Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Tue Aug 31, 2021 3:15 am

Fragm. XLV.

Arr. VII. ii. 3-9.*

[*This fragment is an extract from Arrian's Expedition of Alexander, and not his Indika as stated (by an oversight) at p. 107. The translation is accordingly now inserted.]

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 gymnosophists, 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 with a master, Dandamis by name, not only refused 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 by it, and without any end coming to their many wanderings. 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, yielding him her fruits in due season, and if he died, he would be delivered from his ill-assorted companion 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 Megasthenes represents 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.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Tue Aug 31, 2021 3:24 am

DOUBTFUL FRAGMENTS.

Fragm. LII.

AElian, Hist. Anim. XII. 8.

Of Elephants.

(Conf. Fragm. xxxvi. 10, xxxvii. 10.)


The elephant when feeding at large ordinarily drinks water, but when undergoing the fatigues of war is allowed wine, — not that sort, however, which comes from the grape, but another which is prepared from rice.*

[*Called arak, (which, however, is also applied to tadi); rum is now-a-days the beverage given it.]

The attendants even go in advance of their elephants and gather them flowers; for they are very fond of sweet perfumes, 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 bathing 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 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.*

[*This fragment is ascribed to Megasthenes both on account of the matter of it, and because it was undoubtedly from Megasthenes that AElian borrowed the narrative preceding it (Fragm. xxxviii.) and that following it (Fragm. xxxv.). — Schwanbeck.]
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Tue Aug 31, 2021 3:30 am

Fragm. LIII.

AElian, Hist. Anim. III. 46.

Of a White Elephant.

(Cf. 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 gradually 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 off at once to the desert mounted on his favourite. The king was enraged at this, and sent men in pursuit, with orders to seize the elephant, and at the same time to bring back the Indian for punishment. Overtaking the fugitive they attempted to execute 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 elephant, 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 lifted 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 attention.*

[*Compare the account given in Plutarch's Life of Alexander, of the elephant of Poros: — "This elephant during the whole battle gave extraordinary proofs of his sagacity and care of the king's person. As long as that prince was able to fight, he defended him with great courage, and repulsed all assailants; and when he perceived him ready to sink under the multitude of darts, and the wounds with which he was covered, to prevent his falling off he kneeled down in the softest manner, and with his proboscis gently drew every dart out of his body."]

(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 sullying the sacred name of friendship.)
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:11 am

Fragm. LIV.

Pseudo-Origen, Philosoph, 24, ed. Delarue, Paris, 1733, vol. I. p. 904.

Of the Brahmans and their Philosophy.

(Cf. Fragm. xli., xliv., xlv.)

Of the Brachhmans in India.


There is among the Brachhmans in India a sect of philosophers who adopt an independent life, and abstain 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 Tagabena.*

[*Probably the Sanskrit Tungavena, now the Tungabhadra, a large affluent of the Krishna.]

Throughout life they go about naked, saying that the body has been given by the Deity as a covering for the soul.*

[*Vide Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 128, note. A doctrine of the Vedanta 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 live senses. The second is the mental sheath, in which mind is joined with the preceding, 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 Colebrooke's Essay on the Philosophy of the Hindus, Cowell's ed. pp. 395-6.]

Little with specificity is known of the period between the Brahma Sutras (5th century CE) and Adi Shankara (8th century CE). Only two writings of this period have survived...

Neo-Vedanta, variously called as "Hindu modernism", "neo-Hinduism", and "neo-Advaita", is a term that denotes some novel interpretations of Hinduism that developed in the 19th century, presumably as a reaction to the colonial British rule. King (2002, pp. 129–135) writes that these notions accorded the Hindu nationalists an opportunity to attempt the construction of a nationalist ideology to help unite the Hindus to fight colonial oppression. Western orientalists, in their search for its "essence", attempted to formulate a notion of "Hinduism" based on a single interpretation of Vedanta as a unified body of religious praxis. This was contra-factual as, historically, Hinduism and Vedanta had always accepted a diversity of traditions...

The neo-Vedantins argued that the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy were perspectives on a single truth, all valid and complementary to each other. Halbfass (2007, p. 307) sees these interpretations as incorporating western ideas into traditional systems, especially Advaita Vedanta. It is the modern form of Advaita Vedanta, states King (1999, p. 135), the neo-Vedantists subsumed the Buddhist philosophies as part of the Vedanta tradition and then argued that all the world religions are same "non-dualistic position as the philosophia perennis", ignoring the differences within and outside of Hinduism...

