the expense of his neighbors. Weaker
neighbors were to be conquered and
assimilated, whereas stronger ones
were to be pacified or stalled with the
eventual hope that these stronger
states could be countered by making
other alliances.
Although the Arthashastra was
never the “Bible” of any ruling Indian
dynasty, it detailed political philosophy
and practices that existed in ancient
and medieval India and can even
be discerned in contemporary
parliamentary politics.
Arundhati
The wife of the sage Vasishtha. In Hindu
mythology Arundhati is a model of
devotion to her husband, and during
contemporary marriage ceremonies,
she is invoked by the groom as a model
of wifely fidelity. Arundhati is also per-
sonified as the minor star Alcor in the
constellation known as the Big Dipper
(known in India as the Seven Sages
because of its seven main stars); here
she accompanies the star personifying
her husband.
Aryabhatta
Ancient astronomer and mathemati-
cian, whose major work was composed
in 499 C.E. Among Aryabhatta’s accom-
plishments were his theories that the
earthwas a sphere that rotated on its
axis, and that eclipseswere caused by
the shadow of the moon. He also calcu-
lated the value of pito four decimal
places and the length of the year to
seven decimal places. Both these feats
show not only great facility with mathe-
matics but also the use of the zero.
Although Aryabhatta is celebrated as
a scientist, in the ancient world there was
no differentiation between astronomer
and astrologer. Given the assumption
that the heavenly bodies influenced
human affairs, his astronomical conclu-
sions would have also been used in the
field of astrology.
Aryan
This word is derived from the Sanskrit
word arya(“noble”), which is used in the
earliest Hindu sacred literature, the
Vedas, to describe a certain group of
people that believed the Vedas were
sacred. In the beginning this word sim-
ply designated “our group” from “other
people,” whom the Veda names Dasyus
(“slaves”). These provide a description of
the slaves as having flat noses and curly
hair. Throughout history Hindu writers
have often described themselves as
“Arya,” although it is important to note
that this need not be understood as a
racial designation, since it could merely
be intended to mean “noble.”
Who were these Aryans? Nineteenth-
century European philological
research discovered structural rela-
tionships between Sanskrit and
classical European languages and
speculatedthat all these languages
came from a common parent. Based
on further analysis, these researchers
hypothesized that people speaking
this parent language originated in
Central Asia, somewhere near the
Caspian Sea. From there, some went
west to Europe, some went southwest
to Turkey, and some went south
toward Iran and later to India. The
conclusion that these Indian pilgrims
came from Iran is based on compar-
isons between the Avesta and the
Veda, the Iranian and Indian religious
texts. These texts show broad linguis-
tic similarities and indicate that the
people speaking the languages were
closely related. This entire theory is
thus based solely on the observed
similarities between languages and on
how they changed.
For the nineteenth-century philolo-
gists, “Aryan” was a linguistic category
used to designate people speaking
certain languages and involved no
assumptions about the speakers’
racial identity. Despite this fact,
the word quickly assumed a racial
connotation in European discourse,
with terrible consequences.Arundhati