ANCIENT INDIA
AS DESCRIBED BY
MEGASTHENES AND ARRIAN;
BEING
A TRANSLATION OF THE FRAGMENTS OF THE INDIKA OF
MEGASTHENES COLLECTED BY DR. SCHWANBECK, AND
OF THE FIRST PART OF THE INDIKA OF ARRIAN,
BY
J. W. McCRINDLE, M.A.,
PRINCIPAL OP THE GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, PATNA,
MEMBER OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF EDINBURGH,
FELLOW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA.
WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND MAP OF ANCIENT
INDIA.
Reprinted (with additions) from the “Indian
Antiquary,” 1876-77.
Calcutta; Bombay:
THACKER, SPINK & Co. THACKER & Co.
London:
TRUBNER & Co.
1877.
BOMBAY:
PRINTED AT THE EDUCATION SOCIETY'S PRESS, BYCULLA.
PREFACE.
The account of India written by Megasthenês from his personal knowledge of the country is justly held to be almost invaluable for the light which it throws upon the obscurity of early Indian history. Though, unfortunately, not extant in its original form, it has nevertheless been partially preserved by means of epitomes and quotations to be found scattered up and down the writings of various ancient authors, both Greek and Roman. Dr. Schwanbeck, of Bonn, rendered historical literature a good service by collecting and arranging in their proper order these detached fragments. The work thus reconstructed, and entitled Megasthenis Indica, has now been before the world for upwards of thirty years. It has not, however, so far as I know, been as yet translated, at least into our language, and hence it is but little known beyond the circles of the learned. The translation now offered, which goes forth from the very birth-place of the original work, will therefore for the first time place it within the reach of the general public.
A translation of the first part of the Indika of Arrian has been subjoined, both because it gives in a connected form a general description of India, and because that description was based chiefly on the work of Megasthenês.
The notes, which turn for the most part on points of history, geography, archæology, and the identification of Greek proper names with their Sanskrit originals, sum up the views of the best and most recent authorities who have written on these subjects. This feature of the work will, I hope, recommend it to the attention of native scholars who may be pursuing, or at least be interested in, inquiries which relate to the history and antiquities of their own country.
In the spelling of classical proper names I have followed throughout the system of Grote, except only in translating from Latin, when the common orthography has been employed.
In conclusion, I may inform my readers that I undertook the present work intending to follow it up with others of a similar kind, until the entire series of classical works relating to India should be translated into the language of its rulers. In furtherance of this design a translation of the short treatise called The Circumnavigation of the Erythræan Sea, which gives an account of the ancient commerce of Egypt, Arabia, and India, is nearly ready for publication, and this will be followed by a translation of the narratives of the Makedonian Invasion of India as given by Arrian and Curtius in their respective Histories of Alexander.
CONTENTS.
Introduction |
3 |
| Frag. | I. An Epitome of Megasthenes |
30 |
| Frag. | I.B Concerning Dionysos |
36 |
| Frag. | II. Of the Boundaries of India, its general Character, and its Rivers |
45 |
| Frag. | III. Of the Boundaries of India |
30 |
| Frag. | IV. Of the Boundaries and Extent of India |
48 |
| Frag. | V. Of the Size of India |
30 |
| Frag. | VI. Of the Size of India |
30 |
| Frag. | VIL Of the Size of India |
52 |
| Frag. | YIII. Of the Size of India |
52 |
| Frag. | IX. Of the setting of the Bear, and shadows falling in contrary directions |
52 |
| Frag. | X. Of the setting of the Bear |
53 |
| Frag. | XI. Of the Fertility of India |
54 |
| Frag. | XII. Of some Wild Beasts of India |
56 |
| Frag. | XIII. Of Indian Apes |
57 |
| Frag. | XIII. B |
57 |
| Frag. | XIV. Of Winged Scorpions and Serpents |
58 |
| Frag. | XV. Of the Beasts of India, and the Eeed |
58 |
| Frag. | XV. B Of some Beasts of India |
59 |
| Frag. | XVI. Of the Boa-Constrictor |
61 |
| Frag. | XVII. Of the Electric Eel |
61 |
| Frag. | XVIII. Of Taprobane |
62 |
| Frag. | XIX. Of Marine Trees |
63 |
| Frag. | XX. Of the Indus and the Ganges |
63 |
| Frag. | XX. B |
63 |
| Frag. | XXI. Of the River Silas |
65 |
| Frag. | XXII. Of the River Silas |
66 |
| Frag. | XXIII. Of the River Silas |
66 |
| Frag. | XXIV. Of the Number of Indian Rivers |
66 |
| Frag. | XXV. Of the city Pataliputra |
66 |
| Frag. | XXVI. Of Pataliputra, and the Manners of the Indians |
67 |
| Frag. | XXVII. Of the Manners of the Indians |
69 |
| Frag. | XXVII. B |
73 |
| Frag. | XXVII. C |
73 |
| Frag. | XXVII. D |
73 |
| Frag. | XXVIII. Of the Suppers of the Indians |
74 |
| Frag. | XXIX. Of Fabulous Tribes |
74 |
| Frag. | XXX. Of Fabulous Races |
79 |
| Frag. | XXX. B |
82 |
| Frag. | XXXI. Of the race of Men without Mouths |
82 |
| Frag. | XXXII. Of the seven Castes among the Indians |
83 |
| Frag. | XXXIII. Of the seven Castes among the Indians |
83 |
| Frag. | XXXIV. Of the Administration of Public Affairs — of the use of Horses and Elephants |
86 |
| Frag. | XXXV. Of the use of Horses and Elephants |
89 |
| Frag. | XXXVI. Of Elephants |
90 |
| Frag. | XXXVII. Of Elephants |
93 |
| Frag. | XXXVII. B |
93 |
| Frag. | XXXVIII. Of the Diseases of Elephants |
93 |
| Frag. | XXXIX. Of Gold-digging Ants |
94 |
| Frag. | XL. Of Gold-digging Ants |
96 |
| Frag. | XL. B |
96 |
| Frag. | XLI. Of the Indian Philosophers |
97 |
| Frag. | XLII. Of the Indian Philosophers |
103 |
| Frag. | XLII. B |
104 |
| Frag. | XLII. C |
104 |
| Frag. | XLIII. Of the Indian Philosophers |
104 |
| Frag. | XLIV. Of Kalanos and Mandanis |
106 |
| Frag. | XLV. Of Kalanos and Mandanis |
107 |
| Frag. | XLV. Of Kalanos and Mandanis |
115 |
| Frag. | XLVI. That the Indians had never been attacked by others, nor had themselves attacked others |
107 |
| Frag. | XLVII. That the Indians had never been attacked by others, nor had themselves attacked others |
112 |
| Frag. | XLVIII. Of Nabuchodrosor |
112 |
| Frag. | XLVIII. B |
112 |
| Frag. | XLVIII. C |
113 |
| Frag. | XLVIII. D |
113 |
| Frag. | XLIX. Of Nabukodrosor |
113 |
| Frag. | L. Of the Indian Races — of Dionysos — of Herakles — of Pearls — of the Pandaian Land — of the Ancient History of the Indians |
114 |
| Frag. | L. B Of Pearls |
114 |
| Frag. | LI. Of the Pandaian Land |
114 |
| Frag. | L. Of the Ancient History of the Indians |
115 |
| Frag. | LII. Of Elephants |
117 |
| Frag. | LIII. Of a White Elephant |
118 |
| Frag. | LIV. Of the Brahmans and their Philosophy |
120 |
| Frag. | LV. Of Kalanos and Mandanis |
123 |
| Frag. | LV. B |
127 |
| Frag. | LVI. List of the Indian Races |
129 |
| Frag. | LVI. B |
154 |
| Frag. | LVII. Of Dionysos |
157 |
| Frag. | LVIII. Of Hercules and Pandæa |
158 |
| Frag. | LIX. Of the Beasts of India |
159 |
THE INDIKA OF ARRIAN. edit
Introduction |
177 |
| Cap. | I. Of Indian Tribes west of the Indus |
179 |
| " | II. Of the Boundaries of India |
181 |
| " | III. Of the Size of India |
184 |
| " | IV. Of the Indus and Ganges and their Tributaries |
186 |
| " | V. Of the Legendary History of India |
194 |
| " | VI. Of the River Silas— of the Rains in India, and Inundations of the Rivers — of the Likeness between the Indians and the Ethiopians |
196 |
| Cap. | VII.-IX. Of Dionysos and Herakles |
198 |
| " | X. Of Indian Cities, especially Palimbothra |
204 |
| " | XI. XII. Of the seven Indian Castes |
208 |
| " | XIII. Of the Indian mode of hunting the Elephant |
213 |
| " | XIV. Of the docility of the Elephant, its habits, diseases, &c. |
215 |
| " | XY. Of Tigers, of Ants that dig for gold, and Serpents |
217 |
| " | XVI. Of the Dress of the Indians, and how they equip themselves for war, and manage their Horses |
219 |
| " | XVII. Of the modes of Travelling in India— of Female Unchastity— of the Marriage Customs of the Indians, and the nature of their Food. Concluding Remark |
221 |
TRANSLATION
OF THE
FRAGMENTS OF THE INDIKA
OF MEGASTHENÊS.
collected by
Dr. E. A. SCHWANBECK: Bonn, 1846.
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE INDIKA OF MEGASTHENÊS.
Introduction.
The ancient Greeks, till even a comparatively late period in their history, possessed little, if any, real knowledge of India. It is indeed scarcely so much as mentioned by name in their greatest poets, whether epic, lyric, or dramatic. They must, however, have known of its existence as early as the heroic times, for we find from Homer that they used even then articles of Indian merchandize, which went among them by names of Indian origin, such as kassiteros, tin, and elephas, ivory.[1] But their conception of it, as we gather from the same source, was vague in the extreme. They imagined it to be an Eastern Ethiopia which stretched away to the uttermost verge of the world, and which, like the Ethiopia of the West, was inhabited by a race of men whose visages were scorched black by the fierce rays of the sun.[2] Much lies in a name, and the error made by the Greeks in thus calling India Ethiopia led them into the further error of considering as pertinent to both these countries narrations, whether of fact or fiction, which concerned but one of them exclusively. This explains why we find in Greek literature mention of peculiar or fabulous races, both of men and other animals, which existed apparently in duplicate, being represented sometimes as located in India, and sometimes in Ethiopia or the countries thereto adjacent.[3] We can hardly wonder, when we consider the distant and sequestered situation of India, that the first conceptions which the Greeks had of it should have been of this nebulous character, but it seems what remarkable that they should have learned hardly anything of importance regarding it from the expeditions which were successively under- taken against it by the Egyptians under Sesoatris, the Assyrians under Semiramis, and the Persians first under Kyros and afterwards under Dareios the son of Hystaspês.[4] Perhaps, as Dr. Eobertson has observed, they disdained, through pride of their own superior enlightenment, to pay attention to the transactions of people whom they considered as barbarians, especially in countries far remote from their own. But, in whatever way the fact may be accounted for, India continued to be to the Greeks little better than a land of mystery and fable till the times of the Persian wars, when for the first time they became distinctly aware of its existence. The first historian who speaks clearly of it is Hekataios of Miletos (B.C. 549-486),[5] and fuller accounts are preserved in Herodotos[6] and in the remains of Ktêsias, who, having lived for some years in Persia as private physician to king Artaxerxes Mnêmôn, collected materials during his stay for a treatise on India, the first work on the subject written in the Greek language.[7] His descriptions were, unfortunately, vitiated by a large intermixture of fable, and it was left to the followers of Alexander to give to the Western world for the first time fairly accurate accounts of the country and its inhabitants. The great conqueror, it is well known, carried scientific men with him to chronicle his achievements, and describe the countries to which he might carry his arms, and some of his officers were also men of literary culture, who could wield the pen as well as the sword. Hence the expedition produced quite a crop of narratives and memoirs relating tolndia, such as those of Baeto, Diogṅetos, Nearchos, Onesikritos, Arisťoboulos, Kallisthe- nês, and others. These works are all lost, but their substance is to be found condensed in Strabo, Pliny, and Arrian. Subsequent to these writers were some others, who made considerable additions to the stock of information regarding India, among whom may be mentioned Dêimachos, who re- sided for a long time in Palibothra, whither he was sent on an embassy by Seleukos to Allitro- chadês, the successor of Sandrakottos; Patroklês, the admiral of Seleukos, who is called by Strabo the least mendacious of all writers concerning India; Timosthenes, admiral of the fleet of Ptolemaios Philadelphos; and Megas- thenes, who being sent by Seleukos Nikator on an embassy to Sandrakottos (Chandragupta),† the king of the Prasii, whose capital was Palibothra (Pataliputra, now Patna), wrote a work on India of such acknowledged worth that it formed the prin- cipal source whence succeeding writers drew their accounts of the country. This work, which appears
† The discovery that the Sandrokottos of the Greeks
was identical with the Chandragupta who figures in the
Sanskrit annals and the Sanskrit drama was one of great
moment, as it was the means of connecting Greek with
Sanskrit literature, and of thereby supplying for the first
time a date to early Indian history, which had not a single
chronological landmark of its own. Diodôros distorts the
name into Xandrames, and this again is distorted by Curtius
into Agrammes. to have been entitled to τὰ ’Ἰνδικά, no longer exists, but
it has been so often abridged and quoted by the
ancient writers that we have a fair knowledge of
its contents and their order of arrangement. Dr.
Schwanbeck, with great industry and learning, has
collected all the fragments that have been anywhere
preserved, and has prefixed to the collection a Latin
Introduction, wherein, after showing what knowledge
the Greeks had acquired of India before
Megasthenês, he enters into an examination of
those passages in ancient works from which we
derive all the little we know of Megasthenês and
his Indian mission. He then reviews his work on
India, giving a summary of its contents, and, having
estimated its value and authority, concludes
with a notice of those authors who wrote on India
after his time.‡ I have translated in the latter
part of the sequel a few instructive passages from
this Introduction, one particularly which successfully
vindicates Megasthenês from the charge of
mendacity so frequently preferred against him.
Meanwhile the following extracts, translated from
C. Müller's Preface to his edition of the Indika,
will place before the reader all the information that
can be gleaned regarding Megasthenes and his
embassy from a careful scrutiny and comparison of
all the ancient texts which relate thereto.
Justinus (XV. 4) says of Seleukos Nikator,
‡ He enumerates Eratosthenês, Hipparclios, Polemo,
Mnaseos, Apollodôros, Agatharchidds, Alexander Polyhistor,
Strabo, Marînos of Tyre, and Ptolemy among the Greeks,
and P. Terentius Varro of Atax, M. Vipsanius Agrippa,
Pomponius Mela, Seneca, Pliny, and Solinus among the
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Fragm. VII.
Strabo, II. i. 4, pp. 68-69.
Of the Size of India.
Hipparchos controverts this view, urging the futility of the proofs on which it rests. Patroklês, he says, is unworthy of trust, opposed as he is by two competent authorities, Dêimachos and Megasthenês, who state that in some places the distance from the southern sea is 20,000 stadia, and in others 30,000. Such, he says, is the account they give, and it agrees with the ancient charts of the country.
Fragm. VIII.
Arr. Indica, III. 7-8.
Of the Size of India.
With Megasthenês the breadth of India is its extent from east to west, though this is called by others its length. His account is that the breadth at shortest is 16,000 stadia, and its length-by which he means its extent from north to south-is at the narrowest 22,300 stadia.
Fragm. IX.
Strabo, II. i. 19,-p. 76.
Of the setting of the Bear, and shadows falling in contrary directions.[8]
Again, be [Eratosthenes] wished to show the ignorance of Dêimachos, and his want of a practical knowledge of such subjects, evidenced as it was by his thinking that India lay between the autumnal equinox and the winter tropic, and by his contradicting the assertion of Megasthenes that in the southern parts of India the constellation of the Bear disappeared from view, and shadows fell in opposite directions,[9] phenomena which he assures us are never seen in India, thereby exhibiting the sheerest ignorance. He does not agree in this opinion, but accuses Dêimachos of ignorance for asserting that the Bears do nowhere in India disappear from sight, nor shadows fall in opposite directions, as Megasthenês supposed.
Fragm. X
Pliny, Hist. Nat. VI. 22. 6.
Of the Setting of the Bear.
Next [to the Prasii] in the interior are the Monedes and the Suari, to whom belongs Mount Male us, on which shadows fall towards the north in winter, and in summer to the south, for six months alternately.[10] The Bears, Baeton 54 says, in that part of the country are only once visible in the course of the year, and not for more than fifteen days. Megasthenes says that this takes place in many parts of India. Conf. SoUn, 52. 13 :— Beyond Palibothra is Mount Maleus, on which shadows fall in winter towards the north, and in summer towards the south, for six months alternately. The North Pole is visible in that part of the country once in the course of the year, and not for longer than fifteen days, as Baeton informs us, who allows that this occurs in many parts of India. Feagm. XI. Strabo, XV. i. 20,— p. 693. Of the Fertility of India, Megasthenes indicates the fertility of India by the fact of the soil producing two crops every year both of fruits and grain. [Eratosthen& writes to the same effect, for he speaks of a woTdd seem to be the same as the famous monat Maletis of the Monedes and Suari. I think it highly probable that both names may be intended for the celebrated mount Mandar, to the south of Bhfegulpur, -which is fabled to have been used by the gods and demons at the churning of the ocean. The Mandei I would identify with the inhabitants of the Mahfinadi river, which is the Maoada of Ptolemy. The Malli or Malei would therefore be the same people as Ptolemy's MandaljB, who occupied the right bank of the Ganges to the south of Palibothra, or they may be the peo- ple of the Rajmah&l hi Us who are called Maler The Suari of Pliny are the Sabanw of Ptolemy, and both m&y be identified with the aboriginal l^avaras or Suars, a wild race of woodcutters who live in the jun- gles without any fixed habitation." — Cunningham's Anc, Oeog. of India, pp. 508-9. II Conf. Epit. 5, 9. 55 winter and a summer sowing, which both hare rain : for a year, he says, is never fonnd to be without rain at both those seasons, whence en-> sues a great abnndance, since the soil is always productive. Much fruit is produced by trees ; and the roots of plants, particularly of tall reeds, are sweet both by nature and by coction, since the moisture by which they are nourished is heated by the rays of the sun, whether it has fallen from the clouds or been drawn from the rivers. Eratosthenes uses here a peculiar expression : for what is called by others the ripening of fruits and the juices of plants is called among the Indians coction, which is as effective in producing a good flavour as the coction by fire itself. To the heat of the water the same writer ascribes the wonderful flexibility of the branches of trees, from which wheels are made, as also the fact of there being trees on which wool grows. ^] Conf. Eratostli. op. Strabo. XV. i. 13,— p. 690 :— From the vapours arising from such vast rivers, and from the Etesian winds, as Eratos- thenes states, India is watered by the summer rains, and the plains are overflowed. During these rains, accordingly, flax* is sown and millet, also sesamum, rice, and ho8morum,f and in the winter time wheat, barley, pulse, and other esculent fruits unknown to us. % Conf. Herod. II. 86. " Vellerajue utfoliis depectant Unuia Seres f— Virgil, Geor. ii. 121. — Falconer. • ivov, perhaps the ivov t6 dnh htvhpiav o£ Arrian. t ^o<r/iopoj*— Strabo XV. i. 18. Digitized by Google 56 Fragm. XII. Strabo, XV. i. 37— p. 703. Of some Wild Beasts of India, According to Megasthen^s the largest tigers ftre found among the Praeii, being nearly twice the size of the lion, and so strong that a tame tiger led by four men having seized a mule by the hinder leg overpowered it and dragged it to him. *The monkeys are larger than the largest dogs ; they are white except in the face, which is black, though the contrary is observed elsewhere. Their tails are more than two cubits in length. They are very tame, and not of a malicious disposition : so that they neither at- tack man nor steal. ^Stones are dug up which are of the colour of frankincense, and sweeter than figs or honey. *In some parts of the coun- try there are serpents two cubits long which have membranous wings like bats. They fly about by night, when they let fall drops of urine or sweat, which blister the skin of persons not on their guard, with putrid sores. There are also winged scorpions of an extraordinary size. "Ebony grows there. There are also dogs of great strength and courage, which will not let go their hold till water is poured into their nostrils : they bite so eagerly that the eyes of some become distorted, and the eyes of others fall out. Both a lion and a bull were held fast by a dog. The bull was seized by the muzzle, and died before the dog could be taken off. Digitized by Google
57 Fragm. XIII. t iElian, Hist. Anim. XVII. 39. Conf . Fragm. XII. 2. Of hidian A^es, In the country of the P r a x i i,§ who are an Indian people, Megasthenes says there are apes not inferior in size to the largest dogs. They I Peagm. XIII. B. iElian, Hist Anim. XVI. 10. Oflndmn Apes. Among the P r a s i i in India there is found, they say, a species of apes of human-like intelligence, and which are to appearance about the size of Hurkanian dogs. Nature has furnished them with forelocks, which one ignorant of the reality would take to be artificial. Their chin, like that of a satyr, turns upward, and their tail is like the potent one of the lion. Their body is white all over except the face and the tip of the tail, which are of a reddish colour. They are very intelligent, and naturally tame. They are bred in the woods, where also they Uve, subsist- ing on the fruits which they find growing wild on the hills. They resort in great numbers to the suburbs of L a t a g e, an Indian city, where they eat rice which has been laid down for them by the king's orders. In fact, every day a ready-prepared meal is set out for their use. It is said that when they have satisfied their appetite they retire in an orderly manner to their haunts in the woods, without injuring a single .thing that comes in their way. § The PrAchyas {i.e. Easterns) are called by Strabo, Arrian, and Pliny Ilpocrtoi, Pra^ii ; by Plutarch {Alex. 62) Upaitrioi, a name often used by ^lian also ; by Nikolaiis Damas. (ap. Stob. Floril. 37, 38) Upavtrioi ; by Diodorus (xvii. 93) Bprja-ioi; by Ourtius (IX. 2, 3) Pha/rrasii ; by Justin (xii. 8, 9) Proesides. Megasthenes attempted to approximate more closely to the Sanskpt PrAckyafior here he uses JIpa^iaKos. And it appears that Upd^ioi should be substituted for Upda-Loi in Stephan. Bjrzant., since it comes between the words Upd^iKos and npaa-. — Schwanbeck, p. 82, not. 6. Digitized by Google 58 have tails five cubits long, hair grows on their forehead, and they have luxuriant beards hang- ing down their breast. Their face is entirely- white, and all the rest of the body black. They are tame and attached to man, and not malicious by nature like the apes of other countries. Fragm. XIV. - ^lian, Hist Anim, XVI. 41. Conf. Fragm. XII. 4. Of Winged Scorpions and Serpents, Megasthenes says there are winged scorpions in India of enormous size, which sting Europeans and natives alike. There are also serpents which are likewise winged. These do not go abi*oad during the day, but by night, when they let fall urine, which if it lights upon any one's skin at once raises putrid sores thereon. Such is the statement of Megasthenes. Fragm. XV. Strabo, XV. i. 56,— pp. 710-711. Of the Beasts of India, and the Eeed. He (Megasthenfe) says there are monkeys, rollers of rocks, which climb precipices whence they roll down stones upon their pursuers. •Most animals, he says, which are tame with us are wild in India, and he speaks of horses which are one-homed and have heads like those of deer ; 'and also of reeds some of which grow straight up to the height of thirty orguicey while II The orguia was foar cubiU, or equal to 6 feet 1 inch. • 59 others grow along the ground to the length of fifty. They vary in thickness from three to six cubits in diameter. Fragm. XV.B. ^lian, Hist Anvm. XVI. 20. 21. Conf. Fragm. XV. 2. 1. Of some Beasts of Indio,, (20.) In certain districts of India (I speak of those which are most inland) they say there are in- accessible mountains infested by wild beasts, and which are also the haunts of animals like those of our own country except that they are wild ; for even sheep, they say, run wild there, as well as dogs and goats and oxen, which roam about at their own pleasure, being independent and free from the dominion of the herdsman. That their number is beyond calculation is stated not only by writers on India, but also by the learned men of the country, among whom the Brachmans deserve to be reckoned, whose testimony is to the same efPect. It is also said that there exists in India a one-homed animal, called by the natives the Kartazdn, It is of the size of a full-grown horse, and has a crest, and yellow hair soft as wool; It is furnished with very good legs and is very fleet. Its legs are jointless and formed like those of the elephant, and it has a tail .like a swine's. A horn sprouts out from between its eyebrows, and this is not straight, but curved into the most natural wreaths, and is of a black colour. It is said to be extremely sharp, this horn. The animal, as I learn, has a voice beyond all example loud-ringing and dissonant. It allows other animals to approach it, and is good60 natured towards them, though they say that with its congeners it is rather quarrelsome. The males are reported to have a natural propensity not only to fight among themselves, by butting with their horns, but to display a like animosity against the female, and to be so obstinate in their quarrels that they will not desist till a worsted rival is killed outright. But, again, not only is every member of the body of this animal endued with great strength, but such is the potency of its horn that nothing can withstand it. It loves to feed in secluded pastures, and wanders about alone, but at the rutting season it seeks the society of the female, and is then gentle towards her, — nay, the two even feed in company. The season being over and the female pregnant, the Indi&n Kartazdn again becomes ferocious and seeks solitude. The foals, it is said, are taken when quite young to the king of the P r a s i i, and are set to fight each other at the great public spec- tacles. No full-grown specimen is remembered to have ever been caught. (21.) The traveller who crosses the mountains which skirt that frontier of India which is most inland meets, they say, with ravines which are clothed with very dense jungle, in a district called by the Indians K o r o u d a.1f These ravines are said to be the haunts of a peculiar kind of animal shaped lil^e a satyr, covered all over with shaggy hair, and having a tail like a horse's, depending from its rump. If these creatures are left un- molested, they keep within the coppices, living on the wild fruits ; but should they hear the hunter's T V. L. KoKovvba, 61 halloo and the baying of the hounds they dart up the precipices with incredible speed, for they are habituated to climbing the mountains. They defend themselves by rolling down stones on their assailants, which often kill those they hit. The most difficult to catch are those which roll - the stones. Some are said to have been brought, though with difficulty and after long intervals, to the F r a s i i, but these were either suffering from diseases or were females heavy with young, the former being too weak to escape, and the latter being impeded by the burden of the womb. — Conf. PUn. Hist. If at. VII. 2. 17. Fragm. XVI. PUny, Hist. Nat VIII. 14. 1. Of the Boa-Constrictor. According to Megasthen^s, serpents in India grow to such a size that they swallow stags and bulls whole. Solinus, 52. 33. So huge are the serpents that they swallow stags whole, and other animals of equal size. Fragm. XVII. u3Elian, Hist. Anim. VIII. 7. Of the Electric Eel I learn from Megasthenes that there is in the Indian Sea a small kind of fish which is never seen when alive, as it always swims in deep water, and only floats on the surface after it is dead. Should any one touch it he becomes faint and swoons, — nay, even dies at last. Digitized by Google 62 Fragm. XVIII. Pliny, Hist Nat VI. 24. 1. Of Taprohane,* Megasthenes says that Taprobane is separated from the mairdcmd by a river ; that the inhabitants are called Palaiogonoi,t and that their country is more productive of gold and large pearls than India. Solin. 53. 3. Taprobane is separated from India by a
- This island has been known by many names : —
1. Lank a. — ^The only name it goes by in Sanskyit, and quite unknown to the Greeks and Romans. 2. Simundu or Palesimundu. — Probably a Greek form of the Sanakyit PdU-Simanta. This name had gone out of use before the time of Ptolemy the Geographer. .3. Taprobane. — SupiKJsed to represent the Sanskrit TAmraparni (* red-leaved' or 'copper-coloured sand'), a slightly altered form of the P&U Tambapan9l, which is found in the inscription of Asoka on the Gim&r rock. Vide (mte, vol. V. p. 272. 4. Salice (perhaps properly Saline), Serendivus, Sirlediba, Serendib, Zeilan, Ceylon. These are all considered to be derivatives from S i n a 1 a, the P&li form of Sinhala, *the abode of Hons.* The affix dih represents the Sanskpt cMpa, * an island.' t Lassen has tried to accoitnt for the name P&laiogonoi thus {Dissert, de insula Taproh. p. 9) :— " We must suppose that Megasthenes was acquainted with the Indian myth that the first iuhabitants of the island were said to have been B/Akshasas or giants, the sons of the progenitors of the world, whom he might not inaptly call Palaiogonoi." Against this it may be remarked that, by this unusual term and so uncommon, Megasthenes meant to name the nation, not describe it ; and next that Megasthenes is not in the habit of translating names, but of rendering them accord- ing to sound with some degree of paronomasia ; lastly, that, shortly after, we find the name of Taprobane and of its capital Ilaai(nfJLOvvboSy quite like to IlaXaioyovot, Accordingly as Lassen explains HaXaifrifiovpdoSj the name of the capital, by the Sanskrit PAU-sim&fita (* head of the sacred doctrine'), I would also prefer to explain the name of the Palaiogonoi from the Sanskrit PdU-jands {i.e. ' men of the sacred doc- trine').— Schwanbeck, p. 38, n. 35. Digitized by Google 03 river flowing between : for one part of it abounds with wild beasts and elephants much larger than India breeds, and man cleums the other part. Fragm. XIX. Antigon. Caryst. 647. Of Marme Trees. Megasthen^s, the author of the IndiJca, men- tions that trees grow in the Indian Sea. Fragm. XX. Arr. Ind. 4. 2-13. Of the In&us and the Oanges.X See translation of Arrian, Fragm. XX.B. PUny. Hist. Nat. VI. 21. 9—22. 1. The Prinas§ and the Gain as (a tributary of the Ganges) are both navigable rivers. The tribes which dwell by the Ganges are the C a 1 i n- g 86,11 nearest the sea, and higher up the Mandei, also the Malli, among whom is Mount Mallus, the boundary of all that region being the Ganges. Some have asserted that this river, like the Nile, rises from unknown sources, and in a similar way waters the country it flows through, while others trace its source to the Skythian mountains. Nine- teen rivers are said to flow into it, of which, be- X Conf. Epit. 15-19, and Notes on Arrian, Ind. Ant. vol. V. pp. 331, 332. § V. L. Pumas. II A great and widely difihsed tribe settled mainly be- tween the Mah&nadi and the God&vari. Their capital was Partualis (called by Ptolemy Kalligra), on the Mah&nadi, higher np tluui the site of Katak. The name is S reserved inKoringa, a great port at the month of the iod&var!. 64 sides tho^e already mentioned, the Condochates,1[ Erannoboas, Oosoagus, and Sonus are navigable. According to other accounts, it bursts at once with thundering roar from its fountain, and tumbling down a steep and rocky channel lodges in a lake as soon as it reaches the level plain, whence it issues forth with a gentle current, being nowhere less than eight miles broad, while its mean breadth is a hundred stadia, and its least depth twenty fathoms.* Solin. 52. 6-7. In India the largest rivers are the Ganges and the I n d u s, — the Ganges, as some maintain, rising from uncertain sources, and, like the Nile, ^ y. LL. Ganncam, Yamam.
