ABSTRACT
Most nineteenth-century scholars interested in India had received education in classics, and they quite often noted similarities between Sanskrit and Greek traditions. Adopting a world-historical approach, they presented case studies of classifications from tribal societies in North America and Australia, before turning to the ancient literate cultures of China, India, and Greece–Greece being presented as ancestral to modern scientific thinking. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book considers much standardization and consolidation of references, and the articles have been given new titles more appropriate to their new context. It provides a reasonably consolidated argument for a particular view of the field, developed in light of this and other secondary literature. The book addresses various audiences who, in judging it, will inevitably bring to bear their own disciplinary backgrounds.
