The common origin of the Sanscrit language with those of the west leaves no doubt that there was once a connection between the nations by whom they a… - Mountstuart Elphinstone in India, 1796-1818

Such arguments were by no means uncontested. In 1841, Mountstuart Elphinstone objected that "it is opposed to their foreign origin that neither in the code [of Manu] nor, I believe, in the Vedas, nor in any book . . . is there any allusion to a prior residence or to a knowledge of more than the name of any country out of India." Responding to some of the arguments that had been brought forward, he argued that "to say that [the original language] spread from a central point is a gratuitous assumption, and even contrary to language; for emigration and civilization have not spread in a circle." As far as he was concerned, "the question, therefore, is still open. There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present one, and as little for denying that they may have done so before the earliest trace of their records or tradition" (97-98).

Where, also, could the central point be, from which a language could spread over India, Greece and Italy, and yet leave Chaldaea, Syria and Arabia untouched? The question, therefore, is still open. There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present.

In the Surva Siddhanta is contained a system of trigonometry which not only goes beyond anything known to the Greeks, but involves theorem which were not discovered in Europe till two centuries ago.