- " The Bh&girat! (which we shall here regard as the
tme Ganges) firat comes to light near Gangotrl, in the terri- tory of Garhw&l, m lat. 30° 54', long. 79° 7", issuing from under a very low arch, at the base of a great snow-bed, estimated to be 300 feet thick, which lies between the lofty mountains termed St. Patrick, St. George, and the Pyramid, the two higher havinjp; elevations above the sea, respectively, of 22,798 and 22,654 feet, and the other, on the opposite side, having an elevation of 21,379. From the brow of this curious wall of snow, and immediately above the outlet of the stream, large and hoary icicles depend. They are formed by the freezing of the melted snow-water at me top of the bed ; for in the middle of the day the sun is powerful, and the vTater produced by its action fallB over this place in cascade, but is frozen at night .... At Stikbi the river m&y be said to break though the ' Him&laya Proper,' and the elevation of the waterway is here 7)606 feet. At DevprAg it is joined on the left side by tiie Alaknanda. . . From Devpr&g the united stream is now called the Ganges Its descent by the Dehra Dtaa. is rather rapid to Ha^dwftr .... sometimes called Gangddwftra, or
- t^e gate of the Ganges,' being situate on its western or
right bank at the southern base of the Siv&lik range, here intersected by a ravine or gorge by which the river, finally leavinif the mountainous region, conmiences its course over the plains of Hindustftn. The breadth of the river in the rainy season. . is represented to be a full xxuleJ* '^Thornton, Digitized by Google 65 oyerflowing its banks ; while others think that it rises in the Skythian mountains. In India there is also the Hupanis,t a very noble river, which formed the limit of Alexander's march, as tKe altars set up on its banks testify. The least breadth of the Ganges is eight miles, and the greatest twenty. Its depth where least is fully one hundred feet. Conf. Fragm. XXV. 1. " Some say that the least breadth is thirty stadia, but others only three; while Megasthenes says that the mean breadth is a hundred stadia, and its least depth twenty orguias. Fragm. XXI. Arr. Ind. 6. 2-8. Of the River Silaa.X See translation of Arrian. Fragm. XXII. Boissonade, Anecd. Orasc. I. p. 419. Of the River Silas, There is in India a river called the Silas, named after the fountain from which it flows, on which nothing will float that is thrown into t The same as the Hnphasis or j X Strab. 703, Diod. II. 37> and afterwards an anonymous writer whom Ruhnken (ad CalUmach. fraam. p. 448) has praised, and whose account may be read in Boisson. Anecd. QroBC. I. 419. The name is written StXXay in Diodorus, in Strabo StXtas, but best SiXo?, in the epitome of Strabo and in the Anecd. Qrosc. Bahr, 369, has collected the passages from Kt^sias. Lassen has also illustrated this fable {Zeitschrift. II. 63) from Indian literature :— " The Indians think that the river Silas is in the north, that it petrifies everything plunged in it, whence everything sinks and nothing swims." (Conf. MahdibhAr. II. 1858.) ^iU means * a stone.' — Schw. p. 37, n. 82. Digitized by Google 66 it, but everything sinks to the bottom, contrary to the nsual law. fragm. xxm. Strabo, XV. i. 38,— p. 708. Of the River Silas. (Megasthenes says) that in the monntainons country is a river, the S i 1 a s, on the waters of which nothing will float. Demokritos, who had travelled over a large part of Asia, disbe- lieves this, and so does Aristotle. Fragm. XXIY. Arr. Ind. 5. 2. Of fhe Number of Indian Bivers, See translation of Arrian. BOOK II. Fragm. XXV. Strab. XV. i. 35. 36,— p. 702. Of the city Pataliputra.% According to Megasthenes the mean breadth (of the Ganges) is 100 stadia, and its least depth 20 fathoms. At the meeting of this river and another is situated Palibothra, a city eighty stadia in length and fifteen in breadth. It is of the shape of a parallelogram, and is girded with a wooden wall, pierced with loopholes for the dis- charge of arrows. It has a ditch in front for defence and for receiving the sewage of the city. The people in whose country this city is situated is the most distinguished in all India, and is called the Prasii. The king, in addition to his family § Conf. Epit 36. Digitized by Google name, must adopt the surname of Palibothros, as Sandrakottos, for instance, did, to whom Megasthenês was sent on an embassy. [This custom also prevails among the Parthians, for all are called Arsakai, though each has his own peculiar name, as Orodês, Phraatês, or some other.]
Then follow these words:-
All the country beyond the Hupanis is allowed to be very fertile, but little is accurately known regarding it. Partly from ignorance and the remoteness of its situation, every thing about it is exaggerated or represented as marvellous : for instance, there are the stories of the gold-digging ants, of animals and men of peculiar shapes, and possessing wonderful faculties; as the Sêres, who, they say, are so long-lived that they attain an age beyond that of two hundred years.[11] They mention also an aristocratical form of government consisting of five thousand councillors, each of whom furnishes the state with an elephant.
According to Megasthenês the largest tigers are found in the country of the Prasii, &c. (Cf. Fragm. XII.)
Fragm. XXVI.
Arr. Ind. 10.
Of Pataliputra and the Manners of the Indians.
It is farther said that the Indians do not rear monuments to the dead, but consider the virtues which men have displayed in life, and the songs in which their praises are celebrated, sufficient to preserve their memory after death. But of their cities it is said that the number is so great that it cannot be stated with precision, but that such cities as are situated on the banks of rivers or on the sea-coast are built of wood instead of brick, being meant to last only for a time, — so destructive are the heavy rains which pour down, and the rivers also when they overflow their banks and inundate the plains, — while those cities which stand on commanding situations and lofty eminences are built of brick and mud; that the greatest city in India is that which is called Palimbothra, in the dominions of the Prasians, where the streams of the Erannoboas and the Ganges unite, — the Ganges being the greatest of all rivers, and the Erannoboas being perhaps the third largest of Indian rivers, though greater than the greatest rivers elsewhere ; but it is smaller than the Ganges where it falls into it. Megasthenes informs us that this city stretched in the inhabited quarters to an extreme length on each side of eighty stadia, and that its breadth was fifteen stadia, and that a ditch encompassed it all round, which was six hundred feet in breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and that the wall was crowned with 670 towers and had four-and-sixty gates. The same writer tells us farther this remarkable fact about India, that all the Indians are free, and not one of them is a slave. The Lakedæmonians and the Indians are here so far in agreement. The Lakedæmonians, however, hold the Helots as slaves, and these Helots do servile labour; but the Indians do not even use aliens as slaves, and much less a countryman of their own.
Fragm. XXVII.
Strab. XV. i. 53-56,--pp. 709-10.
Of the Manners of the Indians.
The Indians all live frugally, especially when in camp. They dislike a great undisciplined multitude, and consequently they observe good order. Theft is of very rare occurrence. Megasthenês says that those who were in the camp of Sandrakottos, wherein lay 400,000 men, found that the thefts reported on any one day did not exceed the value of two hundred drachme, and this among a people who have no written laws, but are ignorant of writing, and must therefore in all the business of life trust to memory. They live, nevertheless, happily enough, being simple in their manners and frugal. They never drink wine except at sacrifices.[12] Their beverage is a liquor composed from rice instead of barley, and their food is principally a rice-pottage[13] The simplicity of their laws and their contracts is proved by the fact that they seldom go to law. They have no suits about pledges or deposits, nor do they require either seals or witnesses, but make their deposits and confide in each other. Their houses and property they generally leave unguarded. These things indicate that they possess good, sober sense; but other things they do which one cannot approve: for instance, that they eat always alone, and that they have no fixed hours when meals are to be taken by all in common, but each one eats when he feels inclined. The contrary custom would be better for the ends of social and civil life.
Their favourite mode of exercising the body is by friction, applied in various ways, but especially by passing smooth ebony rollers over the skin. Their tombs are plain, and the mounds raised over the dead lowly. In contrast to the general simplicity of their style, they love finery and ornament. Their robes are worked in gold, and ornamented with precious stones, and they wear also flowered garments made of the finest muslin. Attendants walking behind hold up umbrellas over them: for they have a high regard for beauty, and avail themselves of vice to improve their looks. Truth and virtue they hold alike in esteem. Hence they accord no special privileges to the old unless they possess superior wisdom. They marry many wives, whom they buy from their parents, giving every 71 in exchange a yoke of oxen. Some they marry hoping to find in them willing helpmates ; and others for pleasure and to fill their honses with children. The wives prostitute themselves un- less they are compelled to be chaste. No one wears a crown at a sacrifice or libation, and they do not stab the victim, but strangle it, so that nothing mutilated, but only what is entire, may be presented to the deity. A person convicted of bearing false witness suffers mutilation of his extremities. He who maims any one not only suffers in return the loss of the same limb, but his hand also is cut off". If he causes an artizan to lose his hand or his eye, he is put to death. The same writer says that none of the Indians employ slaves ; [but Onesikritos says that this was peculiar to that part of the country over which Musikanos ruled.] t The care of the king's person is entrusted to women, who also are bought from their pa- rents.! The guards and the rest of the soldiery attend outside the gates. A woman who kills the king when drunk becomes the wife of his successor. The sons succeed the father. The king may not sleep during the daytime, and by night he is obliged to change his couch from t His kingdom lay in Siudliu, along the banks of the Indus, -and lus capital was probably near Bakkar. X This was not unknown in native courts of later times. Conf . Idrisi'g: account of the Balhara king. 72 time to time, with a view to defeat plots against his life.§ The king leaves his palace not only in time of war, but also for the purpose of judging causes. He then remains in court for the whole day, without allowing the business to be interrupted, even though the hour arrives when he must needs attend to his person, — that is, when he is to be rubbed with cylinders of wood. He con- tinues hearing cases while the friction, which is performed by four attendants, is still proceeding. Another purpose for which he leaves his palace is to offer sacrifice ; a third is to go to the chase, for which he departs in Bacchanalian fashion. Crowds of women surround him, and outside of this circle spearmen are ranged. The road is marked off with ropes, and it is death, for man and woman alike, to pass within the ropes. Men with drums and gongs lead the procession. The king hunts in the enclosures and shoots arrows from a platform. At his side stand two or three armed women. If he hunts in the open grounds he shoots from the back of an elephant. Of the women, some are in chariots, some on horses, and som^ even on elephants, and they are equipped with weapons § ** The present king of Ava, who evidently belongs to the Indo-Chinese type, although he claims a Eshatriya origin, l0ads a life of seclnsion very similar to that of Sandrokottos. He changes his bedroom every night, as a safeguard against sudden treachery." (Wheeler*s Hist, of India, vol. III. p. 182, note.) Digitized by Google 73 of every kind, as if they were going on a cam- paign. || [These cnstoms are very strange when com- pared with onr own, bnt the following are still more so ; ] for Megasthen^ states that the tribes inhabiting the Kaukasos have intercourse with women in pnblic, and eat the bodies of their relatives,^ and that there are monkeys which roll down stones, Ac. (Fragm, XV, fol- lows, and then Fragm, XXIX,) feagm. xxvn. B. ^lian. V. L. iv. 1. The Indians neither put out money at nsnry, nor know how to borrow. It is contrary to estab- lished usage for an Indian either to do or suffer a wrong, and therefore they neither make contracts nor require securities. Conf . Suid. F. Ivdoi, Fbagm. XXV1I.0. Nicol. Damasc. 44; Stob. 8erm, 42. Among the Indians one who is unable to recover a loan or a deposit has no remedy at law. All the creditor can do is to blame himself /or trusting a rogue, Fbagm. xxyii.D. Niool. Damasc. 44 ; Stob. Serm, 42, He who causes an artisan to lose his eye or his hand is put to death. If one is guilty of a very heinous offence the king orders his hair to be II In the drama of Bakv/ntaZd, B^ Dnshyanta is re- preeented as attended in the chase by Yavana women, yritix bows i»their hands, and wearing garlands of wild flowers. f Herodotxis (bk. iii. 38, 99, 101) has noted the exist- ence of both practices among certain Indian tribes. Digitized by Google 74 cropped, this being a puniBhment to the last de- gree infamous. Fragm. XXVIII. Athen. iv. p. 153. OS the Suppers of the IncUans, Me^rasthen^s, in the second book of his Inddlcay says that when the Indians are at supper a table is placed before each person, this being like a tripod. There is placed upon it a golden bowl, into which they first put rice, boifed as oUe would boil barley, and then they add many 'dainties prepared according to Indian receipts. Fbagm. XXIX* Strab. XV. i. 57— p. 711. Of fabulous tribes. But deviating into fables he says there are men five spans and even three spans in height, some of whom want the nose, having only two orifices above the mouth through which they ' breathe. * Against the men of three spans, war, as Homer has sung, is waged by the cranes, and also by partridges, which are as large as geese, f • Cf . Stxab. II. i. 9,— p. 70 :— D^imachos and Megas- thends are especially unworthy of credit. It is they who tell those stories about the men who sleep in their ears, the men without mouths, the men without nostrils, the men with one eye, the men with long legs, and the men with their toes turned backward. They renewed Homer's fable about the battle between the Cranes and the Pygmies, asserting that the latter were three spans in height. They told of the ants that dig for gold, of Fans with wedge-shaped heads, and of serpents swallow- ing down oxen and stags, horns and all, — ^the one author meanwhile accusing the other of falsehood, as Eratosthenes has remarked. t Ktdsias in his Indika mentions Pygmies as belonging to India. The Indians themselves considered them as be- longing to the race of the Eir&tsa, a barbarous people who inhabited woods and mountains and lived by hunting, and who were so diminutiYe that their name became a synonym Digitized by Google 75 These people collect and destroy the eggs of the cranes, for it is in their country the cranes lay their eggs^ and thus ihe eggs and the young cranes are not to be found anywhere else. Frequently a crane escapes having the brazen point of a weapon in Us hody, &oni wounds re- ceived in that country. ' Equally absurd is the account given of the E n 6t o k o i t a i,;( for dwarf. They were thougM to fight with vnltures and eagles. As they were of Mongolian origin, the Indians represented them with the distinctiye features of that race, but with their repnlsiveness exaggerated. Hence Megas- thenSs spoke of tiie Amukteres, men without noses, who had merely breathing-holes above the month. The Kirfitae are no doubt identical with the Scyrites (V. L. Syrictes) of Plinius and the Kirrhadai of the Perwlus Ma/ris ErythrcBt. X The Endtokoitai are caUed in Sanskrit JToma^prdva- romds, and are frequently referred to in the great epio poems — e.g. MahAhh. II. 1170, 1875. The opinion was universally prevalent among the Indians that barbarous tribes had large ears : thus not only are the KarnaprAva- rcumds mentioned, but also Ka/rmkAst LamhakamdLS,Mahd' kamds H.e. long or large eared)*, IJsMrakcvrnAs (i.e. camel- eared), OshtFiafccwTtAs {i.e. having the ears close to the Ups), FdmkamAs {i.e. having hands for ears). Schwanb. GQ.
- ' It is easy,** says Wheeler {Hist. Ind. vol. HI. p. 179),
- for any one conversant with India to point out the
origin of many of the so-called fables. The ants are not as big as foxes, but they are very extraordinary excavators. The stories of men pallia^ up trees, and usmg them as clubs, are common enough m the MahdibMrataj especially in the legends of the exploits of Bhima. Men do not have ears hanging down to their feet, but both men and women will occasionally elongate their ears after a very extraordinary fashion by thrusting articles through the lobe. «... If there was one story more than another which excited the wrath of Strabo, it was that of a people whose ears hung down to their feet. Yet the story IS still current in Hindust&n. BAbu Johari D&s says : — ' An old woman once told me that her husband, a sepoy in the British army, had seen a people who slept on one ear, and covered themselves with the other.' {Domestic Mori' nersand Customs of the Hindus, BanAras, 1860.V* The story may be referred to the Himalayas. Fitch, who travelled Digitized by Google of the wild men, and of other monsters. * The wild men could not be brought to Sandrakottos, for they refused to take food and died. Their heels are in front, and the instep and toes are turned backwards.[14] * Some were brought to the court' who had no mouths and were tame. They dwell near the sources of the Ganges, and subsist on the savour of roasted flesh and the perfumes of fruits and flowers, haying instead of mouths orifices through which they breathe. They are distressed with things of evil smelly and * hence it is with difficulty they keep their hold on life especially in a camp. Referring to the other monstrosities, the philosophers told him of the Okupedes, a people who in running conld leaye the horse behind;[15] 'of the Enoiokoitai, who had ears reaching down to their feet, so that they could sleep in them, and were se strong that they could pull up trees and break a bowstring,
- Of others the Monommatoi, who have the 77
ears of a dog, their one eye set in the middle of their forehead, the hair standing erect, and their breasts shaggy ; % of the Amnktdres also, a people without nostrils, who devour everything, eat raw meat, and are short-lived, and die before old age supervenes.* The upper part of the mouth protrudes far over the lower lip. ® With regard to the Hyperboreans, wHo live a thousand years, they give the same account as Simonid^s, Pindaros, and other mythological writers. t ^^ The story told by TimagenSs, that % What Megasthenda here mentions as the characteris- tios of a single tribe are by the Indians attribnted to several. The one-eyed men they are wont to call SkdksJids or eka- vilo-chomds — the men with hair standing erect, urdhvakeia, Indian Oycldpes even are mentioned nnder the name of LalM&kshdSt i.e. having one eye in the forehead: vide Schwanb. 70. • " That the Astorm are mentioned in the Indian books we cannot show so well as in the case of the Amukterea, whom Megasthends describes as iray^ayovs^ afAO(f>ay6vSf ^oiyoxpovi6vs. Nevertheless the verv words of the de- scription are a proof that he followed the narratives of the Indians, for the words nafw^ayoy, Ac by which he has described the Amnkt^res, are very rarely nsed in Oreek, and are translations of Indian words." Schwanb. 69. t Pindar, who locates the Hyperboreans somewhere about the months of the Ister, thns sings of them: — " Bnt who with ventarons conrse through wave or waste To Hyperborean haunts and wilds uutracedj E'er found his wondrous way ? There Perseus pressed amain, And 'midst the feast eutered their strange abode, Where hecatombs of asses shun To soothe the radiant god Astounded he beheld. Their rude solemnities, Their barbarous shouts, Apollo's heart delight : Laughing the rampant brute he sees Insult the solemn rite. Still their sights, their customs strange, Scare not the * Muse,' while all around 78 showers fall of drops of copper, which are swept together, is a fable. ** Megasthen^s states — what is more open to belief, since the same is The dancing virgias range. And melting lyres and piercing pipes resonud. With braids of golden bays entwined Their soft resplendent locks they bind, And feast in bliss the genial honr : Nor f onl disease, nor wasting age. Visit the sacred race ; nor wars they wage, Nor toil for wealth or power." (10th Pythian ode, 11. 4& to 69, A. Moore's metrical ver- sion.) Megasthen^s had the penetration to perceive that the Greek fable of the Hyperboreans had an Indian source in the fables regarding the JJbta/rakv/rus. This word means literally the * Knru of the North/ * * The historic origin, ' ' says P. V. de Saint-Martin, "of the Sanskrit appellation TJUa- rakn/ru is unknown, but its acceptation never varies. In all the documents of Upavedic literature, in the §rreat poems, in the Pur&nas, — wherever, in short, the word is found, — it pertains to the domain of poetic and mythological geogra- phy, nttarakuru is situated in the uttermost regions of the north at the foot of the mountains which surround Mount M^ru, far beyond the habitable worlds It is the abode of demigods and holy Bishis whose lives extend to several thousands of years. All access to it is forbidden to mortals. Like the Hyperborean region of Western my- thologists, this too eiyoys the happy privilege of an eternal spring, equally exempt from excess of cold and excess of heat, and there the sorrows of the soul and the pains of the body are alike unknown It is clear enough that this land of the blest is not of our world. " In their intercourse with the Indians after the expedi- tion of Alexander, the Greeks became acquainted with these fictions of Br&hmaijic poetry, as well as with a good many other stories which made them look upon India as a land of prodigies. MegasthenSs, like Ktesias before him, had collected a great number of such stories, and either from his memoirs or from contemporary narratives, such as that of DMmachos, the fable of the Uttarakurus had spread to the West, since, from what Pliny tells us (vi. 17, p. 316) one Amdm^tus had composed a treatise re- gardmg them analogous to that of Hecataaus regarding the Hyperboreans. It is certainly from this treatise of Amd- metus that Pliny borrows the two lines which he devotes to his Attacorse, * that a girdle of mountains warmed with Digitized by Google 79 the case in Iberia J — that the rivers carry down gold dust, and that a part of this is paid by way of tribute to the king. Fragm. XXX. Plin. Hist, Nat. VII. ii. 14-22. Of fabulous races. According to MegasthenSs, on a mountain called N u 1 o § there live men whose feet are turned thestm sheltered tliem from the blasts of noxious winds, and that they eigoyed, like the Hyperboreans, an eternal spring.'
