Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854 – 1930)

[KALKI]

The very names of the numerals are of Sanskrit origin. Professor Arthur Macdonell says in his A History of Sanskrit Literature: "During the eighth and ninth 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."

(source: Indian Culture and the Modern Age - By Dewan Bahadur K. S. Ramaswami Sastri Annamalai University. 1956 p.66-67).

[KALKI]

The very names of the numerals are of Sanskrit origin. Professor Arthur Macdonell says in his A History of Sanskrit Literature: "During the eighth and ninth 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."

(source: Indian Culture and the Modern Age - By Dewan Bahadur K. S. Ramaswami Sastri Annamalai University. 1956 p.66-67).


Arthur Anthony Macdonell (11 May 1854 – 28 December 1930),[1] 7th of Lochgarry, was a noted Sanskrit scholar.

Macdonell was born Muzaffarpur in India the son of Charles Alexander Macdonell, of the Indian Army. He was educated at Göttingen University, then matriculated in 1876 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, gaining a classical exhibition and three scholarships (for German, Chinese, and the Boden Scholarship for Sanskrit). He graduated with classical honours in 1880 and was appointed Taylorian Teacher of German at Oxford. In 1883 he obtained his PhD from the University of Leipzig, and then became Deputy Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1888, and Boden Professor of Sanskrit in 1899 (a post that carried with it a fellowship of Balliol College, Oxford.[2]

Macdonell edited various Sanskrit texts, wrote a grammar,[3] compiled a dictionary, and published a Vedic grammar, a Vedic Reader, and a work on Vedic mythology; he also wrote a history of Sanskrit.