8 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. a consecutive history of that island, with dates which, with certain corrections, may be depended upon within certain limits of error, for periods extending from about B.C. 250 to the present time. At the other extremity of India, we have also in the ' Rajatarangini ' of Kashmir, a work of the 1 2th century, which Professor Wilson characterised as "the only Sanskrit composition yet discovered to which the title of History can with any propriety be applied." 1 It hardly helps us, however, to any ancient historical data, its early chronology being only traditional and confused ; but from the beginning of the 9th Christian century, its materials are of great value. 2 In India Proper, however, we have no such guides as even these, but for written history are almost wholly dependent on the Puranas. They furnish us with a list of kings' names, with the length of their reigns, so apparently truthful that they may, within certain limits, be of use. They are only, however, of one range of dynasties probably also sometimes contemporary and extend only from the accession of Chandragupta the Sandrokottos of the Greeks about B.C. 320, to the decline of the Andhra dynasty, about the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. It seems possible we may yet find sufficient confirmation of these lists as far back as the 6th century B.C., so as to include the period marked by the life and labours of Sakyamuni the last Buddha in our chronology, with tolerable certainty. All chronology before that period is as yet merely conjectural. From the period of the Gupta dynasty in the 4th century onwards, when the Puranas began to be put into their present form, in consequence of the revival of the Brahmanical religion, instead of recording contemporary events, they purposely confused them so as to maintain their pretended prophetic character, and prevent the detection of the falsehood of their claim to an antiquity equal to that of the Vedas. For Indian history after the 5th century we are consequently left mainly to inscriptions on monuments or on copper-plates, to coins, and to the works of foreigners for the necessary informa- tion with which the natives of the country itself have neglected to supply us. Inscriptions fortunately are more abundant in India than, perhaps, in any other country, and nearly all of them contain historical information ; and, thanks to the great advances made in epigraphy during the last thirty-five years, we are now able to piece together a tolerably accurate historical 1 'Asiatic Researches,' vol. xv. p. i. ! a valuable commentary and notes by
- Kalhana's ' Rajatarangini ' has been | Dr. A. M. Stein, 2 vols. (London,
very carefully translated and edited with 1900).