- Gens homiunm Attacomm, apricis ab omni noxio ai&ata
seclusa coUibns, eadem, qua Hyperborei degunt, tem- perie.' (Plin. loc. cit. Ammianns Marcellinns, xxiii. 6, 64.) Wagner transfers this description to the Sires in general, (of whom the Attacoroe of Pliny form part), and some modern critics (Mannert, vol. IV. p. 250, 1875 ; Forhiger Handh. d'&r alien Qeogr. vol. II. p. 472, 1844) have be- lieved they could see in it a reference to the great wall of China.) We see from a host of examples besides this, that the poetic fables and popular legends of India had taken, in passing into the Greek narratives, an appearance of reaHty, and a sort of historical consistency." {E*tvde sur la Q^ographie Orecque et Latine de Vlnde, pp. 413-414.) The same author (p. 412) says, " Among the peoples of Sirica, Ptolemy reckons the OUorocorrhce. a name which in Pliny is written Attacoraa, and which Ammianns Mar- cellinns, who copies Ptolemy, distorts into Opnrocarra. There is no difficulty in recognizing under this name the Uttarakum of Sanskrit books." Schwanbeck (p. 70) quotes Lassen, who writes somewhat to the same effect « — " Uttarakum is a part of Sirica, and as the first accounts of India came to the West from the Seres, perhaps a part of the description of the peaceful happy life of the Seres is to be explained from the Indian stories of the Uttarakum. The story of the long life of the Sires may be similarly explained, especially when Megas- thenls reckons the life attained by the Hyperboreans at 1000 years. The MahAhhdrata (Vl. 264) says that the Uttarakums live 1000 or 10,000 years. We conclude from this that Megasthenis also wrote of the Uttarakums, and that he not improper^ rendered their name by that of the Hyperboreans. — Zeitschr. II. 67. X Not Spain, but the country between the Black Sea and the Caspian, now called Georgia. § V. L. milo. Digitized by Google 80 backward, and who have eight toes on each foot ; • while on many of the mountains there lives a race of men having heads like those of dogs, who are clothed with the skins of wild beasts, whose speech is barking, and who, being armed with claws, live by banting and fowling. || [•* Kt^sias asserts on his own authority that the number of these men was upwards of 120,000, and that there is a race in India whose females bear off- spring but once in the course of their life, and that their children become at once grey-haired.] ' Megasthends speaks of a race of men among the Nomadic Indians who instead of nostrils have merely orifices, whose legs are contorted like snakes, and who are called Scyritaa. He speaks also of a race living on the very confines of India on the east, near the source of the Gran- ges, the A s t o m i, who have no mouth ; who cover their body, which is all over hairy, with the soft down found upon* the leaves of trees ; and who live merely by breathing, and the perfume inhaled by the nostrils. They eat nothing, and they drink nothing. They require merely a variety of odours of roots and of flowers and of wild apples. The apples they carry with them when they go on a distant journey, that they may always have something to smell. Too strong an odour would readily kill them. {I Called by Kt^siaa KvwKcc^aXoi, and in Sanskyit tfwui. muchAs or iSvdimichAs. Digitized by Google 81
- Beyond the A s t o m i, in the remotest pari
of the monntaias, the Trispithami and the Pygmies are said to hare their abode. They are each three spans in height — that is, not more than seven-and- twenty inches. Their climate is aalubrions and they enjoy a perpetual springs under shelter of a barrier of mountains which rise t>n the north. They are the same whom Homer mentions as being harassed by the attacks of the cramps. *The story about them is — that mounted on the backs of rams and goats, and equipped with arrows, they march down in lEipring-time all in a body to the sea, and destroy the eggs and the young of these birds. It takes them always three months to finish this yearly campaign, and were it not undertaken they could not defend themselves against the vast flocks of subsequent years . Their huts are made of clay and feathers and egg-shells. [Aristotle says that they live in caves, but otherwise ho gives the same account of them as others.]. . . . [*ft FromKt^sias we learn that there is a people belonging to this race, which is called P a n d o- r e and settled in the valleys, who live two hun- dred years, having in youth hoary hair, which in old age turns black. On the other hand, others do not live beyond the age of forty, — nearly related to the Macrobii, whose women bear offspring but once. Agatharchides says the same of them, adding that they subsist on locusts, and are swift of foot. ] * Clitarchns and 82 Megasthends calUhem M a n d i,^ and reckon tHe number of their villages at tliree hundred. The females bear children at the age of seven, and are old women at forty.* Fragm. XXX.B. Solin. 52. 26-30. Near a mountain which is called Nulo there live men whose feet are turned backwards and have eight toes on each foot. Megasthenis writes that on different mountains in India there are tribes of men with dog- shaped heads, armed with claws, clothed with skins, who speak not in the accents of human language, but only bark, and have fierce grinning jaws. [In Ktesias we read that in some parts the females bear offspring but once, and that the children are white-haired from their birth, &c.] Those who live near the source of the Ganges, requiring nothing in the shape of food, subsist on the odour of wild apples, and when they go on a long journey they carry these with them for safety of their life, which they can support by inhaling their perfume. Should they inhale very foul air, death is inevitable. Fragm. XXXI. Plutarch, de facie in oYhe lunoe. (0pp. ed. Beisk, torn. ix. p. 701.) Of the race of men without mouths, ^ For how could one find growing there that % Possibly we should read Pftndai, unless perhaps Megaathen^s referred to the inhabitants of Mount M a n- dar a. • Conf . Fragm. L. 1, LI. t Conf. Fragm. XXIX. 6, XXX. 8. Digitized by Google 83 Indian root which MegasthenSs says a race of men who neither eat nor drink, and in fact have not even moaths, set on fire and burn like incense, in order to sustain their existence with its odorous fumes, unless it received mois- ture from the moon ? BOOK III. Fkagm. XXXJI. Arr. Ind. XI. 1..XII..9. Of. Epit. 40-58, and Plin. Hist. Nat. VI. xxii. 2, 3. (See the translation of Arrian's Indika,) Fkagm. XXXIII. Strab. XV. 1. 39-41, 46-49,— pp. 708-4, 707. Of the Seven Castes among the Indians. (39) According to him (Megasthenes) the popu- lation of Ilidia is divided into seven parts. The philosophers are first in rank, but form the smallest class in point of number. " Their services are employed privately by persons who wish to offer sacrifices or perform other sacred rites, and also pubhcly by the kings at what is called the Great Synod, wherein at the beginning of the new year all the philosophers are gathered together before the king at the gates, when any philoso- pher who may have committed any useful sug- gestion to writing, or observed any means for im- proving the crops and the cattle, or for promot- ing the public interests, declares it publicly. * If any one is detected giving false information thrice, the law condemns him to be silent for the rest of his life, but he who gives sound advice is ex- empted from paying any taxes or contributions^ Digitized by Google (40) The second caste consists of tbe husband- men, who form the bulk of the population, and are in disposition most mild and gentle. They are exempted from military service, and cultivate their lands undisturbed by fe^. They never go to town, either to take part in its tumxilts, or for any other purpose. ** It therefore not unfrequent- ly happens that at the same time, and in the same part of the country, men may be seen drawn up in array of battle, and fighting at risk of their lives, while other men close at hand are ploughing and digging inperfect security, having these soldiers to protect them. The whole of the land is the property of the king, and the husbandmen till it on condition of receiving one -fourth of the produce. (41) ° The ihirdc&Bte consists of herdsmen and h u n t e r s> who alone are allowed to hunt, and ta keep cattle, and to sell draught animals or let them out on hire. 1^ return for clearing the land of wild beasts and fowls which devour the seeds- sown in the fields, they receive an allowance of grain from the king. They lead a wandering life and live under tents. Fragm. XXXVI. follows here. [So much, then, on the subject of wild animals^ We shall now return to Megasthenes, and resume from where we digressed.] (46)' The fourth class, after herdsmen and hunters, consists of those who work at trades, of those who vend wares, and of those who are employed in bodily labour. Some of these pay tribute, and Tender to the state certain prescribed services. But the armour-makers and shipbuilders receive wages and their victuals from the king, for whom Digitized by Google 85 alone they work. The general in command of the army supplies the soldiers with weapons, and the admiral of the fleet lets out ships on hire for the transport both of passengers and merchandize. {47) The fifth class consists offightingmen, who, when not engaged in active service, pass their time in idleness and drinking. They are main- tained at the king's expense, and hence they are always ready, when occasion calls, to take the field, for they carry nothing of their own with them but their own bodies. (48) The sixth class consists of the overseers, to whom is assigned the duty of watching all that goes on, and making reports secretly to the king. Some are entrusted with the inspection of the city, and others with that of the army. The former employ as their coadjutors the courtezans of the city, and the latter the courtezans of the eamp. The ablest and most trustworthy men are appointed to fill these offices.. The seventh class consists of the councillors and assessors of the king. To them belong the highest posts of government, the tribunals of justice, and the general administration of public affairs. J *■ No one is allowed to marry out of his ^ X The Greek writerg by confonndiiig some distiiic- tions occasioned by civil employment with those arising from that division nave increased the number (of classes) from five (inclnding the handicrafts-man or mixed class) to seven. This number is produced by their supposing the king's councillors and assessors to form a distinct clas» from the Br&hmans ; by splitting the class of Vaisya into two, consisting of shepherds and husbandmen ; by introduc- ing a caste of spies ; and by omitting the servile class alto- gether. With these exceptions the classes are in the state described by Menu, which is the groundwork of that still subsisting.— Elphinsione's History of India, p. 236. Digitized by Google 86 own caste, or to exchange one profession or trade for another, or to follow more than one business. An exception is made in favour of the philosopher, who for his virtue is allowed this pri- vilege. fragm. xxxrv. Strab. XV. 1. 50-52,— pp. 707-709. Of the administration of public affairs. Of the use of Horses and Elephants. (Fragm. XXXIII. has preceded this.) (50) Of the great officers 6f state, some have charge of the market, others of the city, others of the soldiers. Some superintend the rivers, mea- sure the land, as is done in Egypt, and inspect the sluices by which water is let out from the main canals into their branches, so that every one may have an equal supply of it. "The same persons have charge also of the huntsmen, and are en- trusted with the power of rewarding or punishing them accoiding to their deserts . They collect the taxes, and superintend the occupations connect- ed with land, as those of the woodcutters, the carpenters, the blacksmiths, and the miners. 'They construct roads, and at every ten stadia§ set up a pillar to show the by-roads and dis- tances. *Those who have charge of the city are § From this it would appear that ten stadia were eqnal to some Indian me&sore of distance, which mnst have been the Icfd^a or Icosa. If the stadium be taken at 202i yards, this would give 2022^ yards for the kos, agreeing with the shorter kos of 4,000 hUhs, in nse in the Paijdb, and till lately, if not still, in parts of Bengal.^ED. Ind, AnU Digitized by Google 87 divided into six bodies of five each. The niem- . bers of the. first look after everything relating to the indastrial arts. Those of the second attend to the entertainment of foreigners. To these they assign lodgings, and they keep watch over their modes of life by means of those persons whom they give to them for assistants. They escort them on the way when they leave the country, or, in the event of their dying, forward their pro- perty to their relatives. They take care of them when they are sick, and if they die bury them. •The third body consists of those who inquire when and how births and deaths occur, with the view not only of levying a tax, but also in order that births and deaths among both high and low may not escape the cognizance of Gov- ernment. "The fourth class superintends trade and commerce. Its members have charge of weights and measures, and see that the products in their season are sold by public notice. No one is allowed to deal in more than one kind of commodity unless he pays a double tax. ^The fifth class supervises manufactured articles, which they sell by public notice. What is new is sold separately from what is old, and there is a fine for mixing the two together, ^The sixth and last class consists of those who col- lect the tenths of the prices of the articles sold. Fraud in the payment of this tax is punished with death.
- Such are the ftinctions which these bodies
Digitized by Google 88 separately discharge. In their collective capa- city they have charge both of their special de- partments, and also of matters affecting the general interest, as the keeping of public build- ings in proper repair, the regulation of prices, the care of markets, harbours, and temples.
- ^Next to the city magistrates there is a third
governing body, which directs military affairs. This also consists of six divisions, with five* m.embers to each. One division is appointed to cooperate with the admiral of the fleet, an- other with the superintendent of the bullock- trains which are used for transporting en- gines of war, food for the soldiers, provender for the cattle, and other military requisites. They supply servants who beat the drum, and others who carry gongs ; grooms also for the horses, and . mechanists and their assistants. To the sound of the gong they send out foragers to bring in grass, and by a system of rewards and punishments ensure the work being done with despatch and safety. *^The third division has charge of the foot-soldiers, the fourth of the horses, the fifth of the war-chariots, and the sixth of the elephants. ^"There are royal stables for the horses and elephants, and also a royal magazine for the arms, because the soldier has to return bis arms to the maga- zine, and his horse and his elephant to the stables. ^*They use the elephants without bridles. The chariotis are drawn on the march Digitized by Google 89 by oxen,** but the horses are led along by a halter, that their legs may not be galled and inflamed, nor their spirits damped by drawing chariots. ^*In addition to the charioteer, there are two fighting men who sit up in the chariot beside him. The war-elephant carries four men — three who shoot arrows, and the driver. || (Fragm. XXVII. follows.) Feagm. XXXV. -^lian, Hist Anim. XlII. 10. Of the use of Horses and UlepJianis, Cf. Fragm. XXXIV. 13-15. When it is said that an Indian by springing forward in front of a horse can check his speed and hold him back, this is not true of all Indians, but only of such as have been trained from boy- hood to manage horses ; for it is a practice with them to control their horses with bit and bridle, and to make them move at a measured pace and in a straight course. They neither, however, gall their tongue by the use of spiked muzzles, nor torture the roof of their mouth. The pro- fessional trainers break them in by forcing them to gallop round and round in a ring, es- pecially when they see them refractory. Such as undertake this work require to have a strong hand as well as a thorough knowledge of II" The fourfold division of the army (horse, foot, chariots, and elephants) was the same as that of Menu ; but Strabo makes a sextuple diviaion, by adding the commissariat and naval department." Digitized by Google 90 horses. The greatest proficients test their skill hj driving a chariot roand and round in a ring; and in trath it would be no trifling feat to control with ease a team of fonr high- mettled steeds when whirling round in a circle. The chariot carries two men who sit beside the charioteer. The war-elephant, either in what is called the tower, or on his bare back in sooth, carries three fighting men, of whom two shoot from the side, while one shoots from behind. There is also a fourth man, who carries in his hand the goad wherewith he guides the animal, much in the same way as the pilot and captain of a ship direct its course with the helm. Pragm. XXXVI. Strab. XV. 1. 41-43,— pp. 704-705. Of Elephants. Conf . Epit. 54-56. (Fragm. XXXIII. 6 has preceded ibis.) A private person is not allowed to keep either a horse or an elephant. These animals are held to be the special property of the king, and persons are appointed to take care of them.
- The manner of hunting the elephant is this.
Bound a bare patch of ground is dug a deep trench about five or six stadia in extent, and over this is thrown a very narrow bridge which gives access to the enclosure. ' Into this en- closure are introduced three or four of the best- trained female elephants. The men themselves lie in ambush in concealed huts. ^ The wild Digitized by Google 91 elephants do not approach this trap in the day- time, but they enter it at night, going in one by one. ^ When all have passed the entrance, the men secretly close it up ; then, introducing the strongest of the tame fighting elephants, they fight it out with the wild ones, whom at the same time they enfeeble with hunger. •When the latter are now overcome with fa- tigue, the boldest of the drivers dismount un- observed, and esich man creeps under his own elephant, and from this position creeps under the belly of the wild elephant and ties his feet together. ' When this is done they incite the tame ones to beat those whose feet are tied till they fall to the ground. They then bind the wild ones and the tame ones together neck to neck with thongs of raw ox-hide. * To pre- vent them shaking themselves in order to throw off those who attempt to mount them, they make cuts all round their neck and then put thongs of leather into the incisions, so that the pain obliges them to submit to their fetters and to remain quiet. From the number caught they reject such as are too old or too young to be serviceable, and the rest they lead away to the stables. Here they tie their feet one to another, and fasten their necks to a firmly fixed pillar, and tame them by hunger. ^° After this they restore their strength with green reeds and grass. They next teach them to be obedient, which they effect by soothing them, some by 92 coaxing words, and ofcliers by songs and the music of the drnm. ^* Few of them are found difficult to tame, for they are naturally so mild and gentle in their disposition that they approx- imate to rational creatures. Some of them take up their drivers when fallen in battle, and carry them off in safety from the field. Others, when their masters have sought refuge between their forelegs, have fought in their defence and saved their lives. If in a fit of anger they kill either the man who feeds or the man who trains them, they pine so much for their ^ loss that they refuse to take food, and sometimes die of hunger.
- • They copulate like horses, and the female
casts her calf chiefly in spring. It is the season for the male, when he is in heat and becomes ferocious. At this time ho discharges a fatty snbstance through an orifice near the temples. It is also the season for the females, when the corresponding passage opens. ** They go with young for a period which varies from sixteen to eighteen months. The dam suckles her calf for six years. ** Most of them live as long as men who attain extreme longevity, and some live over two hundred years. They are liable to many distempers, and are not easily cured. ^' The remedy for diseases of the eye is to wash it with cows' milk. For most of their other diseases draughts of black wine are administered to them. For the cure of their wounds they are made to Digitized by Google 93 swallow butter, for this draws out iron. Their sores are fomented with swine's flesh. Fragm. XXXVII. Arr. Ind. ch. 13-14. (Pragm. XXXII. comes before this.) (See the translation of Arrian's Inddka.) [Fragm. XXXVII. B.] .^lian, Hist Anim, XII. 44. Of Elephants. (Cf. Pragm. XXXVI. 9-10 and XXXVII. 9-10 init c. XIV.). In India an elephant if canght when full-grown is diffi- cult to tame, and longing for freedom thirsts for blood. Should it be bound in chains, this exasperates it still more, and it will not submit to a master. The Indians, however, coax it with food, and seek to pacify it with various things for which it has a liking, their aim being to fill its stomach and to soothe its temper. But it is still angry with them, and takes no notice of them. To what device do they then resort P They sing to it their native melodies, and soothe it with the music of an instrument in common use which has four strings and is called a sicindapsos. The creature now pricks up its cars, yields to the soothing strain, and its anger subsides. Then, though there is an occasional out- burst of its suppressed passion, it gradually turns its eye to its food. It is then freed from its bonds, but docs not seek to escape, being enthralled with the music. It even takes food eagerly, and, like a luxurious guest riveted to the festive board, has no wish to go, from its love of the music. Fragm. XXXVIH. ^lian. Hist Anim, XIII. 7« " Of the diseases of Elephants, (Cf. Pragm. XXXVI. 15 and XXXVII. 15.) The Indians cure the wounds of the elephants which they catch, in the manner following : — They treat them in the way in which, as good old 94 Homer tells us, Patroklos treated the wound of Eurypylos, — they foment them with lukewarm water.^ After this they rub them over with but- ter, and if they are deep allay the inflammation by applying and inserting pieces of pork, hot but still retaining the blood. They cure ophthalmia with cows' milk, which is first used as a foment- ation for the eye, and is then injected into it. The animals open their eyelids, and finding they can see better are delighted, and are sensible of the benefit like human beings. In proportion as their blindness diminishes their delight over- fiiows, and this is a token that the disease has been cured. The remedy for other distempers to which they are liable is black wine ; and if this potion fails to work a euro nothing else can save them. Fragm. XXXIX. Strab. XV. 1. 44,— p. 706. Of Oold'digging Ants,* Megasthenfe gives the following account of these ants. Among the Derdai, a great tribe of Indians, who inhabit the mountains on the f See Iliad, bk. XI. 845. • See Ind. Ant. vol. IV. pp. 225 seqq, where cogent argu- ments are addnoed to prove that the * gold-digging ants* were originally neither, as the ancients supposed, real ants, nor, as so many eminent men of learning have supposed, larger animals mistaken for ants on account of their ap- pearance and subterranean habits, but Tibetan miners, whose mode of life and dress was in the remotest antiquity exactly what they are at the present day. 95 eafltern borders,t there is an elevated plateau j! about 3,000 stadia in circuit. Beneatli the surface there are mines of gold, and here ac- cordingly are found the ants which dig for that metal. They are not inferior in size to wild foxes. They run with amazing speed, and live by the produce of the chase. The time when they dig is winter. § They throw up heaps of earth, as moles doj at the mouth of the mines. The gold-dust has to be subjected to a little boil- ing. The people of the neighbourhood, coming secretly with beasts of burden, carry this off. If they came openly the ants would attack them, end pursue them if they fled, and would destroy both them and their cattle. So, to effect the rob- bery without being observed, they lay down in several different places pieces of the flesh of wild beasts, and when the ants are by this de- vice dispersed they carry off the gold-dust. t These are the Dardsa of Fliny, the Daradrai of Ptolemy, and the Daradasof Sanskrit literature. " The Dards are not an extinct race. According to the accounts of modem travellers, they consist -of several wild and pre- datory tribes dwelling among the mountains on the north- west frontier of KAsmir and by the banks of the Indus." Ind, Ant. loc. cit. X The table-land of Ghojotol, see Jour, B, Qeog. 8oc. vol. XXXIX. pp. 149 seqq.—^D. Ind» Ant. § " The miners of Thok- Jalung, in spite of the cold, prefer working in winter ; and the number of their tents, which in summer amounts to three hundred, rises to nearly six hundred in winter. They prefer the winter, as the frozen soil then stands well, and is not likely to trouble them much by falling in."— Id. 96 This they sell to any trader they meet with|| while it is still in the state of ore, for the art of fusing metals is unknown to them.^ FftAGM. XL. Arr. Ind, XV..5.7. (See the tmnslatioii of Arrian's Indika.) [Fragm. XL. B.] Dio Chrysost. Or. 35,— p. 436, Morell. Of Ants which dig for gold, (Of. Fragm. XXXIV. and XL.) They get the gold from ants. These creatures are larger than foxes, bnt are in other respects like the ants of our own country. They dig holes in the earth like other ants. The heap which they throw up consists of gold the purest and brightest in all the world. The mounds are piled up close to each other in regular order like hillocks of gold dust, whereby all the plain is made effulgent. It is difficult, therefore, to look towards the sun, and many who have at- tempted to do this have thereby destroyed their eyesight. The people who are next neighbours to the ants, with a view to plunder these heaps, cross the intervening desert, which is of no great extent, mounted on wagons to which they have yoked their swiftest horses. They arrive at noon, a time when the ants have gone underground, and at II T© Tvx^vTi Totv c/Li7r<$po>p. If the different reading Tov Tvx6vTos Tols e/iTTopoif bo adopted, the rendering is, " They dispose of it to merchants at any price." f Cf. Herod. III. 102-105 ; Arrian, Anab. V.4. 7 ; -ffilian, Hist Arwm, III. 4; Clem. Alex. VcBd. II. p. 207; Tzetz. Chil. XII. 330-340 ; Plin. Hist. Nat. XI. 36, XXXIII. 21 ; . Propert. III. 13. 5 j Pomp. Mel. VII. 2 ; Isidor. Orig. XII. 3 ; Albert Mag. De Animal. T. VI. p. 678, ex subdititiis Alexandri epistolis; Anonym. De Monstris ct BelluiSt 269, ed. Berger de Xivroy ; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. VI. 1 ; and Heliodorus, ^th. X. 26, p. 495 ; also Gildemcister, Script. Arab, de reh. Ind. p. 220-221, and 120; Busbequius, Lega* tionis TurcicoB Epist. IV. pp. 144, or Thaunua XXIV. 7, p. 809.— Schwanbeck, p. 72. Digitized by Google 97 once seicing the booty make off at fall speed. The ants, on learning what has been done, pursue the fugitives, and overtaking them fight with them till they conquer or die, for of all animals they are the most courageous. It hence appears that they understand the worth of gold, and that they will sacrifice their lives rather than part with it. Pragm. XLT. Strab. XV. 1. 58-60,— pp. 711-714. Of the Indian Philosophers. (Fragm. XXIX. has preceded this.) (58) Speaking of the philosophers, he (Megas- thenSs) says that such of them as live on the mountains are worshippers of Dionysos, show- ing as proofs that he had come among them the wild vine, which grows in their country only, and the ivy, and the laurel, and the myrtle, and the box-tree, and other evergreens, nono of which are found beyond the Euphrates, ex- cept a few in parks, which it requires great care to preserve. They observe idso certain customs which are Bacchanalian. Thus they dress in muslin, wear the turban, use per^uaes, array themselves in garments dyed of bright colours ; and their kings, when they appear in public, are preceded by the music of drums and gongs. But the philosophers who live on the plains worship Herakles. [These accounts are fjEbbulous, and are impugned by many writers, especially what is said about the vine and wine. For the greater part of Armenia, and the whole of Mesopotamia and Media, onwards to Persia and Karmania* lie beyond the Eu- Digitized by Google phrates, and throughout a great part of each of these countries good vines grow, and good wine is produced.]
