Note 36 — Chapter I

An after-thought has made us fancy that we can understand what is meant by the following sentences of Moses of Chorenè: “The ancient Asiatics,” says he, “five centuries before our era—and especially the Hindus, the Persians, and the Chaldeans, had in their possession a quantity of historical and scientific books. These works were partially borrowed, partially translated in the Greek language, mostly since the Ptolemies had established the Alexandrian library and encouraged the writers by their liberalities, so that the Greek language became the deposit of all the sciences” (“History of Armenia”). Therefore, the greater part of the literature included in the 700,000 volumes of the Alexandrian Library was due to India, and her next neighbors.