Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/142

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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