(59) Megasthenes makes a different division of the philosophers, saying that they are of two kinds—one of which he calls the Brachmanes, and the other the Sarmanes.[16] The Brachmanes are best esteemed, for they are more consistent in their opinions. From the time of their conception in the womb they are under the guardian care of learned men, who go to the mother and, under the pretence of using some incantations for the welfare of herself and her unborn babe, in reality give her prudent hints and counsels. The women who listen most willingly are thought to be the most fortunate in their children. After their birth the children are under the care of one person after another, and as 99 they advance in age each succeeding master is more accomplished than his predecessor. The philosophers have their abode in a grove in front of the city within a moderate- sized enclosure. They live in a simple style, and lie on beds of rushes or (deer) skins. They abstain from. animal food and sexual pleasures, and spend their time in listening to serious discourse, and in imparting their knowledge to such as will listen to them. The hearer is not allowed to speak, or even to cough, and much less to spit, and if he offends in any of these ways he is cast out from their society that very day, as being a mail who is wanting in self-restraint. After living in this manner for seven-and- thirty years, each individual retires to his own property, where he lives for the rest of his days in ease and secu- rity, f They then array themselves in fine muslin, and wear a few trinkets of gold on their fingers and in their ears. They eat flesh, but not that of animals employed in labour. They abstain from hot and highly seasoned food. They marry as many wives as they please, with a view to have t " A mistake (of the Greek writers) originates in their ignorance of the fourfold division of a BrShma^'s life. Thns ' they speak of men who had been for many years sophists marrying and returning to common life (alluding probably to a student who, having completed the austerities of the first period, becomes a householder) :" Elphinstone's His- tory of India, p. 236, where it is also remarked that the writers erroneously prolong? the period during which students listen to their instructors m silence and respect, making it extend in all cases to thirty-seven, which is the greatest age to which Mann (chap. III. sec. 1) permits it in any case to be protracted. Digitized by Google 100 nmnerons ehildren, for by having many wivesF greater advantages are enjoyed, and, since they have no slaves, they have more need to have children around them to attend to their wants. The Brachmanes do not communicate a know- ledge of philosophy to their wives, lest they should divulge any of the forbidden mysteries to the profane if they became depraved, or lest they should desert them if they became good philosophers : for no one who despises pleasure and pain, as well as life and death, wishes to be in subjection to another, but this is characteris- tic both of a good man and of a good woman. Death is with them a very frequent subject of discourse. They regard this life as, so to speak, the time when the child within the womb becomes mature, and death as a birth into a real and happy life for the votaries of philosophy. On this account they undergo much discipline as a preparation for death. They consider nothing that befeills men to be either good or bad, to suppose otherwise being a dream-like illusioa, else how could some be affected with sorrow, and others with pleasure, by the very same things, and how could the same things affect the san^ individuals at dif- ferent times with these opposite emotions ? Their ideas abont physical phenomena, the same author tells us, are very crude, for they are better in their actions than in their reasonings, inasmuch as their belief is in great measure Digitized by Google 101 based npon fables; yet on many points their opinions coincide with those of the Greeks, for Hke them they say that the world had a begin- ning, and is liable to destmction, and is in shape spherical, and that the Deity who made it, and who goyems it, is diffused through all its parts. They hold that various first principles operate in the universe, and that water was the prin- ciple employed in the making of the world. In addition to the four elements there is a fifth agency, from which the heaven and the stars were produced 4 The earth is placed in the centre of the universe. Concerning generation, and the nature of the soul^ and many other subjects, they express views like those main- tained by the Greeks. They wrap up their doctrines about immortality and future judg- ment, and kindred topics, in allegories, after the manner of Plato. Such are his statements regarding the Brachmanes. (60) Of the Sarmanes§he tells us that 1 AkASa, * the ether or sky.' § Schwanbeck argaes irom. the distinct separation here made between the Brachmanes and the Sarmanes, as well as from the name iSrarruma being especially applied to Baad- dha teachers, that the latter are here meant. They are called 2afMvaioi by Bardesanes (ap. Porphyr. AbsUn, IV. 17) and Alex. Polyhistor. (ap. Cyrill. contra JuUom, IV. p. 133 E, ed. Paris, 1638). Gonf . also Hieronym. ad Jovinian, II. (ed. Paris, 1706, T. II. pt. ii. p. 206). And this is just the Pali name Sammana, the equivalent of the Sanskrit £^- mana. Bohlen in De Buddhmsmi origine et cetobte dejmi- €nd^ Bostaios this view, bnt Lassen {Bhein.Mus. fur Phil. I. 171 ff.) contends that the description agrees better with the Br&hman ascetics. See Schwanbeck, p. 45fr. and Las- sen, Ind. Alt&rth. (2nd ed). II. 705, or (1st ed.) II. 700. Google 102 those who are held in most honour are called the Hylobioi.|| They live in the woods, where they subsist on leaves of trees and wild fruits, and wear garments made from the bark of trees. They abstain from sexual intercourse and from wine. They communicate with the kings, who consult them by messengers regard- ing the causes of things, and who through them worship and supplicate the deity. Next in honour to the Hylobioi are the physicians, since they are engaged in the study of the nature of man. They are simple in their habits, but do not live in the fields. Their food consists of rice and barley-meal, which they can always get for the mere asking, or receive from those who enter- tain them as guests in their houses. By their knowledge of pharmacy they can make mar- riages fruitful, and determine the sex of the oflfepring. They effect cures rather by regulat- ing diet than by the use of medicines. The remedies most esteemed are ointments and plas- ters. All others they consider to be in a great measure pernicious in their nature.^ This class and the other class practise fortitude, both by undergoing active toil, and by the endurance of pain, so that they remain for a whole day mo- tionless in one fixed attitude.* 11 ScMB note* |Mige^98. „ " The habits of the physicians," Elphinstone remarks,
- seem to correspond with those of BrStunans of the fourth
stage." • << It is indeed," says the same authority, " a remarlcable Digitized by Google 103 Besides these tbere are diviners and sorcerers, and adepts in the rites and customs relating to the dead, who go about begging both in villages and towns. Even snch of them as are of snperior culture and refinement inculcate such superstitions re- garding Hades as they consider favourable to piety and holiness of life. Women pursue phi- losophy with some of them, but abstain from sexual intercourse. Fragm. XLII. Clem. Alex. g^om. I. p. 305 D (ed. Colon. 1688). That the Jewish race is by far the oldest of all these, and that their philosophy, which has been committed to writing, preceded the philo- sophy of the Greeks, Philo the Pythagorean shows by many arguments, as does also Aristoboulos the Peripatetic, and many others whose names I need not waste time in enumerating. Megas- thenes, the author of a work on India, who lived with SeleukosNikator, writes most clearly on this point, and his words are these : — " All that has been said regarding nature by the ancients is asserted also by philosophers out of Greece, on the one pa/rt in India by the Brachmanes, and on the other in Syria by the people called the Jews." circnmstance that the religion, of Buddha should never have been expressly noticed by the Greek authors, though it had existed for two centuries before Alexander. The only ex- planation is that the appearance and manners of its fol- lowers were not so peculiar as to enable a foreigner to distinguish them from the mass of the people." 104 Fkagm. XLII. B. Euaeb. Pr(pp. Ev. IX. 6,—pp. 410 0, D (ed. Colon. 1688). Ex Clem. Alex. Again, in addition to this, farther on he writes thus : — " Megasthenes, the writer who lived with Se- leukos Mkator, writes most clearly on this point and to this effect ; — * All that has been said,* " &c. Fbagm. XLII.O. CyriU. Coni/ra JuUan. IV. (0pp. ed. Paris, 1638, T. VI. p. 134 Al. Ex Clem. Alex.t Aristobonlos the Peripatetic somewhere writes to this effect : — " All that has been said," &c. Feagm. XLIII. • Clem. Alex. Strom. I. p. 305, A, B (ed. Colon. 1688). Of the Philosophers of India. [Philosophy, then, with all its blessed advantages to man, flourished long ages ago among the barbarians, diffasing its Ught among the Gentiles, and eventually penetrated into Greece. Its hierophants were the prophets among the Egyp- tians, theChaldssans among the Assyrians, the Druids among the Grauls, the Sarmansaans who were the philosophers of theBaktrians and the Kelts, the Magi among the Persians, who, as you know, announced beforehand the birth of the Saviour, being led by a star till they arrived in the land of Judssa, and among the Indians the Gymno- sophists, and other philosophers of barbarous nations.] There are two sects of these Indian philoso- phers — one called the Sarm&nai and the other the Brachmanai. Connected with the Sarm&nai are the philosophers called the H y 1 o b i o i, J who t " In this passage, though Cynl follows Clemens, he wrongly attributes the narrative of Megasthenes to Aristo- bouloB the Peripatetic, whom Clemens only praises."— Schwanbeck, p. 50. X The reading of the MSS is Allobioi. Digitized by Google 105 neither live in cities nor even in houses. They clothe themselves with the bark of trees, and sub- sist upon acorns, and drink water by lifting it to their mouth with their hands. They neither marry nor beget children [like those ascetics of our own day called the Enkrat^tai. Among the Indians are those philosophers also who follow the precepts of B o u 1 1 a,§ whom they honour as a god on ac- count of his extraordinary sanctity.] § V. 1. Bovra. — ^The passage admits of a diflferent ren- dering : ** They (the Hylobioi) are those among the Indians who follow the precepts of Boutta." Colfebrooke in his Ob' servations on the Sect of the Jains, has quoted this passage from Clemens to controvert the opinion that the religion and institutions of the orthodox Hmdus are more modem than the doctrines of Jina and of Bnddha. " Here/' he says, " to luy apprehension, the followers of Buddha are clearly distinguished from the Brachmanes and Sarmanes. The latter, called Germanea b^ Strabo, and Samansaans by Porphyrins, ara the ascetics of a different religion, and may have belonged to the sect of Jina, or to another. The Brachmanes are apparently those who are described by Philostratus and Hierocles as worshipping the sun; and by Strabo and by Arrian as performing sacrifices for the common benefit of the nation, as well as for individuals ... They are expressly discriminated from the sect of Buddha . by one ancient author, and fromtibie Sarmanes (a) or Sama- nsaans (ascetics of various tribes) by others. They are de- scribed by more than one authority as worshipping the sun, as performing sacrifices, and as denying the eternity of the world, and maintaining other tenets incompatible with the supposition that the sects of Buddha or Jiaa could be meant. Their manners and doctrine, as described l»y these authors, are quite conformable with the notions and practice of the orthodox Hindus. It may therefore be confidently inferred that the followers of the Vedas flour- ished in India when it was -isited by the Greeks under Alexander, and continued to flourish from the time of MegasthenSs, who described them in the fourth century before Christ, to that of Porphyrins, who speaks of them, on later authority, in the third century after Christ." (a) Samana is the Pali form of the older ^amana. N 106 Feagm. XLIV. Strab. XV. 1. 68,— p. 718. Of Kalanos and Mandanis. Megasthen^s, however, says that self-destruc- tion is not a dogma of the philosophers, but that such as commit the act are regarded as foolhardy, those naturally of a severe tem- per stabbing themselves or casting themselves down a precipice, those averse to pain drown- ing themselves, those capable of enduring pain strangling themselves, and those of ardent temperaments throwing themselves into the fire. Kalanos was a man of this stamp. He was ruled by his passions, and became a slave to the table of Alexander. || He is on this account condemned by his countrymen, but Mandanis is applauded because when mes- sengers from Alexander invited him to go to the son of Zeus, with the promise of gifts if he com- plied, and threats of punishment if he refused, he did not go. Alexander, he said, was not the son of Zeus, for he was not so much as master of the larger half of the world. As for himself, II " Kalanos followed the Makedonian army from Tazila, and when afterwards taken ill bamt himself on a foneralpyre in the presence of the whole Makedonian army, without evincing any symptom of pain. His real name, according to Plntarch, was Sphines, and he received the name Kalanos among the Greeks because in saluting persons he used the form KoKe instead of the Greek X^^P^* What Plutarch here calls koKc is probabl3[ the Sanskrit form kalySuna, which is commonly used in addressing a person, and signifies * good; just, or distinguished.' "— Smitn's Classical Dictionary. Digitized by Google 107 he wanted none of the gifts of a man whose desires nothing conld satiate; and as for his threats he feared them not : for if he lived, India wonld supply him with food enough, and if he died, he would be delivered from the body of flesh now afiiicted with age, and would ba trans- lated to a better and a purer life. Alexander ex- pressed admiration of the man, and let him have his own way, Fbagm. XLV. Arr. VII. ii. 3-9. (See the translation of Arrian's Indika.) BOOK IV. Fragm. XLVI. Strab. XV. I. 6-8,— pp. 686-688. That the Indians had never been attacked hy others, nor had tJiemselves attacked others. (Cf. Epit. 23.) 6. But what just reliance can we place on the accounts of Indiafrom such expeditions as those of Kyros and Semiramis ?% Megasthen^s concurs in this view, and recommends his readers to put no % " The expedition of Semiramis as described by Dio- dorufl Siculos (II. 16-19), who followed the Assyriaka of EtesiaS; has almost the character of a legend abounding with puerilities, and is entirely destitute of those geogra- phical details which stamp events with reality. If this expedition is real, as on other grounds we may believe it to be, some traces will assuredly be found of it in the cunei- form inscriptions of Nineveh, which are destined to throw so much unexpected light on the ancient histonr of Asia. It has already been believed possible to draw from these inscriptions the foundations of a positive chronology which will fully confirm the indications given by Heroootos aa Digitized by Google 108 faith in the ancient history of India. Its people, he says, never sent an expedition abroad, nor was their country ever invaded and conqnered except by H^rakles and Dionysos in old times, and by the Makedonians in onr own. Yet Ses6stris the Egyptian* and Tearkon the Ethiopian ad- to the epoch of Semiramis, in fixing the epoch of this celebrated qaeen in the 8th century of our era — an epoch which is qnite in harmony with the data which we possess from other sources regarding the condition of the North- West of India after the Vedic times. " Kyros, towards the middle of the 6th century of our era, must also have carried his arms even to the Indus. Historical tradition attributed to him the destruction of Kapisa, an important city in the upper region of the Kdph^s (Plin. YI. 23); and in the lower region the Assakenians and the Aftakenians, indigenous tribes of Gandara, are reckoned among his tributaries (Arrian, Indikdf I. 3). Tradition further recounted that, in return- ing from his expedition into India, Kyros had seen his whole army perish in the deserts of Gedrosia (Arr. Anah, VI. 24. 2). The Persian domination in these districts has left more than one trace in the geographical nomenclature. It is 8u£&cient to recall the name of the Khoaspds, one of the great affluents of the K6phes.
- Whatever be the real historical character of the expedi-
tions of Semiramis and Kyros, it is certain that their con- quests on the Indus were only temporary acquisitions, since at the epoch when Dareios HystaspSs mounted the throne the eastern frontier of the empire did not go beyond Arakhosia (the Haraqaiti of the Zend texts, t£e Haraouvatis of the cuneiform inscriptions, the Arrokluid^j of Musalm&n geography, the provinces of KomdahA/r and of Ghazni of existmg geography) — that is to say, the parts of Afgh^st&n which lie east of the Sulim&i chain of mountains. This fact is established by the great trilingual inscription of Bisoutoun, which indicates the last eastern countries to which Dareios had carried his arms at the epoch when the naonument was erected. This was before he had achieved his well-known conquest of the valley of the Indus." — St. Martin, E'tvde surla Q^ographieQrecque et Latine de VInde, pp. 14 seqq.
- Sesostris (called Sespfisis by Diodorus) has generally
been identified with Bamses the third king of the 19th dynasty of Manetho, the son of Seti, and the father of Digitized by Google 109 vanced as far as Europe. And Nabukodrosor,f who is more renowned among the Chaldseans than even Herakles among the Greieks, carried his arms to the Pillars, J which Tearkon also reached, while Sesostris penetrated from Iberia even into Thrace and Pontes. Besides these there was Idanthyrsos the Skythian, who over- ran Asia as far as Egypt.§ Bat not one of these great conqaerors approached India, and Semiramis, who meditated its conquest, died before the necessary preparations were undertaken. The Persians indeed summoned the Hydrakaijl from India to serve as mer- cenaries, but they did not lead an army into the country, and only approached its borders when Kyros marched against the Massagetai. Of Dionysos and Herakles, 7. The accounts about Herakles and Menephthab the Pharaoh of the Sxodus. Lepsias, how- ever, from a study of the Tablet of Rameses II. found at Abydos in Egypt, and now in the British Museum, has been led to identify him with the Sesortasen or Osirtasen of the great 12th dynasty. — See Report of the Proceedings of the Second International Congress of OrientalistSf p. 4A. t V.l. 'SapoKoBpoa-opov, t Called by Ptolemy the " Pillars of Alexander," above Albania and Iberia at the commencement of the Asiatic Sarmatia. § Herodotus mentions an invasion of Skythians which was led by Madyas. As Idanthyrsos may have been a common appellative of the Skythian kings, Strabo may here be referring to that invasion. II The Hydrakai are called also Oxydrakai. The name, according to Lassen, represents the Sanskrit Kshvdraka. It is variously written Sydrakai, Syrakusai, Sabagrae, and Sygambri. 110 Dionysos, Megastheues and some few aa- tliors with him consider entitled to credit, "[but the majority, among whom is Eratosthenes, consider them incredible and fabnlous, like the stories current among the Ghreeks ] 8. On snch grounds they called a particnlar race of people Nyssaians, and their city Nyssa,^ which Dionysos had founded, and the moun- tain which rose above the city M e r o n> assigning as their reason for bestowing these names that ivy grows there, and also the vine, although its fruit does not come to perfection, as the clusters, on account of the heaviness of the rains, fall off the trees before ripening. They further called the Oxydrakai descendants of Dionysos, be- cause the vine grew in their country, and their processions were conducted with great pomp, and their kings on going forth to war and on other occasions marched in Bacchic fashion, with drums beating, while they were dressed in gay- coloured robes, which is also a custom among other Indians. Again, when Alexander had captured at the first assault the rock called A o r u o s, the base of which is washed by the In- dus near its source, his followers, magnifying the affair, affirmed that Herakles had thrice assaulted the same rock and had been thrice repulsed. * They % V. U. Nucratovff, Nvcrav.
- This celebrated rock has been identified by General
Cunningham ^dth the mined fortress of B&^tgat, situated immediately above the small village of Nogrfim, which lies about sixteen miles north by west from Digitized by Google said also that the S i b a e were descended from those who accompanied HSrakles on his expedi- tion, and that they preserved badges of their de- scent, for they wore skins like H^rakles, and car- ried clubs, and branded the mark of a cudgel on their oxen and mules.f In support of this story they turn to account the legends regarding Kau- kasos and Prometheus by transferring them hither from Pontos, which they did on the slight pretext that they had seen a sacred cave among the Paropamisadae. This they declared was the prison of Prometheus, whither Hera- kles had come to effect his deliverance, and that this was the Kaukasos, to which the Greeks represent Prometheus as having been bound. J Ohind, which he takes to be the Embolima of the ancients. " RA^lgat," he says, " or the Qneen's rock, is a large upright block on the north edge of the fort, on which B&ja V a r a's rM is said to have seated herself daily. The fort itself is attributed to B^a Vara, and some ruins at the foot of the hill are called B&ja Yara's stables ... I think, therefore, that the hill-fort of Aomos most probably derived its name from Btna Yara, and that the ruined fortress of B&^igat has a better claim to be identified with the Aomos of Alexander than either the Mah&ban hill of Gren- eral Abbott, or the castle of B^a Hodi jiroposed by Greneral Court and Mr. Loewenthal." See Grote's History of India, vol. YIII. pp. 487-8, footnote. t According to Curtius, the Sibae, whom he calls Sobii, occupied the country between the Hydasp^s and the Ake- sinds. They may have derived their name from the god 6vn,. t "No writer before Alexander's time mentions the Indian gods. The Makedonians, when they came into India, in accordance with the invariable practice of the Greeks, considered the gods of the country to be the same as their own. ^iva they were led to identify with Bacchus on their observing the unbridled license and somewhat Bacchic fashion of his worship, and because they traced 112 Fbaqm. XLVII. Arr. Ind. V. 4-12. (See the translation of Arrian's Indilca.) Fragm. XL VIII. Josephus Contra Apion. I. 20 (T. II. p. 431, Haverc). Of Nahuckodrosor, (Cf. Fragm. XLVI. 2.) Megastbenes also expresses the same opinion in the Aili hooJc of his hidika, wbere lie endeavours to show that the aforesaid king of the Baby- lonians (Nabouchodonosor) surpassed Herakles in courage and the greatness of his achieve- ments, by telling us that he conquered even Iberia. Fragm. XLVIII. B. Joseph. Ant Jud. X. ii. 1 (T. I. p. 538, Haverc). [In this place (Nabouchodonosor) erected also of stone elevated places for walking about on, some slight resemblance between the attributes of the two deities, and between the names belonging to the mythic conception of each. Nor was anytiiing easier, after Euripides had originated the fiction that Dionysos had roamed over the East, than to suppose that the god of luxuriant fecundity had made Ins way to India, a country so remarkable for its fertility. To confirm this opinion they made use of a sHeht and accidental agreement in names. Thus Mount Meru seemed an indication of the god who sprang from the thigh of Zeus (ck 8i6s firfpov). Thus they thought the KydraksB (Oxydrukai) the offspring of Dionysos because the vine grew in their country, and they saw that their kings displayed great pomp in their proces- sions. On equally slight grounds they identified Kpshna, another god whom they saw worshipped, with Herakles ; and whenever, as among the Sibae, they saw the skins of wild beasts, or clubs, or the like, they assumed that Hera- kles had at some time or other dwelt there."— Schwanb. p. 43. Digitized by Google 113 wkicli had to the eye the appearance of moniitauis^ and were so contrived that they were planted with all sorts of trees, because his wife, who had been bred up in the land of Media, wished her surroundings to be like those of her early home.] Megasthen^s also, in the 4sth hook of his IndiJca^ makes mention of these things, and thereby endeavours to show that this king surpassed HSrakles in courage and the greatness of his achievements^ for he says that he conquered Libya and a great part of Ibdria. Fbaqm. XLVIII. C. Zonar. ed. Basil. 1557> T. L p. 87^ Among the many old historians who mention Nabouchodonosor, Jdsephos enumerates B^r6* 80S, Megasthends, and Diokl&s. Fragm. XLVIII. D. G. Syncell. T. I. p. 419, ed. Benn. (p. 221 ed. Paris, p. 17^ edw Venet.). Megasthends, in his fourth booh of the Indika^ represents Nabouchodonosor as mightier than H^rakles, because with great courage and enter- prise he conquered the greater part of Libya and Iberia. Fragm. XLIX. Abyden. ap. Eikseh, Prcep, Ev. I. 41 (ed. Colon. 1688» p. 456 D). Of Nahouchodrosor. MegastJien^s says that Nahouchodrosor, who was mightier than H^rakles, undertook an ex« 114 pedition against Libya and Iberia, and tha6 having conquered them he planted a colony of these people in the parts lying to the right of Pontes. Fragm< L. Arr. Ind. 7-9. (See the translation of Arrian's Indika.) Feagm. L.B. Plin. Hist. Nat IX. 55. Of Pearls. Some writers allege that in swarms of oysters, as among bees, individuals distinguished for size and beauty act as leaders. These are of wonder- ful cunning in preventing themselves being caught, and are eagerly sought for by the divers. Should they be caught, the others are easily enclosed in the nets as they go wandering about. They are then put into earthen pots, where they are buried deep in salt. By this process the flesh is all eaten away, and the hard concretions, which are the pearls, drop down to the bottom. Fbagm. LI. Phlegon. Mirah, 33. Of the Pandaian Land. (Cf . Fragm. XXX. 6.) !^egasthenSs says that the women of the Pandaian realm bear children when they are six years of age. Digitized by Google 115 Fragm. L.O. Plin. Eist Nat. VI. m. 4-6. Of the Ancient History of the India/ns. For the Indians stand almost alone among the nations in never having migrated from their own ■ country. From the days of Father Bacchus to Alexander the Great their kings are reckoned at 164, whose reigns extend over 6451 years and 3 months. Solin. 52. 5. Father Bacchus was the first who invaded India, and was the first of all who triumphed over the vanquished Indians. From him to Alexander the Great 6461 years are reckoned with 3 months additional, the calculation being made by counting the kings who reigned in the intermediate period, to the number of 163. . Fragm. XLV. Arr. VII. ii. 3.9.§ Of Kalanos and Mandanis, This shows that Alexander, notwithstanding the terrible ascendancy which the passion for glory had acquired over him, was not altogether without a perception of the things that are better ; for when he arrived at Taxila and saw the Indian § TluB fragment is an extract from Arrian's Expedition of AlemandeTf and not his Indika as statM (by an over- sight) at p. 107. The translation is accordingly now in- sarted. Digitized by Google 116 gjmnosopbists, a desire seized him to have one of these men brought into his presence, because he admired their endurance. The eldest of these sophists, with whom the others lived as disciples ^th a master, Dandamis by name, not only re- fased to go himself, but prevented the others going. He is said to have returned this for answer, that he also was the son of Zeus as much as Alexander himself was, and that he wanted nothing that was Alexander's (for he was well off in his present circumstances), whereas he saw those who were with him wandering over so much sea and land for no good got bj it, and without any end coming to their many wander- . ings. He coveted, therefore, nothing Alexander had it in his power to give, nor, on the other hand, feared aught he could do to coerce him : for if he lived, India would suffice for him, yield- ing him her fruits in due season, and if he died, he would be delivered from his ill-assorted com- panion the body. Alexander accordingly did not put forth his hand to violence, knowing the man to be of an independent spirit. He is said, however, to have won over Kalanos, one of the sophists of that place, whom MegasthenSs re- presents as a man utterly wanting in self-control, while the sophists themselves spoke opprobriously of Kalanos, because that, having left the happiness enjoyed among them, he went to serve another master than God. Digitized by Google 117 DOUBTFUL FRAGMENTS. Fragm. lit. ^lian, Hist. Amm. XII. 8. 0/ Elephants, (Couf. Fragm. zzxri. 10, xzxvii. 10.) The elephant when feeding at^ large ordinarily drinks water, but when undergoing the fatigues of war is allowed wine, — ^hot that sort, however, which comes from the grape, but another which is prepared from rice.|| The attendants eren go in advance of their elephants and gather them flowers ; for they are very fond of sweet per- fumes, and they are accordingly taken out to the meadows, there to be trained under the influence of the sweetest fragrance. The animal selects the flowers according to their smell, and throws them as they are gathered into a basket which is held out by the trainer. This being filled, and harvest-work, so to speak, completed, he then bathes, and enjoys his bath with all the zest of a consummate voluptuary. On returning from bath- ing he is impatient to have his flowers, and if there is delay in bringing them he begins roaring, and will not taste a morsel of food till all the flowers he gathered are placed before him. This done, he' takes the flowers out of the basket with his trunk and scatters them over the edge of his II Called araky (which, however, is also applied to tdd4) ; rum is now-a-days the beverage given it. 118 manger, and makes by this device their fine scent be, as it were, a relish to his food. He strews also a good quantity of them as litter over his stall, for he loves to have his sleep made sweet and pleasant. The Indian elephants were nine cubits in height and five in breadth. The largest elephants in all the land were those called the Praisian, and next to these the Taxilan.^ Fragm. LIII. ^lian, Hist. Anim. III. 46. 0/a White Elephant. (Of. Fragm. xxxvi. 11, xxxvii. 11.) An Indian elephant-trainer fell in with a white elephant-calf, which he brought when still quite young to his home, where he reared it, and gra- dually made it quite tame and rode upon it. He became much attached to the creature, which loved him in return, and by its affection requited him for its maintenance. Now the king of the Indians, having heard of this elephant, wanted to take it ; but the owner, jealous of the love it had for him, and grieving much, no doubt, to think that another should become its master, refused to give it away, and made ofp at once to the % This fragment is ascribed to Megasthen^s both on account of the matter of it, and because it was undoubtedly from Megasthen^s thkt ^lian borrowed the narrative pre- ceding it (Fragm. xxxviii.) and that following it (Fragm. mr.).— Schwanbeck. Digitized by Google 119 desert mounted on his favourite. The king vrAi enraged at this, and sent men in pursuit, with orders to seize the elephant, and at the same time to hring hack the Indian for punishment. Overtaking the fugitive they attempted to exe- cute their purpose, but he resisted and attacked his assailants from the back of the elephant, which in the affray fought on the side of its injured master. Such was the state of matters at the first, but afterwards, when the Indian on being wounded slipped down to the ground, the ele- phant, true to his salt, bestrides him as soldiers in battle bestride a fallen comrade, whom they cover with their shields, kills many of the assailants, and puts the rest to flight. Then twining his trunk around his rearer he hfted him on to his back, and carried him home to the stall, and remained with him like a faithful friend with his friend, and showed him every kind atten- tion.* [O men ! how base are ye ! ever dancing merrily when ye hear the music of the frying-pan, ever revelling in the banquet, but traitors in the hour of danger, and vainly and for nought sul- lying the sacred name of friendship.]