Matilal criticizes Neo-Hinduism as an oddity developed by West-inspired Western Indologists and attributes it to the flawed Western perception of Hinduism in modern India. In his scathing criticism of this school of reasoning, Matilal (2002, pp. 403–404) says:

The so-called 'traditional' outlook is in fact a construction...

Arthur Schopenhauer, who called them the consolation of his life. He drew explicit parallels between his philosophy, as set out in The World as Will and Representation, and that of the Vedanta philosophy as described in the work of Sir William Jones...

German Sanskritist Theodore Goldstücker was among the early scholars to notice similarities between the religious conceptions of the Vedanta and those of the Dutch Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, writing that Spinoza's thought was "... so exact a representation of the ideas of the Vedanta, that we might have suspected its founder to have borrowed the fundamental principles of his system from the Hindus, did his biography not satisfy us that he was wholly unacquainted with their doctrines"...

Max Müller noted the striking similarities between Vedanta and the system of Spinoza, saying, "The Brahman, as conceived in the Upanishads and defined by Sankara, is clearly the same as Spinoza's 'Substantia'."

Helena Blavatsky, a founder of the Theosophical Society, also compared Spinoza's religious thought to Vedanta, writing in an unfinished essay, "As to Spinoza's Deity...it is the Vedantic Deity pure and simple."

-- Vedanta, by Wikipedia


They hold that God is light,*...

[*The affinity between God and light is the burden of the Gayatri or holiest verse of the Veda.]

... but not such light as we see 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 knowledge are discerned by the wise. This light, however, 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, which is the outermost covering of the soul.*

[*[x], which probably translates ahankara, literally 'egotism,' and hence 'self-consciousness,' the peculiar and appropriate function of which is selfish conviction; that is, a belief that in perception and meditation 'I' am concerned; that the objects of sense concern Me — in short, that I AM. The knowledge, however, which comes from comprehending that Being which has self-existence completely destroys the ignorance which says 'I am.']

The "I AM" Movement is the original Ascended Master Teachings religious movement founded in the early 1930s by Guy Ballard (1878–1939) and his wife Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard (1886–1971) in Chicago, Illinois. It is an offshoot of theosophy and a major precursor of several New Age religions including the Church Universal and Triumphant. The movement had up to a million followers in 1938 and is still active today on a smaller scale. According to the official website of the parent organization, the Saint Germain Foundation, its worldwide headquarters is located in Schaumburg, Illinois, and there are approximately 300 local groups worldwide under several variations of the names "I AM" Sanctuary, "I AM" Temple, and other similar titles. As of 2007, the organization states that its purpose is "spiritual, educational and practical," and that no admission fee is charged for their activities. The term "I AM" is a reference to the ancient Sanskrit mantra "So Ham", meaning "I Am that I Am".

-- "I AM" Activity, by Wikipedia


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 life 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 are 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 offspring. 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 one wears the woollen surcoat, and that when it divests itself of the body with which it is enwrapped it becomes manifest to the eye. There is war, the Brachhmans hold, in the body wherewith 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 bondage, like prisoners of war,*...

[*Compare Plato, Phaedo, cap. 32, where Sokrates speaks of the soul as at present confined in the body as in a species of 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 visited India.]

... 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. Dandamis accordingly, to whom Alexander the Makedonian paid a visit, is spoken of by the Brachhmans as a god because he conquered in the warfare against the body, and on the other hand they condemn Kalanos 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.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Tue Aug 31, 2021 5:37 am

Fragm. LV.

Pallad. de Bragmanibus, pp. 8, 20 et seq. ed. Londin. 1668.

(Camerar. libell. 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 leaves 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 he 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 he 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 Dandamis, whose home is the woods, where he lies on a pallet of leaves, and where he has nigh at hand the fountain of peace, whereof he drinks, sucking, 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 being 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, but 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 neither as yet entered living into Hades, [[x]. The Latin version has non oanam Gadem transiit, 'has not crossed the zone of Cadiz.'] 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.*

[*The text here is so corrupt as to be almost untranslatable. I have therefore rendered from the Latin, though not quite closely.]

