Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/74

48 ACCOUNT OF INDIA BY STKABO and drums when they leave their palaces and appear abroad. But the philosophers who live in the plains worship Herakles (Hercules). These are fabulous stories and are contradicted by many writers, particularly what is said about the vine and wine, because a great part of Armenia and the whole of Mesopotamia and Media, as far as Persia and Karmania, are beyond the Euphrates, and yet the greater part of these countries is said to abound in vines and to produce wine. Megasthenes again divides the philosophers into two kinds, the Brachmanes (Brahmans) and the Garmanes (Sarmanes). The Brachmanes are held in greater repute, for they agree with each other more closely in their views. Even from the time of their conception in the womb they are under the care and guardianship of learned men, who go to the mother and seem to per- form some incantation for the happiness and welfare of the mother and the unborn child, but in reality they suggest prudent advice, and the mothers who listen to them most willingly are thought to be the most for- tunate in their offspring. After the birth of the chil- dren, there is a succession of persons who have the care of them, and as they advance in years, masters more able and accomplished succeed to the charge. The philosophers live in a grove in front of the city within a moderate-sized enclosure. Their diet is frugal, and they lie upon straw pallets and on skins. They ab- stain from eating animal food and from sexual inter- course; their time is occupied in listening to grave dis-