- Compare the account given in Plutarch's Life of
AlexcmdeTj of the elephant of P6ros : — " This elephant during the whole battle gave extraordinary proofs of his sagacity and care of the ^g's person. As long as that prince was able to fight, he defended him vrith great courage, and re- pralsed all assailants ; and when he perceived him ready to sink under the multitude of darts, and the wounds vnth which he was covered, to prevent his falHng off he kneeled down in the softest manner, and vyith his proboscis gently drew every dart out of his body." Digitized by Google 120 Fragm* LIV. t^seudo-Origen, Philosoph, 24, ed. Delarue, Paris, 1783, vol. I. p. 904. 0/ the Brdhmana and their Philosophy, (Of. Fragm* xli., xliv., xlv.) Of the Brachhmoms in In^ia, There is among the Brachhmans in India a sect of philosophers who adopt an independent life» and ahstain from animal food and all victuals cooked by fire, being content to subsist upon fruits, which they do not so much as gather from the trees, but pick up when they have dropped to the ground, and their drink is the water of the river T a g a b e n a-t Throughout life they go about naked, saying that the body has been given by the Deity as a covering for the soul. J They hold that God is light, § but not such light as we see t Probably the Sanskpt Tnn^venfi, now the Tnnga^ bhadra, a large affluent of the Krishnft. % Vide Ind, Ant vol. V. p. 128, note f, A doctrine of the Ved&nta school of philosophy, according to which the soul is incased as in a sheath, or rather a succession of sheaths^ The first or inner case is the intellectual one, composed of the sheer and simple elements uncombined, and consisting of the intellect joined with the five senses. The second is the mental sheath, in which mind is joined with the pre- ceding, or, as some hold, with the organs of action. The third comprises these organs and the vital faculties, and is called the organic or vital case. These three sheaths {koSa) constitute the subtle frame which attends the soul in its transmigrations. The exterior case is composed of the coarse elements combined in certain proportions, and is called the gross body. See Golebrooke's Essa/y on the Philosophy of the Hivmus, Cowell's ed. pp. 395-6. § The affinity between Grod and light is the burden of the OoMatri or hobest verse of the Veda. Digitized by Google 121 with the eye, nor such as the sun or fire, but God is with them the Word, — by which term they do not mean articulate speech, but the discourse of reason, whereby the hidden mysteries of know- ledge are discerned by the wise. This light, how- ever, which they call the Word, and think to be God, is, they say, known only by the Brachhmans themselves, because they alone have discarded vanity, li which is the outermost covering of the soul. The members of this sect regard death with contemptuous indifference, and, as we have seen already, they always pronounce the name of the Deity with a tone of peculiar reverence, and adore him with hymns. They neither have wives nor beget children. Persons who desire to lead a Ufe like theirs cross over from the other side of the river, and remain with them for good, never returning to their own country. These also arc called Brachhmans, although they do not follow the same mode of life, for there are women in the country, from whom the native inhabitants are sprung, and of these women they beget off- spring. With regard to the Word, which they call God, they hold that it is corporeal, and that it wears the body as its external covering, just as (I Kevobo^ia, which probably translates ahamMray literally ' egotism/ and hence * self-conscionsness/ the peculiar and api>ropriate function of which is selfish conviction ; that is, a belief that in perception and meditation * V am concern- ed J that the objects of sense concern Me — in short, that I AM. The knowledge, however, which comes from com- prehending that Being which has self -existence completely destroys the ignorance which says * I am.' 122 one wears the woollen surcoat, and that when it divests itself of the hody with which it is en- wrapped it becomes manifest to the eye. There is war, the Brachhmans bold, in the body where- with they are clothed, and they regard the body as being the fruitful source of wars, and, as we have already shown, fight against it like soldiers in battle contending against the enemy. They maintain, moreover, that all men are held in bond- age, like prisoners of war,^ to their own innate enemies, the sensual appetites, gluttony, anger, joy, grief, longing desire, and such like, while it is only the man who has triumphed over these enemies who goes to God. D a n d a m i s accord- higlyi to whom Alexander the Makedonian paid a visit, is spoken of by the Brachhmans as a god be- cause he conquered in the warfare against the body, and on the other hand they condemn K a 1 a- n o s as one who had impiously apostatized from their philosophy. The Brachhmans, therefore, when they have shuffled off the body, see the pure sunlight as fish see it when they spring up out of the water into the air. T Compare Plato, Phmdo, cap. 32, where Sokratf a speaks of the soul as at present confined in the body as in a species o£ prison. This was a doctrine of the Pythagoreans, whose philosophy, even in its most striking peculiarities, bears such a close resemblance to the Indian as greatly to favour the supposition that it was directly borrowed from it. There was even a tradition that Pythagoras had yisited India. 123 Fragm. LV. Pallad. de Bragmambus, pp. 8, 20 et seq. ed. Londin. 1668. {Camera/r. Ubell. gnomolog. pp. 116, 124 et seq.) Of Kalanos and Mandanis, (Cf. Fragm. xli. 19, xliv., xlv.) They (the Bragmanes) subsist upon such fruits as they can find, and on wild herbs, which the earth spontaneously produces, and drink only water. They wander about in the woods, and sleep at night on pallets of the leayes of trees. . . . "Kalanos, then, your false friend, held this opinion, but he is despised and trodden upon by us. By you, however, accomplice as he was in causing many evils to you all, he is honoured and worshipped, while from our society be has been contemptuously cast out as unprofitable. And why not ? when everything which we trample under foot is an object of admiration to the lucre-loving Kalanos, your worthless friend, but no friend of ours, — a miserable creature, and more to be pitied than the unhappiest wretch, for by setting his heart on lucre be wrought the perdition of his soul ! Hence he seemed neither worthy of us, nor worthy of the friendship of God, and hence he neither was content to revel away life in the woods beyond all reach of care, nor was he cheered with the hope of a blessed hereafter : for by his love of money he slew the very life of his miserable soul.
- We have, however, amongst us a sage called
D a n d a m i s, whose home is the woods, where he Digitized by Google 124 lies on a pallet of leaves, and where he has nigh at hand the fountain of peace, whereof he drinks, sacking, as it were, the pure breast of a mother." King Alexander, accordingly, when he heard of all this, was desirous of learning the doctrines of the sect, and so he sent for this Dandamis, as heing their teacher and president Onesikrates was therefore despatched to fetch him, and when he found the great sage he said,
- Hail to thee, thou teacher of the Bragmanes.
The .son of the mighty god Zeus, king Alexander, who is the sovereign lord of all men, asks you to go to him, and if you comply, he will reward you with great and splendid gifts,, but if you refuse will cut off your head." Dandamis, with a complacent smile, heard him to the end, hut did not so much as lift up his head from his couch of leaves, and while still retaining his recumbent attitude returned this scornful answer: — ** God, the supreme king, is never the author of insolent wrong, but is the creator of light, of peace, of life, of water, of the body of man, and of souls, and these he receives when death sets them free, being in no way subject to evil desire. He alone is the god of my homage, who abhors slaughter and instigates no wars. But Alexander is not God, since he must taste of death ; and how can such as he be the world's master, who has not yet reached the further shore of the river Tiberoboas, and has not yet seated himself on a throne of universal dominion ? Moreover, Alexander has Digitized by Google 125 neither as yet entered living into Hades,* nor does he know the course of the sun through the central regions of the earth, while the nations on its boundaries have not so much as heard his name.f If his present dominions are not capacious enough for his desire, let him cross the Ganges river, and he will find a region able to sustain men if the country on our side be too narrow to hold him. Know this, however, that what Alexander offers me, and the gifts he pro- mises, are all things to me utterly useless; but the things which I prize, and find of real use and worth, are these leaves which are my house, these blooming plants which supply me with dainty food, and the water which is my drink, while all other possessions and things, which are amassed with anxious care, are wont to prove ruinous to those who amass them, and cause only sorrow and vexation, with which every poor mor« tal is fully fraught. But as for me, I lie upon the forest leaves, and, having nothing which requires guarding, close my eyes in tranquil slumber ; whereas had I gold to guard, that would banish sleep. The earth supplies me with everything, even as a mother her child with milk. I go wherever I please, and there are no • C&v €V dbov ovdcTTO) TTaprjXBev, The Latin version hsM non zonam Oadem transiit, * has not crossed the zone of Cadiz.' t The text here is so oormpt as to be almost untranslat- able. I have therefore rendered from the Latin, thongh not quite closely. Digitized by Google 126 cares with which I am forced to cumber myself, against my will. Should Alexander cut off my head, he cannot also destroy my soul. My head alone, now silent, will remain, but the soul will go away to its Master, leaving the body hke a torn garment upon the earth, whence also it was taken. I then, becoming spirit, shall ascend to my God, who enclosed us in flesh, and left us upon the earth to prove whether when here below we shall live obedient to his ordinances, and who also will require of us, when we depart hence to his pre- sence, an account of our life, since he is judge of all proud wrong-doing ; for the groans of the oppress- ed become the punishments of the oppressors.
- Let Alexander, then, terrify with these threats
those who wish for gold and for wealth, and who dread death, for against us these weapons are both alike powerless, since the Bragmanes neither love gold nor fear death. Go, then, and tell Alexander this : * Dandamis has no need of aught that is yours, and therefore will not go to you, but if you want anything from Dandamis come you to him.' "X Alexander, on receiving from Onesikrates a re- port of the interview, felt a stronger desire than ever to see Dandamis, who, though old and naked, was the only fintagonist in whom he, the conqueror of many nations, had found more than his match, &c. t " Others say Dandamis entered into no discourse with the messengers, bat only asked ' why Alexander had taken so long a journey ?' " — Plutarch's Alexander. Digitized by Google 127 Fragm. LV. B. Ambrosius, De Morihus Brachmanoirwm, pp. 62, 68 et seq. ed. Pallad. Londin. 1668. Of Calanus and Mandanis, They {the Brachmans) eat what they find on the ground, snch as leaves of trees and wild herbs, like cattle "Calanus is your friend, but he is despised and trodden upon by us. He, then, who was the author of many evils among you, is honoured and worshipped by you ; but since he is of no importance he is rejected by us, and those things we certainly do not seek, please Calanus because of his greediness for money. But he was not ours, a man such as has miserably injured and lost his soul, on which account he is plainly unworthy to be a friend either of God or of ours, nor has he deserved security among the woods in this world, nor can he hope for the glory which is promised in the future." When the emperor Alexander came to the forests, he was not able to see Dandamis as he passed through. . . . When, therefore, the above-mentioned messenger came to Dandamis, he addressed him thus : — " The emperor Alexander, the son of the great Jupiter, who is lord of the human race, has ordered that you should hasten to him, for if you come, he will give you many gifts, but if you refuse he will be- head you as a punishment for your contempt." When these words came to the ears of Dandamis, he rose not from his leaves whereon he lay, but re- clining and smiling he replied in this way : — " The greatest God," he said, *'can do injury to no one, but Digitized by Google 128 restores again the light of life to those who haVd departed. Accordingly he alone is my lord who forbids murder and excites no wars. But Alex- ander is no God, for he himself will have to die. How, then, can he be the lord of all, who has not yet crossed the river Tyberoboas, nor has made the whole world his abode, nor crossed the zone of G a d e s, nor has beheld the course of the sun in the centre of the world P Therefore many nations do not yet even know his name. If, how- ever, the country he possesses cannot contain him, let him cross our river and he will find a soil which is able to support men. All those things Alexander promises would be useless to me if he gave them: I have leaves for a house, live on the herbs at hand and water to drink ; other things collected with labour, and which perish and yield nothing but sorrow to those seeking them or possessing them, — these I despise. I there- fore now rest secure, and with closed eyes I care for nothing. If I wish to keep gold, I destroy my sleep ; Earth supplies me with everything, as a mother does to her child. Wherever I wish to go, I proceed, and wherever I do not wish to be, no necessity of care can force me to go. And if he wish to cut off my head, he cannot take my soul ; he will only take the fallen head, but the depart- ing soul will leave the head like a portion of some garment, and will restore it to whence it received it, namely, to the earth. But when I shall have become a spirit I shall ascend to God, who has enclosed it within this flesh. When he did this he wished to try us, how, after leaving him, we would live in this world. And afterwards, when Digitized by Google 129 we shall have returned to him, he will demand from as an account of this life. Standing by him I shall see my injury, and shall contemplate his judgment on those who injured me : for the sighs and groans of the injured become the punishments of the oppressors.
- ' Let Alexander threaten with this them that
desire riches or fear death, both of which I de- spise. For Brachmans neither love gold nor dread death. Go, therefore, and tell Alexander this : — ' Dandamis seeks nothing of yours, but if you think you need Something of his, disdain not to go to him.'" When Alexander heard these words through the interpreter, he wished the more to see such a man, since he, who had subdued many nations, was overcome by an old naked man, &o. Fragm. LVI. Plin. Hist. Nat, VI. 21. 8—23. 11. List of the Indian Races, ^ The other journeys made thence {from the Hyphasis) for Seleukos Nikator are as follows : — 168 miles to the Hesidrus, and to the river Jomanes as many (some copies add 5 miles) ; from thence to the Ganges 112 miles. 119 miles to Rhodopha (others give 325 miles for this dis- tance). To the town Kalinipaxal 67 — 500. Others give 265 miles. Thence to the confluence of the Jomanes and Ganges 625 miles (many add 13 § This list Pliny has borrowed for the most part from Megasthenes. Cf. Schwanbeck, pp. 16 seq.y 57 seq. Digitized by Google 130 miles), and to the town Palimbothra 425. To the mouth of the Ganges 738 miles. || II According to the MSS. 638 or 637 miles. The places mentioned in this famous itinerary all lay on the Koyal Boad, which ran from the Indus to Faiibothra. The^ have been thus identified. The Hesidrus is now the Satlej, and the point of departure lay immediately below its junction with the Hyphasis (now the Bi&s). Hie direct route thence ('iHdLudluan&, Sirhind, and Amb&l&) conducted the traveller to the ferry of the Jomanes, now the Jamnd, in the neighbourhood of the present Bureah, whence the road led to the Ganges at a pomt which, to judge from the distance given (112 miles), must have beeb near the site of the far-famed Hastinapura. The next stage to be reached was Bhodopha, the position of which, both its name and its distance from the (ranges (119 miles) combine to fix at Dabhai, a small town about 12 miles to the south of Anupshahr. Kalinipaxa, the next stage, Mannert and Lassen would identify with Kanai:g (the Eany&kubja of Sanskrit); but M. de St.-Martin, objecting to this that Fliny was not likely to have designated so important and so celebrated a city by so obscure an appellation, finds a site for it in the neighbourhood on the banks of the Ikshumati, a river of Fanchfila mentioned in the great Indian poems. This river, he remarks, must also have been called the Kalinadi, as the names of it still in current use, Kalini and Kalindri, prove. Now, as ' paxa' transliterates the Sanskrit ' paksha,' a side, Kalinipaxa, to judge from its name, must designate a town lying near the Kalinadi. The figures which represent the distances have given nse to much dispute, some of them being inconsistent either with others, or with the real distances. The text, accord- ingly, has generally been supposed to be corrupt, so far at least as tiie figures are concerned. M. de St.-Martin, however, accepting the figures nearly as they stand, shows them to be fairly correct. The first difficulty presents it- self in tiie words, " Others give 825 inilesfor this distance" By * this d/istance* cannot be meant the distance between the Ganges and Bhodopha, but between the Hesidrus and 'Bhodopha, which the addition of the figures shows to be 399 miles. The shorter estimate of others (326 miles) measures the length of a more direct route by way of PatiaiA, Thanesvara, Panipat, and Dehli. The next diffi- culty has probably been occasioned by a corruption of the text. It lies m the words " Ad Calinipaxa oppidum CLXVII. D. Alii CCLXV. mill." The numeral D has generally been taken to mean 500 pices, or half a Boman mile, making the translation run thus :— ^' To Kalinipaxa Digitized by Google 131 The races which we may enumerate without being tedious, from the chain of Emodus, of which 167i miles. Others gire 265 miles." But M. de St.-Martm prefers to think that the D has, by some mangling of the text, been detached from the beginning of the second number, with which it formed the number DLXV., and been appended to the first, being led to this conclusion on finding that the number 565 sums up almost to a nicety the distance from the Hesidrus to Kalinipaxa, as thus : — From the Hesidrus to the Jomanes 168 miles. From the Jomanes to the Ganges 112 „ Prom the Ganges to Bhodopha 119 „ From Rhodopha to Kalinipaxa 167 „ Total.,. 566 miles. Pliny's carelessness in confounding total with partial dis- tances has created the next difficulty, which lies in his stat- ing that the distance from Kalinipaxa to the confluence of the Jomanes and the Ganges is 625 miles, while in reality it is only about 227. The figures may be corrupt, but it is much more probable that they represent the distance of some stage on the route remoter from the confluence of the rivers than Kalinipaxa. This must have been the passage of the Jomanes, for the distance — From the Jomanes to the Ganges is ... 112 miles. Thence to fihodopha 119 „ Thence to Kalinipaxa 167 „ Thence to the confluence of the rivers. 227 „ Total... 625 miles. This is exactly equal to 5000 stadia, the length of the Indian Mesopotamia or DoAb, the PanchSla of Sanskrit geography, and the AntarvSda of lexicographers. The foregoing conclusions M. de St. -Martin has summed up in the table annexed:— Roman miles. Stadia. From the Hesidrus to the Jomanes. 168 1344 From the Jomanes to the Ganges... 112 896 Thence to Rhodopha 119 952 From the Hesidrus to Rhodopha by a more direct route 325 2600 From Rhodopha to Kalinipaxa 167 ^ 1336 Total distonce from the Hesidrus to Kalinipaxa 565 4520 From Kalinipaxa to the confluence of the Jomanes and Ganges (227) (1816) Total distance from the passage of the Jomanes to its confluence with the Ganges 625 6000 182 a spur is called I m a u s (meaning in the natiye language snotoy),^ are the Isari, Cosyri, I z g i, and on the hills the Chisiotosagi,'*' and FUny assigns 425 miles as the distance from the con- fluence of the rivers to Palibothra, but, as it is in reality only 248, the figures have probably been altered. He gives, lastiy, 638 miles as the cQstance from Palibothra to the mouth of the Granges, which agrees closely with the esti- mate of Megasthends, who makes it 5000 stadia— if that indeed was hi» estimate, and not 6000 stadia as Strabo in one passage alleges it was. The distance by land from P&tn& to Tamluk (Tamralipta, the old port of the Ganges' mouth) is 445 English or 480 Boman miles. The distance by the river, wMeh » sinuous, is of course much greater. See E*tvde swr le Qiogra/phie Orecque et Latine de VInde, par P. V. de Saint-Martm, pp. 271-278. ^ By EmoduB was generally designated that part of the Himalayan range whicb extended along Nepfil and Bhi^tan and onward toward the ocean. Other forms of the name are Emoda, Emodon, Hemodes. Lassen derives the word fromthe Sanskrit haimavata,. in Prftkyit haimdta, * snowy.' If this be so, Hemodus is the more correct form. Another derivation refers the word to * H^m&dri' {hema, * gold,' and ad/ri, ' mountain')^ tbe *' golden mountains,' — so called either because they were thought to contain gold mines, or because of the aspect they presented when their snowy peaks reflected the golden effulgence of sunset. Imaus represents the Sanskrit himavata; 'snowy.' The name wa» applied at first by the Greeks to the Hindilk Kush and the Himftlayas, but was in course of time transferred to the Bolor range. This chain, which runs north and south, was regarded by the ancients as dividing^ Northern Asia into ' Skythia mtra Imaum' and * Skythia extra Imaum,' and it has formed for ages the boundary between China and Turkestan. • These four tribes were located somewhere in Easmtr or its immediate neighbourhood. The Isari are unknown, but are probably the same as the Brysari previously men- tioned by Pliny. The Cosyri are easily to be identified with the KhasSra mentioned in the MahAohdrata as neigh- bonrs of the Daradas and Kasmiras. Their name, it has been conjectured, survives in KhAchar, one of the three great divisions of the Kfithis of Gujar&t, who appear to have come originally from the Panj&b. The Izgi are mentioned in Ptolemy, under the name of the Sizyges, as a people of S^rik^, This is, however, a mistake, as they inhabited the alpine region which extends above Kasmfr towards the Digitized by Google 133 the Brachmanse, a name comprising many tribes, among which are the Maccocaling ee.-f north and north-west. The Chisiotosagfi or Chirotosagi are perhaps identical with the Chiconss (whom Pliny else- where mentions), in spite of the addition to their name of ' sagi/ which may have merely indicated them to be a branch of the ^ftkas, — that is, the Skythians, — ^by whom India was overran before the time of its conquest b^rthe Aryans. They are mentioned in Mann X. 44 together with the Pau^drakas, Odras, DrAvidas, K&mbojas, Yavanas, Paradas, Pahlavas, Chinas, Kiratas, Daradas, and Khasas. If Chirotosagi be the right reading of their name, there can be little doubt of their identity with the Ktratas. — See P. V. de St.- Martin's work already quoted, pp. 195-197. But for the KhAchars, see Ind, Ant. vol. IV. p. 323. t V. 1. Bracmanss. Pliny at once transports his readers from the mountains of Kasmir to the lower part of the valley of the Ganges. Here he places the Brachmanse, whom he takes to be, not what they actu^ly were, the leading caste of the population, but a powerful race composed of many tribes — ^the Maccooalingse being of the number. This tribe, as well as the Gangaridse-Ealingse, and the Modogalingse afterwards mentioned, are subdivisions of the ^lingse, a widely diffused race, which spread at one time from the delta of the Ganges all along the eastern coast of the pe- ninsula, though afterwards they did not extend southward beyond Orissa. In the MahdihhArata they are mentioned as occupying, along with the Yangas (from whom Bengal is named) and three other leading tribes, the region which lies between Magadha and the sea. The Maccocaling», then, are the Mag lux of the Kalingsd. ' * Magha," says M. de St.