"The Sulvasutras are a class of works, preserved in various schools, such as those of Baudhayana, Apastamba, and Katyayana, which are often referred to as manuals of altar construction. (Others include those of Satyasadha, Manava, Maitrayani, and Varaha.) In these texts, the construction of a wide variety of altars is described—square, circular, or falcon-shaped—the form depending on the type of ritual to be performed. In certain of these sutras, the formula that came to be known in the West as the theory of Pythagoras is expressed. Thibaut (1875), who was the first to translate the sutras into English, felt that "the general impression we receive from a comparison of the methods employed by Greeks and Indians respectively seems to point to an entirely independent growth of this branch of Indian science" (228). Such a statement was quite significant in Thibaut's time, since the scientific achievements known to the Indo-Aryans were generally held to have been borrowed from the Greeks."