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 promises, 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 mortal 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 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 like 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 presence, an account of our life, since he is judge of all proud wrong-doing; for the groans of the oppressed 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.'"*

[*"Others say Dandamis entered into no discourse with the messengers, but only asked 'why Alexander had taken so long a journey?'" — Plutarch's Alexander.]

Alexander, on receiving from Onesikratos a report of the interview, felt a stronger desire than ever to see Dandamis, who, though old and naked, was the only antagonist in whom he, the conqueror of many nations, had found more than his match, &c.  

Fragm. LV. B.

Ambrosias, Be Moribus Brachmanorum, pp. 62, 68 et seq. ed. Pallad. Londin. 1668.

Of Calanus and Mandanis.

They (the Brachmans) eat what they find on the ground, such 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 behead you as a punishment for your contempt." When those words came to the ears of Dandamis, he rose not from his leaves whereon he lay, but reclining and smiling he replied in this way: — "The greatest God," he said, "can do injury to no one, but restores again the light of life to those who have departed. Accordingly he alone is my lord who forbids murder and excites no wars. But Alexander 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 Gades, nor has beheld the course of the sun in the centre of the world? Therefore many nations do not yet even know his name. If, however, 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 therefore 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 departing 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 we shall have returned to him, he will demand from us 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 despise. 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, &c.

11. 'With pure grains, the food of ancient sages, growing in the vernal and autumnal seasons, and brought home by himself, let him severally make, as the law ordains, the oblations of cakes and boiled grain;

12. 'And, having presented to the gods, that purest oblation which the wild woods produced, let him eat what remains, together with some native salt, which himself collected.

13. 'Let him eat green herbs, flowers, roots, and fruit, that grow on earth or in water, and the productions of pure trees, and oils formed in fruits.

14. 'Honey and flesh meat he must avoid, and all sorts of mushrooms, the plant bhustrina, that named sighruca, and the fruit of the sleshmataca.

15. 'In the month Aswina let him cast away the food of sages, which he before had laid up, and his vesture, then become old, and his herbs, roots, and fruit.

16. 'Let him not eat the produce of plowed land, though abandoned by any man who owns it, nor fruits and roots produced in a town, even though hunger oppress him.

17. 'He may eat what is mellowed by fire, and he may eat what is ripened by time; and either let him break hard fruits with a stone, or let his teeth serve as a pestle.

18. 'Either let him pluck enough for a day, or let him gather enough for a month; or let him collect enough for six months, or lay up enough for a year.

19. 'Having procured food, as he is able, he may eat it at eve or in the morning; or he may take only every fourth, or every eighth, such regular meal;

20. 'Or, by the rules of the lunar penance, he may eat a mouthful more each day of the bright, and a mouthful less each day of the dark fortnight; or he may eat only once, at the close of each fortnight, a mess of boiled grains:

21. Or he may constantly live on flowers and roots, and on fruit matured by time, which has fallen spontaneously, strictly observing the laws ordained for hermits.

22. 'Let him slide backwards and forwards on the ground; or let him stand a whole day on tiptoe; or let him continue in motion rising and sitting alternately; but at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset, let him go to the waters and bathe.

23. 'In the hot season, let him sit exposed to five fires, four blazing around him with the sun above; in the rains, let him stand uncovered, without even a mantle, where the clouds pour the heaviest showers; and in the cold season, let him wear humid vesture; and let him increase by degrees the austerity of his devotion:

24. 'Performing his ablution at the three Savanas, let him give satisfaction to the manes and to the gods; and, enduring harsher and harsher mortifications, let him dry up his bodily frame.

25. 'Then having reposited his holy fires, as the law directs, in his mind, let him live without external fire, without a mansion, wholly silent, feeding on roots and fruit;

26. 'Not solicitous for the means of gratification, chaste as a student, sleeping on the bare earth, in the hants of pious hermits, without one selfish affection, dwelling at the roots of trees.

27. 'From devout Brahmens let him receive alms to support life, or from other house-keepers of twice born classes, who dwell in the forest:

28. 'Or the hermit may bring food from a town, having received it in a basket of leaves, in his naked hand, or in a potsherd; and then let him swallow eight mouthfuls.

29. 'These and other rules must a Brahmen, who retires to the woods, diligently practise; and, for the purpose of uniting his soul with the Divine Spirit, let him study the various Upanishads of scripture, or chapters on the essence and attributes of God,

30. 'Which have been studied with reverence by anchorites versed in theology, and by housekeepers, who dwelt afterwards in forests, for the sake of increasing their sublime knowledge and devotion, and for the purification of their bodies.