-Martin, " is the name of one of the non- Aryan tribes of greatest importance and widest division in the lower Crangetic region, where it is broken up into several special ^oups extending from Arakan and Western Asam, where it is found under the name of Mogh (Anglic^ Mugs)^ as far as to the Mdghars of the central valleys of Nepftl, to the Maqhayas, Magahis, or Maghyas of Southern BaJiibr (the ancient Magadha), to the ancient Magra of Bengal, and to the Magora of Orissa. These last, by their position, may properly be taken to represent our Maccocalingsd." " The Modogalingse," continues the same author, '^lind equally their representatives in the ancient Mada, a colony which the Book of Manu mentions in his enumeration of the im- pure tribes of Ary&varta, and which he names by the side of the Andhra, another people of the lower Ganges. The Monghyr inscription, winch belongs to the earlier part of Digitized by Google 134 The river P r i n a s J and the C a i n a s (which flows into the Ganges) are both navigable. § The tribes called C a 1 i n g 86 are nearest the sea, and higher up are the M a n d e i, and the M a 1 1 i in whose the 8th century of oar era, also names the Med/x, as a low tribe of this region {As. Res. vol. I. p. 126, Calcutta, 1788), and, what is remarkable, their name is found joined to that of the Andhra (Andbaraka), precisely as in the text of Ma- nu. Pliny assigns for their habitation a large island of the Granges ; and the word Galinga (for Kalinga), to which their name is attached, necessarily places this island to- wards the sea-board — ^perhaps in the Delta." The GrangaridfiB or Gangarides occupied the region cor- responding roughly with that now called Lower Bengal, and consisted of various indigenous tribes, which in the course of time became more or less Aryanized. As no word is found in Sanskrit to which their name corresponds, it has been supposed of Greek invention (Lassen, Ind. Alt. vol. II. p. 201), but erroneously, for it must have been current at the period of the Makedonian invasion : since Alexander, in reply to inquiries regarding the south country, was informed that the region of the Ganges was inhabited by two principal nations, the Prasii and the Gangartdsd. M. de ^.-Martin thinks that their name has been preserved almost identically in that of the Gonghrls of South Bah&r, whose traditions refer their origin to TirhAt ; and he would identify their royal city ParthaUs (or Portalis) with Vard- dhana (contraction of Varddham&na), now Bardwfin. Others, however, place it, as has been elsewhere stated, on the Mah&nadt. In Ptolemy their capital is Gangd, which must have been situated near where Calcutta now stands. The Gangarides are mentioned by Virgil, Qeorg. III. 27 : — In f oribus pugnam ex auro solidoque elephanto Gaugaridum faciam, victorisque arma Quirini. " High o'er the gate in elephant and gold The crowd shall Csesar's Indian war behold." (Dryden*s translation.) X V- 1- Pumas. The Prinas is probably the T&mas& or Tons a, which in the Purdnas is called the Parnftsfi. The Cainas, notwithstanding the objections of Schwanbeck, must be identified with the Cane, which is a tributary of tbe JamnA. § For the identification of these and other afiHuents of the Granges see Notes on An'ian, c. iv., Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 331. 135 country is Mount M a 1 1 u s, the boundary of all that district being the Ganges. (22.) This river, according to some, rises from uncertain sources, like the Nile,|| and inundates similarly the countries lying along its course; others say that it rises on the Skythian mountains, and has nineteen tributaries, of which, besides those already mentioned, the Condochates, Erannoboa s,^ Cosoagus, and S o n u s are navigable. Others again assert that it issues forth at once with loud roar from its fountain, and after tumbling down a steep and rocky channel is received immediately on reaching the level plains into a lake, whence it flows out with a gentle current, being at the narrowest eight miles, and on the average a hundred stadia, in breadth, and never of less depth than twenty paces (one hun- dred feet) in the final part of its course, which is through the country of the Gangarides. The royal* city of the C a 1 i n g se is called P a r- t h a 1 i s. Over their king 60,000 foot-soldiers, II For an acconnt of the different theories regarding the source of the Granges see Smith's Diet, of Class, Oeog. ^ Condochatem, Erannohoam. — v. 1. Canncham (Va- mam), Erranoboan. • regia. — v. 1. regio. The common reading, however — " Grangaridum Calingarum. Regia," &c., makes the Gan- garides a branch of the Kalingse. This is probably the cor- rect reading, for, as Greneral Cunningham states {Anc. Oeog. oflnd. pp. 518-519), certain inscriptions speak of * Tri-Ka- linga,' or * the Three Kalingas.* " The name of Tri-Ka- linga," he adds, " is probably old, as Pliny mentions the MaccO'CoblingcB and the Gangarides-Calingcc as separate peoples from the Calingse, while the Mahdhhdrata naines the Kalingas three separate times, and each time in con136 lOOOf horsemen, 700 elephants keep watch and ward in ** procinct of war." For among the more civilized Indian com- munities life is spent in a great variety of separate occupations. Some till the soil, some are soldiers, some traders ; the noblest and richest take part in the direction of state affairs, adminis- ter justice, and sit in council with the kings. A fifth class devotes itself to the philosophy pre- valent in the country, which almost assumes the form of a religion, and the members always put an end to their life by a voluntary death on a burning funeral pile.;]; In addition to these classes there is one half-wild, which is constantly engaged in a task of immense labour, beyond the power of words to describe — that of hunting and junction with diJSerent peoples." (H. H. Wilson in VisivMi Furdna, Ist ed. pp.185, 187 note, and 188.) As Tri-Kalinga thus corresponds with the great province ofTeling&na, it seems probable that the name of Teling^a may be only a slightly contracted form of Tri-KalingAna, or ' the Three t LA. miU, — V. L LXX. mill. X Lncian, in his satirical piece on the death of Peregrines (cap. 25), refers to this practice : — " But what is the motive which prompts this man (Peregrines) to fling himself into the flames ? God knows it is simply that he may show off how he can endure pain as do the Brachmans, to whom it pleased Theagends to liken him, just as if India had not her own crop of fools and vain-glorious persons. But let him bjr all means imitate the Brachmans, for, as Onesi- kritos informs us, who was the pilot of Alexander's fleet and saw Kalanos burned, they do not immolate themselves by leaping into the flames, but when the pyre is made they stand close beside it perfectly motionless, and suffer themselves to be gently broiled; then decorously ascend- ing the pile they are burned to death, and never swerve, even ever so little, from their recumbent position." Digitized by Google 137 taming elephants. They employ these animald in ploughing and for riding on, and regard them as forming the main part of their stock in cattle. They employ them in war and in fighting for their country. In choosing them for war, regard is had to their age, strength, and size. There is a very large island in the Ganges which is inhabited by a single tribe called M o d o- g a 1 i n g 8e.§ Beyond are situated the Mo d ub ae, M o 1 i n d 86, the U b e r ae with a handsome town of the same name, the Galmodroesi, Preti, C a 1 i s s 8e,|| Sasuri^ Passalae, Colubm, Orxulee, Abali, Taluct ae.^ The king of § vv. 11. modo Gralingam, ModogaHcam^ II Calissae. — v. 1. Aclissse. •jf These tribes were ctiefly located in the regions between the left bank of the Ganges and the HiraAlayas. Of the Galmodroesi, Preti, Calissse, Sasuri, and OraralsB nothing is known, nor can their names be identified with any to be found in Sanskyit literature. The ModubsB represent beyond doubt the Moutiba, a people mentioned in the AitoiArSya BrAhmana along with other non- Aryan tribes which occupied the country north of the Ganges at the time when the Br&hmans established their first settlements in the country. The Molindse are mentioned as the Maladain the Pur&nic lists, but no further trace of them is met with. The UbersB must be referred to the Bhars, a numerous race spread over the central districts of the region spoken of, and extending as far as to Assam. The name is pro- nounced differently in diflferent districts, and 'variously written, as Bors or Bhors, Bhowris, Barriias and Bhftrhiyas, Bareyas, Baoris, Bharais, &c. The race, though formerly powerful, is now one of the lowest classes of the population. The Fa8sals9 are identified as the inhabitants of PanchSla, which, as already stated, was the old name of the Dodb. The ColubsB respond to the K&ultita or KolAta— men- tioned in the 4th book of the Rdmd|/ana, in the enumera- tion of the races of the west, also in the Vardha SaiiMIA in the list of the people of the north-west, and in the Indian drama called the Mud/ra Edkshasa, of which the hero is the well-known Chandragupta. They were set138 thpse keeps under arms 50,000 foot- soldiers, 4000* cavalry, and 400 elephants. Next come the Andar8B,t a still more powerful race, which possesses numerous villages, and thirty towns de- fended hy walls and towers, and which supplies its king with an army of 100,000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, and 1000 elephants. Gold is very abundant among the D a r d ee, and silver among theSetfie.J tied not far from the Upper Jamnft. About the middle of the 7th century they were visited by the famous Chinese traveller Hiwen-Thsfing, who writes their name as Kiu- In-to. Tule, however, places the Passalse in the south-west of Tirhut, and the Kolubsd on the Kondochates (Gandaki) in the north-east of Gorakhpur and north-west of S&ran. The Abali answer perhaps to the Gvallas or Halva'ls of South Bah&r and of the hills which covered the southern parts of the ancient Magadha. The Taluctsa are the people of the kingdom of Tamralipta mentioned in the Mah&bhdrata. In the writings of the Buddhists of Ceylon the name appears as Tamahtti, corresponding to the Tamluk of the present day. Between these two forma of the name that given by Pliny is evidently the connect- ing link. Tamluk lies to the south-west of Calcutta, from which it is distant in a direct line about 35 miles. It was in old times the main emx>orium of the trade carried on between Gangetic India and Ceylon. « IV. if.— V. 1. III. M. t The AndarsB are readily identified with the Andhra of Sanskrit — a great and powerful nation settled originally in the Dekhan between the middle part of the courses of the God&vari and the Krishi)i& rivers, but which, before the time of Megasthen^s, had spread their sway towards the north as far as the upper course of the Narmadfi (Ner- budda), and, as has been already indicated, the lower districts of the Gangetic basin. Vide hid. Ant. vol. V. p. 176. For a notice of Andhra (the modern TeUngSna) see General Cunningham's Anc. Oeog. oflnd. pp. 527-530. X Pliny here reverts to where he started from in his enu- meration of the tribes. The Setse are the S&ta or S&talnsi of Sanskrit geography, which locates them in the neighbour- hood of the Daradas. [According to Yule, however, they are the Sanskrit Sekas, and he places them on the Ban&s about Jhajpur, south-east from Ajmir. — Ed. Ind. Ant] Digitized by Google 139 But the P r a s i i surpass in power and glory every other people, not only in this quarter, but one may say in all India, their capital being Palibothra, a very large and wealthy city, after which some call the people itself the P a 1 i- b o t h r i, — nay, even the whole tract along the Ganges. Their king has in his pay a standing army of 600,000 foot-soldiers, 30,0a0 cavalry, and 9000 elephants : whence may be formed some conjecture as to the vastness of his resources. After these, but more inland, are the M o ne d e s and S u a r i, § in whose country is Mount M a 1 e u s, on which shadows fall towards the north in winter, and towards the south in summer, for six months alternately . II Baeton asserts that the north pole in these parts is seen but once in the year, and only for fifteen days ; while Megasthenes says that the same thing happens in many parts of India. The south pole is called by the Indians D r am as a. The river J o m a n e s flows through the Palibothri into the Ganges between the towns M e t h o r a and Carisobor a.^ In the § The Monedes or Mandei are placed by Yule about Gangpur, on the upper waters of the BrShmanl, S.W. of Chlratia Nfigpur. Lassen places them S. of the Mah&nadi about Sonpur, where Yule has the Suari or Sabaraa, the ^avara of Sanskrit authors, which Lassen places between Sonpur and Singhbhiim. See Ind. Ant vol. VI. note §, p. 127.— Edi Ind. Ant. II This, of course, can only occur at the equator, from which the southern extremity of India is about 500 miles distant. IT Palibothri must denote here the subjects x>f the realm of which Palibothra was the capital, and Jiot merely the inhabitants of that city, as Bennel and others supposed, Digitized by Google I 140 parts which He southward from the Ganges the in- habitants, already swarthy, are deeply coloured by the sun, though not scorched black like the Ethiopians. The nearer they approach the Indus the more plainly does their complexion betray the influence of the sun. The Indus skirts the frontiers of the Prasii, whose mountain tracts are said to be inhabited by the Pygmies.* Artemidorust sets down the distance between the two rivers at 121 miles. (23.) The Indus, called by the inhabitants S i n d u s, rising on that spur of Mount Caucasus which is called P a r o p a m i s u s, from sources mnd 80 fixed its site at the conflaence of the Ganges and Jamnn&. Methora is easily identified with Mathnrfi. Carisobora is read otherwise as Chrysobon, Cyrisoborcaj Cleisoboras. " This city," says General Cunningham, "has not yet been identified, but I feel satisfied that it must be Vrinddvcma, 16 miles to the north of MathurA. Vrindd- vana means 'the grove of the basil -trees,' which is famed all over India as the scene of Kjrishiia's sports with the milkmaids. But the earlier name of the place was KAUkavdrttaf or * Kalika's whirlpool.* . . . Now the Latin name of Clisobora is also written Carisobora and Cyrisohorica in different MSS., from which I infer tiiat the original spelling was Kalisohorka, or, by a slight change of two letters, Kalikohorta or K&likdbarta." Anc. Oeog. oflnd. p. 375. [Carisobora — w. 11. Chrysoban, Gyrisoborca. This is the Kleisobora of Arrian (ante, vol. "v. p. 89), which Yule places at Batesar, and Lassen at Agra, which he makes the Sanskrit Kpshnapura. Wilkins (As. Res. vol. V. p. 270) says Clisobora is now called Mugu-Nagar by the MusuLnans, and Kalisapuraby the Hindus." Vide Ind, Ant. vol. VI. p. 249, note 1.— Ed. Jnd. Anf] • Vide Ind, Ant vol. VI. p. 183, note f.— Ed. Ind. Ant. t A Greek geographer of Ephesus, whose date is about 100 B.C. His valuable work on geography, called a Peri- «>li25, was much quoted by the ancient writers, but with the exception of some fragments is now lost. Digitized by Google 141 fronting the sunrise, ‡ receives also itself nineteen rivers, of which the most famous are the Hydaspes, which has four tributaries; the Cantabra,§ which has three ; the Acesines and the Hypasis, which are both navigable ; but nevertheless, having no very great supply of water, it is nowhere broader than fifty stadia, or deeper than fifteen paces, || It forms an extremely large island, which is called Prasiane, and a smaller one, called Pata1e.¶ Its stream, which is navigable, by the lowest estimates, for 1240 miles, turns westward as if following more or less closely the course of the sun, and then falls into the ocean. The measure of the coast line from the mouth of the Ganges to this river I shall set down as it is generally given, though none of the computations agree with each other. From the mouth of the Ganges to Cape Calingon and the town of Dandagula* 625 miles ;†
'‡' The real sources of the Indus were unknown to the Greeks. The principal stream rises to the north of the Kailâsa mountain (which figures in Hindu mythology as the mansion of the gods and Siva's paradise) in lat. 32°, long. 81° 30', at an elevation of about 20,000 feet. '§' The Chandrabhâga or Akesinês, now the Chenâb. '||' For remarks on the tributaries of the Indus see Notes on Arrian, chap, iv., — Ind. Ant. vol. V. pp. 331-333. '¶' See Ind. Ant. vol. Y. p. 330. Yule identifies the former of these with the area enclosed by the Nara from above Rohri to Haidarâbâd, and the delta of the Indus. — Ed. Ind, Ant. '*' v.1. Dandaguda. Cape Kalingon is identified by Yule as Point Godâvari.— Ed. Ind. Ant. '†' "Both the distance and the name point to the great port town of Coringa, as the promontory of Coringon, which is situated on a projecting point of land at the 142 to T r p i n a 1225 ; J to the cape of P e r i- Hi u la,§ where there is the greatest emporium of trade in India, 750 miles ; to the town . in the island of P a t a 1 a mentioned ahove, 620 miles. The hill-tribes between the Indus and the lomanes are the C e s i ; the C e t r i b o n i, who hve in the woods ; then the M e g a 1 1 ee, whose king is master of five hundred elephants and an army of horse and foot of unknown strength ; the Chrysei, the Parasangee, and the A s a n g 8e,|| where tigers abound, noted for their ferocity. The force under arms con- sists of 30,000 foot, 300 elephants, and 800 horse. These are shut in by the Indus, and are surrounded by a circle of mountains and deserts mouth of the God&vari river. The town of Dandaguda or Dandagula I take to be the Dantapura of the Buddhist chronicles, which as the capital of Kalinga may with much probability be identified with R&ja Mahendri, which is only 30 miles to the north-east of Coringa. From the great similarity of the Greek F and H, I think it not improbable that the Greek name may have been Danda- pulaf which is almost the same as DAntapura. But in this case the DAnta or 'tooth-relic' of Buddha must have been enshrined in Kalinga as early as the time of Pliny, which is confirmed by the statement of the Buddhist chronicles that the *left canine tooth* of Buddha was brought to Kalinga immediately after his death, where it was enshrined by the reigning sovereign, Brahmadatta." — Cunningham, Qeog. p. 518. X [Tropina answers to Tripontari or Tirupanatara, opposite Kochin. — Ed. Ind. Ant] The distance given is measured from the mouth of the Ganges, and not from Cape Calingon. «. § This cape is a projecting point of the island of Feri- lula or Perimuda, mula or Perimuda, now called the island of Salsette, near Bombay. {I V. 1. Asmagi. The Asangee, as placed doubtfully by Lassen about Jodhpur.— Ed. Irid. Ant, Digitized by Google 143 over a space of 625 miles. ^ Below the deserts are the D a r i, the S u r ae, then deserts again for 1 87 miles,* these deserts encircling the fertile tracts just as the sea encircles islands.f Below these deserts we find the Maltecorse, Singhae, Marohae, Rarungte, Moruni.j: These inhabit the hills which in an unbroken IT DCXXV,—Y. 1. DCXXXV. Pliny, having given a general account of the basins of the Indus and the Uanges, proceeds to enumerate here the tribes which peopled tiie north of India. The names are obscnre, bat Lassen has identified one or two of them, and de Saint-Martin a considerable nnmber more. The tribes first mentioned in the list occupied the country extending from the Jamun& to the western coast about the mouth of the Narmadfi. The Cesi probably answer to the Khosas or Khasyas, a great tribe which from time immemorial has led a wandering life between Gujar&t, the lower Indus, and the JamunS. The name of the Cetriboni would seem to be a transcript of Ketrivani (for Kshatrivaneya). They may therefore have been a branch of the Kshatn (KhAtri), one of the impure tribes of the list of Manu (1. x. 12). The Megallsd must be identified with the Mavelas of Sansknt books, a great tribe described as settled to the west of the Jamuna. The Chrysei probably correspond to the Karoncha of the Puranic lists {Vishnu Pur. pp. 177, 186, note 13, and 351, &c.). The locality occupied by these and the two tribes mentioned after i^em must have lain to the north of the Ban, between the lower Indus and the chain of the Ar&vali mountains.
- CLXXXVIL—Y. 1. CLXXXVni.
t The Dhftrs inhabit still the banks of the lower Ghara and the parts contiguous to the valley of the Indus. Hiwen Thsang mentions, however, a land of Dara at the lower end of the gulf of Kachh, in a position which quite accords with that which Pliny assigns to them. The Surae, Sansk. ^lira, have their name preserved in " Saur," which designates a tribe settled along the Lower Indus — the mod^n repre- sentatives of the Saurabhira of the Harivamsa, They are placed with doubt by Lassen on the Lont about Sindri, but Yule places the Bolingao — Sanskrit, Bhaulingas — there. — Ed. hid. Ant. X Morunif &c. — v. 1. Moruntes, Masuse Pagungss, Lalii. Digitized by Google 144 chain run parallel to the shores of the ocean. They are free and have no kings, and occupy the mountain heights, whereon they have huilt many cities. § Next follow the N a r e ee, enclosed by the loftiest of Indian mountains, Capitalia.|| § These tribes must have been located in Kachh, a moxmtainons tongue of land between the gnlf of that name and the Ran, where, and where only, in this region of India, a range of mountains is to be found running alonof the coast. The name of the MaltecorsB has attracted particular attention because of it^ resemblance to the name of the Martikhora {i. e, man-eater), a fabulous animal mentioned by Ktesias (Ctesice Indica, VII.) as found in India and subsisting upon human flesh. The Maltecorw were consequently supposed to have been a race of canni- bals. The identification is, however, regected by M. de St.-Martin. The Singhas are represented at the present day by the S&nghis of Omarkot (called the Song bv Mac- Murdo), descendants of an ancient R&jput tribe called the Singhfirs. The Marohsa are probably the Maruhas of the list of the Vardha SanhitA, which was later than Pliny's time by four and a half centuries. In the interval they were displaced, but the displacement of tribes was nothing unusual in those days. So the Rarungse may perhaps be the ancestors of the Bonghi or Bhanga now found on the banks of the Satl^ and in the neighbourhood of Dihli. II Capitalia is beyond doubfc the sacred Arbuda, or Mount A)t.t which, attaining an elevation of 6500 feet, rises far above any other summit of the Ar&vali ranp^e. The name of the NaresB recalls that of the Na'ir, which the Eftjput chroniclers apply to the northern belt of the desert (Tod, EAjasth6,n, II. 211) ; so St..Martin ; but according to Ge- neral Cunningham they must be the people of Sarui, or
- the country of reeds, as nar and ear are synonymoua
terms for ' a reed,' and the country of Sarui is still fa- mous for its reed-arrows. The same author uses the statement that extensive gold and silver mines were work- ed on the other side of Mount Capitalia in support of his theory that this part of India was the Ophir of Scripture, from which the Tyrian navy in the days of Solomon carried alhiy gold, a great plenty of almug-trees (red sandalwood), and precious stones (I Kings xii.)* His argument runs thus: — " The last name in Pliny's list is VaretatsB, which I would change to Vataretas by the transposition of two letters. This spelling is countenanced by the termination of the various read- Digitized by Google 145 The inhabitants on the other side of this mountain work extensive mines of gold and silver. Next are the O r a t u r ee, whose king has only ten ele- phants, though he has a very strong force of in- ing of Svarataratad, which, is found in some editions. It is quite possible, however, that the SvarataratsB may be intended for the Sur^h^ras. The famous Yarfiha Mihira mentions the Sur&shtras and B&daras together, amongst the people of the south-west of India (Dr. Kern's Brihat SmihiiAj XIV. 19.) These B&daras must therefore be the people of Badari, or Vadari. I understand the name of Vaaari to denote a district abounding in the Badari, or Ber-tree (Jiyube), which is very common in Southern Rfij- putAnA. For the same reason I should look to this neigh- Dourhood for the ancient Sauvlra, which I take to be the true form of the famous Sophir, or Ophir, as Sauvira is only another name of the Vadari or Ber-tree, as well as of its juicy fruit. Now, Sofir is the Coptic name of India at the present day; but the name must have belonged originally to that part of the Indian coast which was tre- c^uented by the merchants of the West. There can be little doubt, I think, that this was in the Gulf of Khambay, which from time immemorial has been the chief seat of Indian trade with the West. During the whole period of Greek history this trade was almost monopolized by the famous city of Barygaza, or BhAroch, at the mouth of the Narmadft river. About the fourth century some portion of it was diverted to the new capital of Balabni, in the peninsula of Gi:garftt ; in the Middle Ages it was shared with Khambay at the head of the gulf, and in modem times with Surat, at the mouth of the Tapti. If the name of Sauvira was derived, as I suppose, from the prevalence of the Ber-tree, it is probable that it was only another appellation for the province of Badari, or Edar, at the head of the Gulf of Khambay. This, indeed, is the very position in which we should expect to find it, according to the ancient inscrip- tion of Rudra Dftma, which mentions Sindhu- Sauvira immediately after Surashtra and BhArukachha, and just before Kukura Aparanta, and Nishada {Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. VII. 120). According to this arrangement Sau- vira must have been to the north of Surfishtra and BhA- roch, and to the south of Nishada, or jus£' where I have placed it, in the neighbourhood of Mount Abd. Much the same locality is assigned to Sauvira in the Vishnu PurAna.** —Anc. Oeog. of Ind. pp. 496-497 •• see also pp. 660-562 of thji same work, where the subject is further discussed. Digitized by Google 146 fantry.^ Next again arc the Varetatee,* subject to a king, who keep no elephants, but trust entirely to their horse and foot. Then the Odo mboerse; theSalabastr8e;tthe Horat 8b, J who have a fine city, defended by marshes which serve as a ditch, wherein crocodiles are kept, which, having a great avidity for human flesh, prevent all access to the city except by a bridge. And another city if y. 1. Oratffi. The Oraturse find their representatives in thd BAthors, who played a great part in the history of India before the Musulm&n conquest, and who, though settled in the Gangetio proTinces, regard Ajmir, at the eastern point of the Arfivali, as their ancestral seat.
