiacal positions of the planets are Greek words: ἀναφή, συναφή and δορυφορία54. Varāhamihira has used older Indian works which partly reflect the concepts of the second century Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus. According to Sylvain Léviss Greek astronomy must have been borrowed by the Indians between 350 and 450. It seems safer to be less definite and to ascribe the borrowing to the period 200 to 450 56. Probably most of the borrowings from Greek culture must have taken place before this time. I am afraid that it is impossible to discuss in any detail Greek influence on India and Indian influence on the Greeks. The bibliography on this subject is extensive and the number of unsolved problems considerable. In the 19th century scholars tended to exaggerate Greek influence. Greece was considered as the birth-place of civilization and any resemblance between Indian and Greek culture was immediately considered to be an indication of Greek influence on India. Recent scholars have been more modest in their claims 57. At the same time they have been able to use more relia
54. L. de la Vallée Poussin, Dynasties et histoire de l'Inde, Paris, 1935, p. 301. See also James Burgess, Note on Hindu astronomy and the history of our knowledge of it, JRAS, 1893, pp. 746-748. However, avagy is not recorded in Liddell and Scott's Greek-English
Lexicon.
55. Mémorial Sylvain Lévi, p. 201.
56. G. Thibaut, Astronomie, Astrologie und Mathematik, Strassburg, 1899, pp. 43-50. 57. For bibliographical details see Lamotte, op.cit., p. 469, n. 1.