31. 'Or, if he has any incurable disease, let him advance in a straight path, towards the invincible north eastern point, feeding on water and air, till his mortal frame totally decay, and his soul become united with the Supreme.

32. 'A Brahmen, having shuffled off his body by any of those modes, which great sages practised, and becoming void of sorrow and fear, rises to exaltation in the divine essence.

-- CHAPTER THE SIXTH. On Devotion; or on the Third and Fourth Orders. Institutes of Hindu Law: Or, The Ordinances of Menu. Verbally translated from the original Sanscrit, With a Preface, by Sir William Jones
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:01 am

Part 1 of 2

Fragm. LVI.

Plin. Hist. Nat. VI. 21. 8—23. 11.

List of the Indian Races.*


[*This list Pliny has borrowed for the most part from Megasthenes. Cf. Schwanbeck, pp. 16 seq., 57 seq.]

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 distance). To the town Kalinipaxa 167— 500. Others give 265 miles. Thence to the confluence of the Jomanes and Ganges 625 miles (many add 13 miles), and to the town Palimbothra 425. To the mouth of the Ganges 738 miles.*

[*According to the MSS. 638 or 637 miles. The places mentioned in this famous itinerary all lay on the Royal Road, which ran from the Indus to Palibothra. They have been thus identified. The Hesidras is now the Satlej, and the point of departure lay immediately below its junction with the Hyphasis (now the Bias). The direct route thence (via Ludhiana, Sirhind, and Ambala) conducted the traveller to the ferry of the Jomanes, now the Jamna, in the neighbourhood of the present Bureah, whence the road led to the Ganges at a point which, to judge from the distance given (112 miles), must have been near the site of the far-famed Hastinapura. The next stage to be reached wad Rhodopha, the position of which, both its name and its distance from the Ganges (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 Kanauj (the Kanyakubja of Sanskrit); but M. de St.-Martin, objecting to this that Pliny was not likely to have designated so important andsno 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 Panchala 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 rise to much dispute, some of them being inconsistent either with others, or with the real distances. The text, accordingly, has generally been supposed to be corrupt, so far at least as the 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 itself in the words, "Others give 325 miles for this distance." By 'this distance' cannot be meant the distance between the Ganges and Rhodophn, but between the Uesidrus and Rhodopha, which the addition of the figures shows to be 399 miles. The shorter estimate of others (325 miles) measures the length of a more direct route by way of Patiala, Thanesvara, Panipat, and Delhi. The next difficulty has probably been occasioned by a corruption of the text. It lies in the words "Ad Calinipaxa oppidum CLXVII. D. Alii CCLXV. mill." The numeral D has generally been taken to mean 500 paces, or half a Roman mile, making the translation run thus: — "To Kalinipaxa 167-1/2 miles. Others give 265 miles." But M. de St. Martin prefers to think that the D has, by some mangling of the text, been detached from the beginuing 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 miles.
From the Ganges to Rhodopha / 119 miles
From Rhodopha to Kalinipaxa / 167 miles
Total / 566 miles.

Pliny's carelessness in confounding total with partial distances has created the next difficulty, which lies in his stating 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 Rhodopha / 119 miles
Thence to Kalinipaxa / 167 miles
Thence to the confluence of the rivers / 227 miles
Total / 625 miles.

This is exactly equal to 5000 stadia, the length of the Indian Mesopotamia or Doab, the Panchala of Sanskrit geography, and the Antarveda of lexicographers.

The foregoing conclusions M. de St. Martin had 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 distance 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 in its confluence with the Ganges / 625 / 5000  

Pliny assigns 425 miles as the distance from the confluence of the rivers to Palibothra, but, as it is in reality only 248, the figures have probably been altered. He gives, lastly, 638 miles as the distance from Palibothra to the mouth of the Ganges, which agrees closely with the estimate of Megasthenes, who makes it 5000 stadia— if that indeed was his estimate, and not 6000 stadia as Strabo in one passage alleges it was. The distance by land from Patna to Tamluk (Tamralipta, the old port of the Ganges' mouth) is 445 English or 480 Roman miles. The distance by the river, which is sinuous, is of course much greater. See E'tude sur le Geographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, par P. V. de Saint-Martin, pp. 271-278.
]

The races which we may enumerate without being tedious, from the chain of Emodus, of which a spur is called Imaus (meaning in the native language snowy),*...