- V. 1. Suarataratsd. The YaretatsB cannot with certainty
be identified. t The OdomboerfiB, with hardljr a change in the form of their name, are mentioned in Sanskrit literature, for P&nini (IV. 1, 173, quoted by Lassen, Ind. Alt. 1st ed. I. p. 614) speaks of the territory of Udumbari as that which was occupied by a tribe famous in the old legend, the Salva, who perhaps correspond to the SalabastrsB of Pliny, the addition which he has made to their name being explained by the Sanskrit word vasty a, which means an abode or habitation. The word udunibara means the glomerous fig-tree. The district so named lay in Kachh. [The ' Salabastrsa are located by Lassen between the mouth of the Sarasvatt and Jodhpur, and the Horatse at the head of the gulf of Khambh&t; Automela he places at KhambhAt. See Ind. Alterth. 2nd ed. I. 760. Yule has the Sandrabatis about Chandrfivati, in northern Gtnarlit, but these are placed by Lassen on the Bands about Tonk. — Ed. Ind. Ant.T X Horatm is an incorrect transcription of Sorath, the vulgar form of the Sanskrit SaurSishtra. The HoraW were therefore the inhabitants of the region called in the PertpMs, and in Ptolemy, Suraatr^ne — that is, Gxgar&t. Orrhoth (^Oppoda) is used by Kosmas as the name of a city in the west of India, which has been conjectured to be Surat, but Yule thinks it rather some place on the Pur- bandar coast. The capital, Automela, cannot be identified, but de St.-Martin conjectures it may have been the once famous Yalabh!, which was situated m the peninsular part of Ginarfit at about 24 miles' distance from the GoH of Khamoay. Digitized by Google 147 of theirs is much admired— A utomela,§ which, being seated on the coast at the confluence of five rivers, is a noble emporium of trade. The king is master of 1600 elephants, 150,000 foot, and 5000 cavalry. The poorer king of the C h a r m ae has but sixty elephants, and his force otherwise is insignificant. Next come the P a n d ae, the only race in India ruled by women. || They say that Hercules having but one daughter, who was on that account all the more beloved, endowed her with a noble kingdom. Her descendants rule over 300 cities, and command an army of 150,000 foot and 500 elephants. Next, with 300 cities, the Syrieni, Derangse, Po- singse, Buzae, Gogiarei, Umbrae, Ne- reee, Brancosi, Nobundee, Cocondee, Nesei, Pedatrirse, Solobriasee, Olos- t r 8e,1[ who adjoin the island Patale, from the § V. 1. Automula. See preceding note. II The CharmsB have been identified with the inhabitants of Charmamandala, a district of the west mentioned in iheMah&hMrata and also in the Vishnu Furdjtia, under the form Charmakhanda. They are now represented by the Charm&rs or GhamArs of Bundelkhand and the parts adjacent to the basin of the Granges. The Pandse, who were their next neighbonrs, most have occupied a con- siderable portion of the basin of the river Chambal, called in Sanskrit geography the Gharmanvatt. They were a branch of the famous race of P&ndu, which made for itself Idngdoms in several different parts of India. If The names in this list lead us to the desert lying be- tween the Indus and the Ar Avail range. Most of the bribes enumerated are mentioned in the lists of the clans given in the RAjput chronicles, and have been identified by M. de St.-Martin as follows : — The Syrieni are the Surivams, who under that name have at all times occupied the country near the Indus in the neighbourhood of Bakkar.. Digitized by Google 148 furthest shore of which to the Caspian gates the distance is said to he 1925 miles.* Then next to these towards the Indus come, in an order which is easy to follow, the A m a-> tse, Boling8&, Gallitalutse, Dimuri, Megari, Ordah 8B,t M e s » ; after these the U r i and S i 1 e n i.;]: Immediately beyond come Darangsd is the Latin transcription of the name of the great race of the Jh&dejds, a branch of the Bi^pnts which at the inresent day possesses Kachh. The Bozse represent the Bnddas, an ancient branch of the same Jhfidejfis (Tod, ArmaU omd Antiq, of the Rdj. vol. I. p. 86). The Gogiarei (other readings Gogarasi, GogarsB) are the Kokaris, who are now settled on the banks of the Ghara or Lower Satlej. The Umbrae are represented by the UmranSs, and the Nerei perhaps by the Nharonis, who, though belonging to Baluchist&nj had their ancestral seats in the regions to the east of the Indus. The Nub^teh, who figure in the old local traditions of Sindh, perhaps corresiwnd to the No- bund89> .while the Cocondsd certainly are the Kokonadas mentioned in the Malidhhdrata among the people of the north-west. (See Lassen, Zeitschrift fiir die Kwnde des Morgenl. t. II. 1839, p. 45.) Buchanan mentions a tribe called Kakamd as belonging to Grorakhpur. • There were two defiles, which went by the name of * the Easpian Gates.' One was in Albania, and was formed by the jutting out of a spur of the Kaukasos into the Kaspian Sea. The other, to which Pliny here refers, was a narrow pass leading from North-Westem Asia into the north-east provinces of Persia. According to Arrian {Anah. III. 20) the Kaspian Grates lay a few days' journey distant from the Median town of Ehagai, now represented by the ruins called Eha, found a mile or two to the south of Teherfin. This pass was one of the most important places in ancient geography, and from it many of the meridians were measured. Strabo, who frequently mentions it, states that its distance from the extreme promontories of India (Cape Comorin, &c.) was 14,000 stadia. t V. 1. ArdabsB. X Ib the grammatical apophthegms of Pfejini, Bhaulingi is mentioned as a territory occupied by a branch of the great tribe of the Sfilvas (Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. p. 613, note, • or 2nd ed. p. 760 n.), and from this indication M. de St.- Iklartin haa been led to place the Bolinge at the western Digitized by Google 149 deserts extending for 250 miles. These being pass- ed, we come to the O r g a n a g se, A b a o r t se, Sibarae, Suertse^ and after these to deserts as extensive as the former. Then come the Sarophages, Sorgee, Baraomatae, and the Umbritt8e,§ who consist of twelve tribes, each possessing two cities, and the A s e n i, who possess three cities. || Their capital is Buce- p h a 1 a, built where Alexander's famous horse declivity of the Arftvali mountains, where Ptolemy also places his Bolingse. The Madrabhujingha of the Faig'&h (see VisJvmi Pur, p. 187) were probably a branch of this tribe. The Gallitalutae are identified by the same author with the Gahalata or Grehlots ; the Dimuri with the Dumras, who, though belonging to the Gangetic valley, originally came from that of the Indus ; the Megan with the Mokars of the Bi^put chronicles, whose name is perhaps preserv- ed in that of the Mehars of the lower part of Sindh, and also in that of the Megh&ris of Eastern • Baluchistan ; the Messe with the Mazaiis, a considerable tribe between Shikfirpiir and Mitank6t on the western bank of the Indus ; and the TJri with the Hauras of the same locality — the Hurairas who figure in the B&jput lists of thirty-six royal tribes. The Sulalas of the same tribes perhaps represent the Sileni, whom Pliny mentions along with the Uri. § w. 11. Paragomat89, UmbitrsB. — BaraomataB Gumbri- teeqae. if The tribes here enumerated must have occupied a tract of country lying above the confluence of the Indus with the stream of the combined rivers of the Panjfib. They are obscure-, and their names cannot with any certainty be identified if we except that of the Sibarse, who are un- doubtedly the Sauvlras of the MahAhhdrata, and who, as their name isalmostinvariably combined with' that of the Indus, must have dwelt not far from its banks. The Afghan tribe of the Afridis may perhaps represent the Abaortsa, and the Sarabh&n or Sarvanis, of the same stock, the Sarophages. The Umbrittee and the Aseni take us to the east of me river. The former are perhaps identical with the Ambastee of the historians of Alexander, and the Ambasthas of Sanskrit v^ritings, who dwelt in the neigh- bourhood of the lower Akesin^s. 150 of that name was buried.^ Hillmen follow next, inhabiting the base of Caucasus, the S o 1 e a d se, and the S o n d r se ; and if we cross to the other side of the Indus and follow its course downward we meet the Samarabrise, Sambruceni, B,i s a m b r i t sd* Osii, Antixeni, and the T a X i 1 1 sef with a famous citj. Then succeeds % Alez^der, after ihe great battle on the banks of the Hydasp^ in which he defeated Pdros, founded two cities — Bokephala or Bakephalia, so named in honour of his cede- brated charger, and Nikaia, so named in honour of his vic- tory. Kikaia, it is known for certain, was built on the field of battle, and its position was therefore on the left side of tiie Hydasp^s— probably about where Mong now stands. The site of Bukephala it is not so easy to deter- mine. According to Plutarch and Pliny it was near the Hydaspes, in the place where Bukephalos was buried, and if that be so it must have been on the same side of the river as the sister city ; whereas Strabo ^nd all the other ancient authorities place it on the opposite side. Strabo again places it at the point where Alexander crossed the river, whereas Arrian states that it was built on the site of his camp. General Cunningham fixes this at Jal&lpur rather than at Jhelam, 30 miles higher up the river, the site which is favoured by Bumes and General Court and Greneral Abbott. Jalalpur is about ten miles distant from Dil&war, where, according to Cunningham, the crossing of the river was most probably effected. • V. 1. Bisabritse. t The SoleadsB and the SondrsB cannot be identified, and of the tribes which were seated tor the east of the IndxxB only the Taxillse are known. Their capital was the famous Taxila, which was visited by Alexander the Great. " The position of this city," says Cunningham, " has hitherto re- mained unknown, partly owing to the erroneous distance recorded by Pliny, and ^rtly to the want of information regarding the vast ruins which still exist in the vicinity of Sh&h-dheri. All the copies of Pliny agree in stating that Taxila was only 60 Boman, or 55 English, miles from Peuco- lalitis or Hashtnagar, which would fix its site somewhere on tiie Haro river to the west of Hasan Abdfil, or just two days' march from the Indus. But the itineraries of the Ghonese pilgrims agree in placing it at three days' journey to the east of the Indus, or in the immediate neighbourhood of K&la-ka-Sarfii. He therefore fixes its site near Sh&h-dheri Digitized by Google 151 a level tract of country known by the general name of A m a n d a,t whereof the tribes are four in number — the Peucolait8e,§ Arsa- galitse, Geretse, Asoi. Many writers, however, do not give the river Indus as the western boundary of India, but in- clude within it four satrapies, — the Q e d r o s i, Arachotse, Arii, Paropamisad 8e,|| (which is a mile to the north-east of that Sarai), in the extensive rnins of a fortified city abounding with stUpaSf monasteries, and temples. From this place to Hashtnagar the distance is 74 miles English, or 19 in excess of Pliny's estimate. Taxila represents the Sanstrit Takshasila, of which the Pali form is Takhasila, whence the Greek form was taken. The word means either * cut rock* or * severed head.* — Anc» Oeog. oflnd. pp. 104-121. J As the name Amanda is entirely unknown, M. de St.- Martin proposes without hesitation the correction Gandhftra, on the ground that the territory assigned to the Amanda corresponds exactly to Gandh&ra, of which the territory occupied by the Peucolitse (Peukela6tis), as we know from other writers, formed a part. The Geretse are beyond doubt no others than the Goursei of Arrian ; and the Asoi may perhaps be identical with the Aspasii, or, as Strabo gives the name, Hippasii or Pasii. The Arsagalitae are only mentioned by Plmy. Two tribes settled in the same locality are perhaps indicated by the name — the Arsa, men- tioned by Ptolemy, answering to the Sanskrit Uraaa j and the Ghilit or Ghilghit, the Ga>halata of Sanskrit, formerly mentioned. § V. 1. PeucoUtae. H Gedrdsia comprehended probably nearly the same dis- trict which is now known by the name of Mekr&n. Alex- ander marched through it on returning from his Indian e^edition. Arachdsia extended from the chain of moun- tams now called the Suleim^ as far southward as Gedrdsia. Its capital, Arachotos, was situated somewhere in the direc- tion of Kandahar, the name of which, it has been thought, preserves that of Gandh^ra. According to Colonel Rawlinson the name of Arachdsia is derived from Harakhwati (Sans- krit 8a/irasvaU)j and is preserved in the Arabic Rakhaj. It is, as has already been noticed, the Harauvatas of the Bisutun inscription. Aria denoted the country lying between Meshed and Herfit ; Ari^a, of which it formed a 152 making the rirer Cophe^s its furthest limit; though others prefer to consider all these as be- longing to the Arii. Many writers further include in India even the city N y s a and Mount M e r u s, sacred to Father Bacchus, whence the origin of the fable that he sprang from the thigh of Jupiter. They include also the A s t a c a n i,^ in whose country the vine part, and of which it is sometimes used as the equivalent, was a wider district, which comprehended nearly the whole of ancient Persia. In the Persian part of the Bisntun inscription Aria appears as Hariva, in the Babylonian part as Arevan. Regarding Paropamisos and the Cophes see Ind. Ant vol. V. pp. 329 and 330. % Other readings of the name are Aspagani and Aspa- gon89. M. de St.-Martin, whose work has so often been referred to, says : — " We have seen already that in an extract from old Hekataios preserved in Stephen of Byzantiom the city of Kaspapyros is called a Gandaric city, and that in Herodotos the same place is attributed to the Paktyi, and we have added that in onr opinion there is only an apparent contradiction, because the district of Paktyike and Grandara may very well be but one and the same country. It is not difficult, in fact, to recognize in the designation mentioned by Herodotos iJie indigenous name of the Afghfin people, Pakhtu (in the plural Pakh- tAn), the name which the greater part of the tribes us© among themselves, and the only one they apply to their national dialect. We have here, then, as Lassen has noticed, historical proof of the presence of the Afgh&ns in thear actual fatherland five centuries at least before the Christian era. Now, as the seat of the Af^h&n or Pakht national- ity is chiefly in the beudn of the Koph^s, to the west of the Indus, which forms its eastern boundary, this further confirms what we have already seen, that it is to the west of the great river we must seek for the site of the city of Kaspapyros or Kasyapapura, and consequently of the GandanS of Hekataios. The employment of two different names to designate the very same country is easily explained by this double fact, that one of the names was the Indian designation of the land, whilst the other was the indigenous name applied to it by its inhabitants. There was yet another name, of Sanskrit origin, used as a territorial appellation of GancUi&ra— that of Asvaka. This word, 153 grows abundantly^ and the laui^I, and boxwood, and every kind of fruit-tree found in Greece. The remarkable and almost fabulous accounts which are current regarding the fertility of its soil, and the nature of its fruits and trees, its beasts and birds and other animals, will be set down each in its own place m other parts of this work, A little further on I shall speak of the satrapies, but the island ofTaprobaae§ requires my immediate attention. But before we come to this island there are others, one being P a t a 1 e, which, as we have indicated, lies at the mouth of the Indus, triangular in shape, and 220 |j miles in breadth. Beyond the mouth of the Indus are C h r y s e and A r g y r e,^ derived from a^va, a horse, signified merely the oa/valiers ; it was less an ethnic, in the rigorous acceptation of the word, than a general appellation applied by the Indians of the Paigftb to the tribes of the region of the Koph^B, renowned from antiquity for the exceUence of its horses. In the popular dialects the Sanskrit word took the nsnal form Assaka, which reappears scarcely modified in Assakani (*A(rcra*caj/oi) or Assak^niCAo-o-aKiywt ) in the Greek histori- ans of the expedition of Alexander and subsequent writers. It is impossible not to recognize here the name of Ayghftn or Afghfins. . . which is yery evidently nothing else than a contracted form of Assakui. . . Neither the 6andari4 of Hekataios nor the Paktyi of Herodotos are known to them [ Arrian and other Greek and Latin writers of the history of ALexanderl, but as it is the same territory [as that of the Assakani], and as in actual usage the names Afghfins and Pakhtiin are still synonymous, their identity is not a matter of doubt." — Ftude sv/r le Q^ographie Orecque et LtiUne de Vlnde, pp. 376-8. The name of the Gandhftra, it may here be added, remounts to the highest antiquity ; it is mentioned in one of the hymns of the Itig-Yeda, as old perhaps as the 15th century B.C. — Id. p. 864. § Vide anU, p. 62, n. ». || CC&-Y. I OXXX. 1 Burma and Arakan respectively, according to Yule,^ Ed. Ind. Ant, Digitized by Google 154 richi as I belieye, in metals. For I cannot readily believe, what is asserted by some writers, that their soil is impregnated with gold and silver. At a dis- tance of twenty miles from these lies C r o c a 1 a,* from which, at a distance of twelve miles, is Bibaga, which abounds with oysters and other shell-fish.f Next comes Toralliba,J nine miles distant from the last-named island, beside many others unworthy of note. Fbagm. LVI. B. Solin. 52. 6-17. Catalogus of Indicm Baces, The greatest rivers of India are the Ganges and Indus, and of these some assert that the Ganges rises from uncertain sources and inundates the country in the manner of the Nile, while others incline to think that it rises in the Scythian moun- tains . [The Hypanisis also there, a very noble river, which formed the limit of Alexander's march, as the altars erected on its hanks prove. §]
- In the bay of Kar&cbi, identical with the Kolaka of
Ptolemy. The district in which Karfichi is sitnated is called Karkalla to this day. t This is called Bibakta by Arrian, InMlta, cap. zxi. t V. 1. Coralliba. § See Arrian's Atujh, Y. 29, where we read that Alexander having arranged his troops in separate divisions ordered them to bnild on the banks of the H3rpha8is twelve altars to be of equal height with the loftiest towers, while exceed- ing them in breadth. From Gurtins we learn that they were formed of sqnare blocks of stone. There has been much controversy regarding their site, but it mnst have been near the capital of Sopith^s, whose name ) identified witxi the Sanskrit AivapaU, * lord of Lassen has i Digitizeckby Google 155 The least breadth of the Ganges is eight miles, and its greatest twenty. Its depth where it is shallow- est is fully a hundred feet; The people who live in the furthest-off part are the Gangarides, whose king possesses 1000 horse, 700 elephants, and 60,000 foot in apparatus of war. Of the Indians some cultivate the soil, very many follow war, and others trade. The noblest and richest manage public affairs, administer justice, and sit in council with the kings. There exists also a fifth class, consisting of those most eminent for their wisdom, who, when sated with life, seek death by mounting a burning funeral pile. Those, however, who have become the devotees of a sterner sect, and pass their life in the woods, hunt ele- phants, which, when made quite tame and docile, they use for ploughing and for riding on. In the Ganges there is an island extremely po- pulous, occupied by a very powerful nation whose king keeps under arms 50,000 foot and 4000 horse. In fact no one invested with kingly power ever keeps on foot a military force without a very great number of elephants and foot and cavalry. The P r a s i a n nation, which is extremely power- ful, inhabits a city called Palibotra, whence seme call the nation itself the Palibotri. Their horses.' These Asvapati were a line of princes whose terri- tory, according to the 12th book of the Rdmdt/cnia, lay on the right or north bank ef the Yipdsa (Hyphasis or Bi&s), in the monntainons part of the Dofib comprised between that riyer and the IJ^per IrAvati. Their capital is called in tiie poem of Y&lmiki Bftjagpha, which. still exists under the name of El^agiri. At some distance from this there is a chain of heights called Sekandor-giri, or ' Alexan- der's monntain.'-'See St.-Martin's E'tude, &c. pp. 108- 111. Digitized by Google 156 king keeps in his pay at all times 60,000 fool 30,000 horse, and 8000 elephants. Beyond Palibotra is Mount M a 1 e n s, || on which shadows in winter fall towards the north, in sum- mer towards the south, for six months alternately. In that region the Bears are seen but once a year, and not for more than fifteen days, as Beton in- forms ns, who allows that this ht^pens in many parts of India. Those liying near the riyer Indus in the regions tl^t turn southward are scorched more than others by the heat, and at last the com- plexion of the people is visibly affected by the great power of the sun. The mountains are in- habited by the Pygmies. But those who live near the sea haye no kings. The Pandas an nation is goyerned by fe- males, and their first queen is said to haye been the daughter of Hercules. The city N y s a is assigned to this region, as is also the moun- tain sacred to Jupiter, M e r o s by name, in a caye cm which the ancient Indians affirm Father Bacchus was nourished ; while the name has giyen rise to the well-known fantastic story that Bacchus was born from the thigh of his father. Beyond the inouth of the Indus are two islands, Chryse and Argyre, which yield such an abundant supply of metals that many writers allege their soils consist of gold and of silyer. H Possibly, fts stiggested by Yule, Mount PAravan&tha, near the Damndft, and not far from the Tropic; vide Ind, Ant vol. VI. p. 127, note §, and conf . vol. I. p. 46ff. The Malli (see above), in whose country it was, are not to be confounded with another tribe of the same name in the Pttnj&b, mentioned by Arrian ; see vol. V. pp. 87, 96, 388.— £d. Ind, Ant. Digitized by Google 157 . Fragm. LVII. Polyeen. Strateg. 1. 1. 1-8. Of Dionysos. (Of. Bpit. 25 et aeq.) Dionysos, in his expedition against the Indians, in order that the cities might receive him will- ingly, disguised the arms with which he had equipped his troops, and made them wear soft raiment and fawn-skins. The spears were wrapped round with ivy, and the thyrsus had a sharp point. He gave the signal for hattle by cymbab and drums instead of the trumpet, and by regaling the enemy with wine diverted their thoughts from war to dancing. These and all other Bacchic orgies were employed in the system of warfare by which he subjugated the Indians and all the rest of Asia. Dionysos, iii the course of his Indian cam- paign, seeing that his army could not endure the fiery heat of the air, took forcible possession of the three-peaked mountain of India. Of these peaks one is called Korasibi^, another KondaskS, but to the third he himself gave the name of M d r s, in remembrance of his birth. Thereon were many fountains of water sweet to drink, game in great plenty, tree-fruits in unsparing profusion, and snows which gave new vigour to the frame. The troops quartered there made a sudden descent upon the barbarians of the plain, whom they easily routed, since they attacked them vdth missiles from a commanding position on the heights above. Digitized by Google 158 [Dionysos, after conquering the Indians, in- vaded Baktria, taking with him as auxiliaries the Indians and Amazons. That country has for its boundary the river S a r a n g 6 s.^ The Baktrians seized the mountains overhanging that river with a view to attack Dionysos, in cross- ing it, from a post of advantage. He, however, having encamped along the river, ordered the Amazons and the Bakkhai to cross it, in order that the Baktrians, in their contempt for women, might he induced to come down from the heights. The women then assayed to cross the stream, and the enemy came downhill, and advancing to the river endeavoured to beat them back. The women then retreated, and the Baktrians pursued them as far as the bank ; then Dionysos, coming to the rescue with his men, slew the Baktrians, who were impeded from fighting by the current, and he crossed the river in safety. Fragm. LVIII. Polyaen. Si/rateg, I. 3. 4. Of Hercules and Pandaa. (Of. Fragm. L. 15.) HeraklSs begat a daughter in India whom he called P a n d a i a. To her he assigned that portion of India which lies to southward and ex- tends to the sea, while he distributed the people subject to her rule into 365 villages, giving orders that one village should each day bring to the % See Ind. Ant^ Notes to Anrian in vol, V. p» 882. Digitized by Google 159 treasui^ the royal tribute, so that the queen might always have the assistance of those men whose turn it was to pay the tribute in coercing those who for the time being were defaulters in their payments. Fragm. LIX. Of the Beasts of India, iElian, Hist. Anim. XVI. 2-22 * (2) In India I learn that there are to be found the birds called parrots ; and though I have, no doubt, already mentioned them, yet what I omit- ted to state previously regarding them may now with great propriety be here set down. There are, I am informed, three species of them, and all these, if taught to speak, as children are taught, become as talkative as children, and speak with a human voice; but in the woods they utter a bird-like scream, and neither send out any distinct and musical notes, nor being wild and untaught are able to talk. There are also peacocks in India, the largest anywhere met with,
- " In this extract not a few passages occur which appear
to have been borrowed from Megasthen^s. This con- jecture, though it cannot by any means be placed beyond donbt by conclusive proofs, seems nevertheless, for various reasons, to attain a certain degree of probability. For in the first place the author knows with imusual ac- curacv the interior parts of India. Then again he makes very frequent mention of the Frasii and the Brfihmans. And lastly one can hardljr doubt that some chapters occur- ring in the middle of tms part have been extracted from Megasthen^s. I have, therefore, in this imcertainty taken care that the whole of this part should be printed at the end of the fragments of MegasthenSs."— Sohwanbeck. Digitized by Google 160 and pale-green ringdoves. One wLo is not well-versed in bird-lore, seeing these for the first time, would take them to be parrots, and not pigeons. In the colour of the bill and legs they resemble Greek partridges. There are also cocks, which are of extraordinary siie, and have their crests not red as elsewhere, or at least in our country, but have the flower-like coronals o/ which the crest is formed variously coloured. Their rump feathers, again, are neither curved nor wreathed, biit are of great* breadth, and they trail them in the way peacocks trail their tails, when they neither straighten nor erect them : the feathers of these Indian cocks are in colour golden, and also dark-blue like the sma- ragdus. (3) There is found in India also another re- markahle bird. This is of the size of a starling and is parti-coloured, and is trained to utter the sounds of human speech. It is even more talka- tive than the parrot, and of greater natural clever- ness. So far is it from submitting with pleasure to be fed by man, that it rather has such a pining for freedom, and such a longing to warble at will in the society of its mates, that it prefers starvation to slavery with sumptuous fare. It is called by the Makedonians who settled among the Indians in the city ofBoukephala and its neighbour- hood, and in the city called Europolis, and others which Alexander the son of Philip built, the Kerkv&n. This name had, I believe, its on161 gia in the fact that the bird wags its tail in the same way as the water-ousels {oi KtyKkoi)* (4) I learn further that in India there is a bird called the Kelas, which is thrice the size of the bustard, and has a bill of prodigious size and long legs. It is furnished also with an immense crop resembling a leather pouch. The cry which it utters is peculiarly discordant. The plumage is ash- coloured, except that the feathers at their tips are tinted with a pale yellow. (5) I hear also that the Indian hoopoe ("(woTra) is double the size of ours, and more beautiful in appearance, and Homer says that while the bridle and trappings of a horse are the delight of a Hel- lenic king, this hoopoe is the fayourite plaything of the king of the Indians, who carries it on his hand, and toys with it, and never tires gazing in ecstasy on its splendour, and the beauty with which Nature has adorned it. The Brachmanes, there- fore, even make this particular bird the subject of a mythic story, and the tale told of it runs thus : — To the king of the Indians there was born a son. The child had elder brothers, who when they came to man's estate turned out to be very un- just and the greatest of reprobates. They despised their brother because he was the youngest ; and they scoffed also at their father and their mother, whom they despised because they were very old and grey-haired. The boy, accordingly, and his aged parents could at last no longer live with these wicked men, and away they fled from home, all Digitized by Google 162 three together. In the course of the protracted journey which they had then to undergo, the old people succumhed to fatigue and died, and the hoy showed them no light regard, hut huried them in . himself, having cutoff his head with a sword. Then, as the Brachmanes tell us, the all-seeing sun, in admiration of this surpassing act of piety, trans- formed the hoy into a hird which is most heauti- ful to hehold, and which lives to a very advanced age. So on his head there grew up a crest which was, as it were, a memorial of what he had done at the time of his flight. The Athenians have also related, in a fable, marvels somewhat similar of the crested lark ; and this fable Aristo- phanes, the comic poet, appears to me to have followed when he says in the Birdsy " For thou wert ignorant, and not always bustling, nor always thumbing iEsop, who spake of the crested lark, calling it the first of all birds, bom before ever the earth was ; and telling how afterwards her father became sick and died, and how that, $is the earth did not then exist, he lay unburied till the fifth day, when his daughter, unable to find a grave elsewhere, dug one for him in her own head."|| 11 Lines 470-75:— " You're such a dull incurious lot, unread in ^sop's lore, Whose story says the lark was bom first of the feathered quire, Before the earth ; then came a cold and carried off his sire : Earth was not : five days lay the old bird untombed : at last the son Buried the father in his head, since other grave was none." Dr. Kennedy^s translation. Digitized by Google 163 It seems, accordingly, probable that the fable, though with a different bird for its subject, emanated from the Indians, and spread onward even to the Greeks. For the Brachmanes say that a prodigious time has elapsed since the Indian hoopoe, then in human form and young in years, performed that act of piety to its parents. (6.) In India there is an animal closely resem- bling in appearance the land crocodile, and some- where about the size of a little Maltese dog* It is covered all over with a scaly skin so rough altogether and compact that when flayed oif it is used by the Indians as a file. It cuts through brass and eats iron. They call it the phattagea (pangolin or scaly ant-eater) (8.) The Indian sea breeds sea-snakes which have broiid tails, and the lakes breed hydras of immense size, but these sea-snakes appear to inflict a bite more sharp than poisonous. (9.) In India there are herds of wild horses, and also of wild asses. They say that the mares submit to be covered by the asses, and enjoy such coition, and breed mules, which are of a reddish colour and very fleet, but impatient of the yoke and otherwise skittish. They say that they catch these mules with foot-traps, and then take them to the king of the Prasians, and that if they are caught when two years old they do not refuse to be broken in, but if caught when beyond that age they differ in no respect from sharp-toothed and carnivorous animals. Digitized by Google 164 (Fragm. XII. B follows here.) (11.) There is found in India a graminivorou s animal which is douhle the size of a horse, and which has a very hushy tail purely black in colour. The hair of this tail is finer than hu- man hair, and its possession is a point on which Indian women set great store, for therewith they make a charming coiffure, by binding and braid- ing it with the locks of their own natural hair« The length of a hair is two cubits, and from a single root there sprout out, in the form of a fringe, somewhere about thirty hairs. The ani- mal itself is the most timid that is known, for should it perceive that any one is looking at it, it starts off at its utmost speed, and runs right forward, — but its eagerness to escape is greater than the rapidity of its pace. It is hunted with horses and hounds good to run. When it sees that it is on the point of being caught, it hides its tail in some near thicket, while it stands at bay facing its pursuers, whom it watches narrowly. It even plucks up courage in a way, and thinks that since its tail is hid from yiew the hunters will not care to capture it, for it knows that its tail is the great object of attraction. But it finds this to be, of course, a vain delusion, for some one hits it with a poisoned dart, who then flays off the entire skin (for this is of value) and throws away the carcase, as the Indians make no use of any part of its flesh. (12.) But further: whales are to be found Digitized by Google 165 in the Indian Sea, and these five times larger than the largest elephant. A rib of this mon* strous fish measures as much as twenty cubits, and its lip fifteen cubits. The fins near the gills are each of them so much as seven cubits in breadth. The shell-fish called Kerukes are also met with, and the purple-fish of a size that would admit it easily into a gallon mea- sure, while on the other hand the shell of the sea-urchin is large enough to cover com- pletely a measure of that size. But fish in India attain enormous dimensions, especially the sea- wolves, the thunnies, and the golden-eyebrows. I hear also that at the season when the rivers are swollen, and with their fall and boisterous flood deluge all the land, the fish are carried into the fields, where they swim and wander to and fro, ejen in shallow water, and that when the rains which flood the rivers cease, and the waters re- tiring from the land resume their natural chan- nels, then in the low-lying tracts and in flat and marshy grounds, where we may be sure the so-called Nine are wont to have some watery re- cesses (KoXirovff), fish even of eight cubits' length are found, which the husbandmen themselves catch as they swim about languidly on the surface of the water, which is no longer of a depth they can freely move in, but in fact so very shallow that it is vdth the utmost difficulty they can live in it at all. (13.) The following fish are also indigenous Digitized by Google 166 to India:— -prickly roaches, which are never in any respect smaller than the asps of Argolis ; and shrimps, which in India are even larger than crahs. These, I must mention, finding their way from the sea up the Ganges, have claws which are very large, and which feel rough to the touch. I have ascertained that those shrimps which pass from the Persian Gulf into the river' Indus have their prickles smooth, and the feelers with which they are furnished elongated and curling, but this species has no claws. (14.) The tortoise is found in India, where it lives in the rivers. It is of immense size, and it has a shell not smaller than a full-sized skiff (cr/ca<^?;), and which is capable of holding ten medimni (120 gallons) of pulse. There are, however, also land-tortoises which may be about as big as the largfest clods turned up in a rich soil where the glebe is very yielding, and the plough sinks deep, and, cleaving the furrows with ease, piles the clods up high. These are said to cast their shell. Husbandmen, and all the hands engaged in field labour, turn them up with their mattocks, and take them out just in the way one extracts wood-worms fyom the plants they have eaten into. They are fat things and their flesh is sweet, having nothing of the sharp flavour of the sea-tortoise. (15.) Intelligent animals are to be met with among ourselves, but they are few, and not at all so common as they are in India. For there we find Digitized by Google 167 the elephant, which answers to this character, and the parrot^ and apes- of the sphinx kind, and the creatures called satyrs. Nor must we for- get the Indian ant, which is so noted for its wisdom. The ants of our own country do, no doubt, dig for themselves subterranean holes and burrows, and by boring provide themselves with lurking-places, and wear out all their strength in what may be called mining operations, which are indescribably toilsome and conducted with se- crecy ; but the Indian ants construct for them- selves a cluster of tiny dwelling-houses, seated not on sloping or level grounds where they could easily be inundated, but on steep and lofty eminences. And in these, by boring out. with untold skill certain circuitous passages which remind one of the Egyptian ^burial-vaults or Cretan labyrinths, they so contrive the structure of their houses that none of the Hues run straight, and it is difficult for anything to enter them or flow into them, the windings and per- forations being so tortuous. On the outside they leave only a single aperture to admit them- selves and the grain which they collect and carry to their store-chambers. Their object in selecting lofty sites for their mansions is, of course, to escape the high floods and inimdations of the rivers; and they derive this advantage from their foresight, that they live as it were in so many watch-towers or islands when the parts around the heights become all a lake. More- Digitized by Google Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/187 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/188 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/189 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/190 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/191 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/192 174 snub-nosed, either because in the tender years of infancy their nostrils are pressed down, and con- tinue to be so throughout their after-life, or because such is the natural shape of the organ. Serpents of enormous size are bred in their country, of which some kinds seize the cattle when at pasture and devour them, while other kinds only suck the blood, as do the Aigithelai in Greece, of which I have already spoken in the proper place. but very fleet, who cannot be exterminated, are brave men, and cannibals." (Schwanbeck, p. 66.) [Lassen places one branch of them on the south bank of the Eansi in Nipfil, and another in Tiperl— Ed. Iwd. Anf]
TRANSLATION
OF THE
FIRST PART OF THE INDIKA
OF ARRIAN.
Chaps. I.-XVII. inlcusive.
FROM TEUBNER'S EDITION,
Leipzig, 1867.
Arrian, who variously distinguished himself bs a philosopher, a statesman, a soldier, and an historian, was bom in Nikomedia, in Bithynia, towards the end of the first century. ' He became a pupil of the philosopher Epiktetbs, whose lectures he published. Having been appointed prefect of Kappadokia under the emperot- Hadrian, he acquired during his administration a practical knowledge of the tactics of war in repelling an attack made up- on his province by the Alani and Massagetas. His talents recommended him to the favour of the succeeding emperor^ Antoninus Pius, by whom he was raised to the consulship (a.d. 146). In his later years he retired to his native town, where he applied his leisure to the composition of works on history, to which he was led by his admiration of Xenophon. He died at an advanced age, in the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. The work by which he is best known is his account of the Asiatic expedition of Alexander the Great, which is remarkable alike for the accuracy of its Narrative, and the Xenophontic ease and cleamess> if not the perfect purity, of its style. His work on India ('IvBiicrf or ra 'hfbiKo) may be regarded as a continuation of his Anabasis, though it is not written, like the Anabasis, in the Attic dialect, but in the Ionic. The reason may have been that he Digitized by Google Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/197 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/198 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/199 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/200 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/201 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/202 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/203 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/204 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/205 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/206 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/207 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/208 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/209 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/210 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/211 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/212 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/213 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/214 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/215 called after the river, through the dominions of the Silæans, who again are called after the river and the fountain; the water of the river manifests this singular property—that there is nothing which it can buoy up, nor anything which can swim or float in it, but everything sinks down to the bottom, so that there is nothing in the world so thin and unsubstantial as this water.[17] But to proceed. Rain falls in India during the summer, especially on the mountains Parapamisos and Emodos and the range of Imaos, and the rivers which issue from these are large and muddy. Rain during the same season falls also on the plains of India, so that much of the country is submerged: and indeed the army of Alexander was obliged at the time of midsummer to retreat in haste from the Akesinês, because its waters overflowed the adjacent plains. So we may by analogy infer from these facts that as the Nile is subject to similar inundations, it is probable that rain falls during the summer on the mountains of Ethiopia, and that the Nile swollen with these rains overflows its banks and inundates Egypt. We find, at any rate, that this river, like those we have mentioned, flows at the same season of the year with a muddy current, which could not be the case if it flowed from melting snows, nor yet if its waters were driven back from its Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/217 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/218 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/219 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/220 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/221 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/222 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/223 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/224 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/225 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/226 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/227 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/228 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/229 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/230 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/231 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/232 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/233 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/234 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/235 Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/236 218 acter infonnation to give I willingly dismiss the subject of the ant.§ But about parrots N e a r- chos writes as if they were a new curiosity, and tells us that they are indigenous to India, and what-like they are, and that they speak with a human voice ; but since I have myself seen many parrots, and know others who are acquaint- ed with the bird, I will say nothing about it as if it were still unfamiliar. || Nor will I say aught of the apes, either touching their size, or the beauty which distinguishes them in India, or the' mode in which they are hunted, for I should only be stating what is well known, except perhaps the fact that they are beautiful. Regarding snakes, too, Nearchos tells us that they are caught in the country, being spotted, and nimble in their movements, and that one which P e i t h o the son of AntigenSs caught measured about sixteen cubits, though the Indians allege that the largest snakes are much larger. But no cure of the bite of the Indian snake has been found out by any of the Greek physicians, though the Indians, it is certain, can cure those who have been bitten.^ And Nearchos adds this, that Alexander had all the most skilful of the Indians in the healing art collected around him, and had caused procla- mation to be made throughout the camp that if § See notes to pp. 94 and 96. II Quia ezpedivit 2>stt<aco ewam XAIBE.—Persias, Frol. to Sat. 1. 8. 1 Thu is, xmfortonately, one of Uie lost arts. Digitized by Google 219 any one were bitten he should repair to the royal tent ; but these very same men were able to cure other diseases and pains also. With many bodily pains, however, the Indians are not afflicted, be- cause in their country the seasons are genial. In the case of an attack of severe pain they consult the sophists, and these seemed to cure whatever diseases could be cured not without divine help.* XVI. The dress worn by the Indians is made of cotton, as Nearchos tells us, — cotton pro- duced from those trees of which mention has already been made.f But this cotton is either of a brighter white colour than any cotton found elsewhere, or the darkness of the Indian com- plexion makes their apparel look so much the whiter. They wear an under-garment of cotton which reaches below the knee halfway down to the ankles, and also an upper garment which they throw partly over their shoulders, and partly twist in folds round their head. J The Indians wear • That is, by the use of charms : see Strabo XV. i. 45. t A slip on the part of Arrian, as no previous mention has been made of the cotton-tree. X " The valuable properties of the cotton- wool produced from the cotton-shrub {Oossypium herbaceum) were early discovered. And we read in Rig-veda hymns of 'Day and Night' like * two famous female weavers' intertwining the extended thread Cotton in its manufactured state was new to the Greeks who accompanied Alexander the Great to India. They describe Hindus as clothed in gar- ments made from wool which grows on trees. One cloth, they say, reaches to the middle of the leg, whilst another is folded round the shoulders. Hindus still dress in the fashion thus described, which is also alluded to in old Sanskrit Hterature. In the frescoes on the caves of Ajanta this costume is carefully represented .... The cloth which Nearchus speaks of as reaching to the middle of the 220 also earrings of iyotj, but only such of them do this as are yery wealthy, for all Indians do not wear them. Their beards, Nearchos tells US| they dye of one hue and another, according to taste. Some dye their white beards to make them look as white as possible, but others dye them blue ; while some again prefer a red tint, some a purple, and others a rank green. § Such Indians, he also says, as are thought anything of, use parasols as a screen from the heat. They wear shoes made of white leather, and these are elaborately trimmed, while the soles are yariegated, and made of great thickness, to make the wearer seem so much the taller. I proceed now to describe the mode in which the Indians equip themselves for war, premising that it is not to be regarded as the only one in yogue. The foot-soldiers carry a bow made of equal length with the man who bears it. This they rest upon the ground, and pressing against it with their left foot thus discharge the arrow, having drawn the string far backwards : for the shaft they use is little short of being three leg is the Dhoti. It is from 2^ to 3^ yards long by 2 to 3 feet broad It is a costume much resembling that of a Greek statue, and the only change observable within 3,000 years is, that the Dhoti may now be somewhat broader and longer." — Mrs. Manning's Ancient and MedUcBval India, vol. II. pp. 356-8. § Perhaps some of these colours were but transition shades assumed by the dye before settling to its final hue. The readers of Warren's Ten Thousand a Yea/r will remember the plight of the hero of the tale when having dyed his hair he found it, chameleon-like, changing from hue to hue. This cuetom is mentioned also by Strabo. 221 yards long, and there is nothing which can re- sist an Indian archer's shot, — neither shield nor breastplate, nor any stronger defence if such there be. In their left hand they carry bucklers made of undressed ox-hide, which are not so broad as those who carry them, but are about as long. Some are equipped with javelins in- stead of bows, but all wear a sword, which is broad in the blade, but not longer than three cubits ; and this, when they engage in close fight (which they do* with reluctance), they wield with both hands, to fetch down a lustier blow. The horsemen are equipped with two lances like the lances called aaunia, and with a shorter buckler than that carried by the foot- soldiers. But they do not put saddles on their horses, nor do they curb them with bits like the bits in use among the Greeks or the Kelts, but they fit on round the extremity of the horse's mouth a circular piece of stitched raw ox-hide studded with pricks of iron or brass pointing inwards, but not very sharp : if a man is rich he uses pricks made of ivory. Within the horse's mouth is put an iron prong Hke a skewer, to which the reins are attached. When the rider, then, pulls the reins, the prong controls the horse, and the pricks which are attached to this prong goad the mouth, so that it cannot but obey the reins. XVII. The Indians are in person slender and tall, and of much lighter weight than other men. 222 The animals used by the common sort for riding on are camels and horses and asses, while the wealthy use elephants, — for it is the elephant which in India carries royalty. || The conveyance which ranks next in honour is the chariot and . four ; the camel ranks third ; while to be drawn by a single horse is considered no- distinction at all.^ But Indian women, if possessed of uncom- mon discretion, would not stray from virtue for any reward short of an elephant, but on receiv- ing this a lady lets the giver enjoy her person. Nor do the Indians consider it any disgrace to a woman to grant her favours for an elephant, but it is rather regarded as a high compUment to the sex that their charms should be deemed worth an elephant They marry without either giving or taking dowries, but the women, as soon as they are marriageable, are brought forward by their fathers and exposed in public, to be selected by the victor in wrestUng or boxing or running, or by some one who excels in any other manly exercise.* The people of India live upon grain, and are tillers of the soil ; but we must except the hillmen, who eat the flesh of beasts of chase. only < Hence one of his names is Y Arana, implying that he not r carries but protects his royal rider. ^ The efcfea, so common in the north-west of India, is no doubt here indicated. ^
- Marriage customs appear to have varied, as a reference
to the eifaract from Strabo pp. 70-71 will show. See Wheeler's History of Indiay pp. 167-8. Digitized by Google if It is sufficient for me to have set forth these facts regarding the Indians, which, as the best known, both Nearchos and Megasthenês, two men of approved character, have recorded. And since my design in drawing up the present narrative was not to describe the manners and customs of the Indians, but to relate how Alexander conveyed his army from India to Persia, let this be taken as a mere episode.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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- ↑ Kassiteros represents the Sanskṛit kastîra, 'tin,' a metal found in abundance in the islands, on the coast of India; and elephas is undoubtedly connected with ibha, the Sanskṛit name for the domestic elephant—its initial syllable being perhaps the Arabic article.
- ↑ See Homer, Od. I. 23-24, where we read
Αἰθίοπες, τοὶ διχθὰ δεδαίαται, ἔσχατοι ἀνδρῶν,
οἱ μὲν δυσομένου Ὑπερίονος, οἱ δ' ἀνιόντος.
(The Ethiopians, who are divided into two, and live at the world's end—one part of them towards the setting sun, the other towards the rising.) Herodotos in several passages mentions the Eastern Ethiopians, bnt distinguishes them from the Indians (see particularly bk. vii. 70). Ktêsias, however, who wrote somewhat later than Herodotos, frequently calls the Indians by the name of Ethiopians, and the final discrimination between the two races was not made till the Makedonian invasion gave the Western world more correct views of India. Alexander himself, as we learn from Strabo, on first reaching the Indus mistook it for the Nile. - ↑ Instances in point are the Skiapodes, Kynamolgoi, Pygmaiôi, Psylloi, Himantopodes, Sternophthalmoi, Makrobioi, and the Makrokephaloi, the Martikhora, and the Krokotta.
- ↑ Herodotos mentions that Dareios, before invading India, sent Skylax the Karyandian on a voyage of discovery down the Indus, and that Skylax accordingly, setting out from Kaspatyras and the Paktyikan district, reached the mouth of that river, whence he sailed through the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, performing the whole voyage in thirty months. A little work still extant, which briefly describes certain countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, bears the name of this Skylax, but from internal evidence it has been inferred that it could not have been written before the reign of Philip of Makedonia, the father of Alexander the Great.
- ↑ The following names pertaining to India occur in Hekataios:— the Indus; the Opiai, a race on the hanks of the Indus; the Kalatiai, an Indian race; Kaspapyros, a Gandaric city; Argante, a city of India; the Skiapodes, and probably the Pygmies.
- ↑ Herodotos mentions the river (Indus), the Paktyikan district, the Gandarioi, the Kalantiai or Kalatiai, and the Padaioi. Both Hekataios and Herodotos agree in stating that there were sandy deserts in India.
- ↑ "The few particulars appropriate to India, and consistent with truth, obtained by Ctêsias, are almost confined to something resembling a description of the cochineal plant, the fly, and the beautiful tint obtained from it, with a genuine picture of the monkey and the parrot; the two animals he had doubtless seen in Persia, and flowered cottons emblazoned with the glowing colours of the modern chintz were probably as much coveted by the fair Persians in the harams of Susa and Ecbatana as they still are by the ladies of our own country; .... but we are not bound to admit his fable of the Martichors, his pygmies, his men with the heads of dogs, and feet reversed, his griffins, and his four-footed birds as big as wolves.” - Vincent.
- ↑ Conf. Epit.8.
- ↑ Conf. Diod. II. 35, Plin. Hist. Nat. VI. 22. 6. The writers of Alexander's time who affirmed similar things were Nearchos and Onesikritos, and Bacto who exceeded all bounds. Conf. Lassen, Instit. Ling. Prac. Append. p. 2. -Schwanb. p. 29.
- ↑ “The Mandali would seem to be the same people as the Monedes of Pliny, who with the Saari, occupied the inland country to the south of the Palibothri. As this is the exact position of the country of the Mundas and Suars, I think it quite certain that they must be the same race as the Monedes and Suari of Pliny. In another passage Pliny mentions the Mandei and Malli as occupying the country between the Calinge and the Ganges. Amongst the Malli there was a mountain named Mallus, which
- ↑ This was not the name of any particular nation, but was vaguely used to designate the inhabitants of the region producing silk, of which Sêr is the name in Chinese and in Japanese. The general opinion places this region (Sèrica) in Eastern Mongolia and the north-east of China, but it has also been sought for in Eastern Turkestin, in the Himalaya towards the sources of the Ganges, in Assam, and even in Pegu. The name is first met with in Ktêsias.
- ↑ This wine was probably Soma juice.
- ↑ Curry and rice, no doubt.
- ↑ These wild men are mentioned both by Stasias and Baeto. They were called Antipodes on account of the peculiar structure of their foot, and were reckoned among Ethiopian races, though they are often referred to in the Indian epics under the name Paśchâdangulajas, of which the (Greek characters) of Megasthoids is an exact translation. Vide Schwanb. 68.
- ↑ 'Okupedes' is a transliteration into Greek, with a slight change, of the Sanskrit Êkapadas, ('having one foot'), the name of a tribe of the Kirfttes noted for swiftness of foot, the quality indicated by the Greek term. The Monepodes are mentioned by Ktesias, who confounded them with the Skiapodes, the men who covered themselves with the shadow of their foot.
- ↑ "Since the word (Greek characters) (the form used by Clemens of Alexandria) corresponds to the letter with the Sanskrit word Śramuma (i.e. an ascetic), it ,is evident that the forms (Greek characters) and (Greek characters), which are found in all the MSS. of Strabo, are incorrect. The mistake need not surprise ns, since the (Greek characters) when closely written together differ little in form from the syllable (Greek characters). In the same way Clement's (Greek characters) must be changed into Strabo's (Greek characters), corresponding with the Sanskṛit Vamapṛastha—'the man of the first three castes who, after the term of his hooseholdership has expired, has entered the third âśrama or order, and has proceeded (praṡtha) to a life in the woods (V{{subst:a^}}na).* "— Schwanbeck, p. 46 ; H. H. Wilson, Gloss. "It is a capital question," he adds, "who the Sarman{{subst:ae}} were, some considering them to be Buddhists, and others denying them to be such. Weighty arguments are adduced on both sides, but the opinion of those seems to approach nearer the truth who contend that they were Buddhists."
- ↑ See note, p. 65.
in India aboot 1585, says that a people in Bhut{{subst:a^}}n had ears a span long.