[*By Emodus was generally designated that part of the Himalayan range which extended along Nepal and Bhutan and onward toward the ocean. Other forms of the name are Emoda, Emodon, Hemodes. Lassen derives the word from the Sauskrit haimavata, in Prakrit haimota, 'snowy.' If this be so, Hemodus is the more correct form. Another derivation refers the word to 'Hemadri' (hema, 'gold,' and adri, 'mountain'), the 'golden mountains,' — so called either because they wore 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 himawata, 'snowy.' The name was applied at first by the Greeks to the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas, 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 intra Imaum' and 'Skythia extra Imaum,' and it has formed for ages the boundary between China and Turkestan.]

... are the Isari, Cosyri, Izgi, and on the hills the Chisiotosagi,*...

[*These four tribes were located somewhere in Kasmir or its immediate neighbourhood. The Isari are unknown, but are probably the same as the Brysari previously mentioned by Pliny. The Cosyri are easily to be identified with the Khasira mentioned in the Mahabharata as neighbours of the Daradas and Kasmiras. Their name, it has been conjectured, survives in Khschar, one of the three great divisions of the Kathis of Gujarat, who appear to have come originally from the Panjab. The Izgi are mentioned in Ptolemy, under the name of the Sizyges, as a people of Serike. This is, however, a mistake, as they inhabited the alpine region which extends above Kasmir towards the north and north-west. The Chisiotosagi or Chirotosagi are perhaps identical with the Chiconae (whom Pliny elsewhere mentions), in spite of the addition to their name of 'sagi,' which may have merely indicated them to be a branch of the Sakas, — that is, the Skythians,— by whom India was overrun before the time of its conquest by the Aryans. They are mentioned in Manu X. 44 together with the Paundrakas, Odras, Dravidas, Kambojas, 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 Kiratos.— See P. V. de St. Martin's work already quoted, pp. 195-107. But for the Khachars, see Ind. Ant. vol. IV. p. 323.]

... and the Brachmanae, a name comprising many tribes, among which are the Maccocalingae.*

[*v. 1. Bracmanae. 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 Brachmanae, whom he takes to be, not what they actually were, the leading caste of the population, but a powerful race composed of many tribes — the Maccocalingae being of the number. This tribe, as well as the Gangaridae-Kalingae, and the Madogalingae afterwards mentioned, are subdivisions of the Kalingae, a widely diffused race, which spread at one time from the delta of the Ganges all along the eastern coast of the peninsula, though afterwards they did not extend southward beyond Orissa. In the Mahabharata they are mentioned as occupying, along with the Vangas (from whom Bengal is named) and three other leading tribes, the region which lies between Magadha and the sea. The Maccocalingaea, then, are the Magha of the Kalingae. "Magha," says M. de St. Martin, "is the name of one of the non-Aryan tribes of greatest importance and widest diffusion in the lower Gangetic region, where it is broken up into several special groups extending from Arakan and Western Asam, where it is found under the name of Mogh (Anglice Mugs), as far as to the Maghars of the central valleys of Nepal, to the Maghayas, Magahis, or Maghyas of Southern Bahar (the ancient Magadha), to the ancient Magra of Bengal, and to the Magora of Orissa. These lost, by their position, may properly be taken to represent our Maccocalingae." "The Modogalingae," continues the same author, " find equally their representatives in the ancient Mada, a colony which the Book of Manu mentions in his enumeration of the impure tribes of Aryavarta, and which he names by the side of the Andhra, another people of the lower Ganges. The Monghyr inscription, which belongs to the earlier part of the 8th century of our era, also names the Meda 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 (Andharaka), precisely as in the text of Manu. Pliny assigns for their habitation a large island of the Ganges; and the word Galinga (for Kalinga), to which their name is attached, necessarily places this island towards the sea-board — perhaps in the Delta." The Gangaridae' or Gungarides occupied the region corresponding 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 Gangaridae. M. de St. Martin thinks that their name has been preserved almost identically in that of the Gonghris of South Bahar, whose traditions refer their origin to Tirhut; and he would identify their royal city Parthalis (or Portalis) with Vardhana  (contraction of Varddhamana), now Bardwan. Others, however, place it, as has been elsewhere stated, on the Mahanadi. In Ptolemy their capital is Gange, which must have been situated near where Calcutta now stands. The Gangarides are mentioned by Virgil, Georg. III. 27:— "In foribus pugnam ex auro solidoque elephanto; Gangaridum facium, victorisque arma Quirini." (High o'er the gate in elephant and gold; The crowd shall Caesar's Indian war behold." (Dryden's translation.)]

The river Prinas* ...

[*v. 1. Pumas. The Prinas is probably the Tamasa or Tonsa, which in the Puranas is called the Parnasa. The Cainas, notwithstanding the objections of Schwanbeck, must be identified with the Cane, which is a tributary of the Jamna.]

... and the Cainass (which flows into the Ganges) are both navigable.*

[*For the identification of these and other affluents of the Ganges see Notes on Arrian, c. iv., Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 331.]

The tribes called Calingae are nearest the sea, and higher up are the Mandei, and the Malli in whose country is Mount Mallus, the boundary of all that district being the Ganges.



(22.) This river, according to some, rises from uncertain sources, like the Nile,*...

[*For an account of the different theories regarding the source of the Ganges see Smith's Dict. of Class. Geog.]

... 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, Erannoboas,*...

[*Condochatem, Erannoboam. — v.l. Canucham (Vamam), Erranoboan.]

Cosoagus, and Sonus 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 hundred feet) in the final part of its course, which is through the country of the Gangarides. The royal* ...

[*regia. — v. 1. regio. The common reading, however— "Gangaridum Calingarum. Regia," &c., makes the Gangarides a branch of the Kalingae. This is probably the correct reading, for, as General Cunningham states (Anc. Geog. of Ind. 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-Calingae and the Gangarides-Calingae as separate peoples from the Calingae, while the Mahabharata names the Kalingas three separate times, and each time in conjunction with different peoples." (H. H. Wilson in Vishnu Purana, 1st ed. pp.185, 187 note, and 188.) Ah Tri-Kalinga thus corresponds with the great province of Telingana, it seems probable that the name of Telingana may be only a slightly contracted form of Tri-Kalingana, or ' the Three Kalingas.' ]

... city of the Calingae is called Parthalis. Over their king 60,000 foot-soldiers, 1000* ...

[*LX. mill.—v. 1. LXX. mill.]

... horsemen, 700 elephants keep watch and ward in "precinct of war."

For among the more civilized Indian communities 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, administer justice, and sit in council with the kings. A fifth class devotes itself to the philosophy prevalent 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.*

[*Lucian, in his satirical piece on the death of Peregrinos (cap. 25), refers to this practice: — "But what is the motive which prompts this man (Peregrinos) 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 Theagenes to liken him, just as if India had not her own crop of fools and vain-glorious persons. But let him by all means imitate the Brachmans, for, as Onesikritos informs ns, 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 ascending the pile they are burned to death, and never swerve, even ever so little, from their recumbent position."]

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 taming elephants. They employ these animals 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 Modogalingae.*

[*vv. II. modo Galingam, Modogalicam.]

Beyond are situated the Modubae, Molindae, the Uberae with a handsome town of the same name, the Galmodroesi, Preti, Calissae,*...

[*Calissae. — v. 1. Aclissae.]

... Sasuri, Passalae, Colubae, Orxulae, Abali, Taluctae.*

[*These tribes were chiefIy located in the regions between the left bank of the Ganges and the Himalayas. Of the Galmodroesi, Preti, Calissae, Sasuri, and Orxulae nothing is known, nor can their names be identified with any to be found in Sanskrit literature. The Modubae represent beyond doubt the Moutiba, a people mentioned in the Aitareya Brahmana along with other non-Aryan tribes which occupied the country north of the Ganges at the time when the Brahmans established their first settlements in the country. The Molindae are mentioned as the Malada in the Puranic lists, but no further trace of them is met with. The Uberae 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 pronounced differently in different districts, and variously written, as Bors or Bhors, Bhowris, Barriias and Bharhiyas, Bareyas, Baoris, Bharais, &. The race, though formerly powerful, is now one of the lowest classes of the population. The Passalae are identified as the inhabitants of Panchala, which, as already stated, was the old name of the Doab. The Colubae respond to the Kauluta or Koluta— mentioned in the 4th book of the Ramayana, in the enumeration of the races of the west, also in the Varaha Sanhita in the list of the people of the north-west, and in the Indian drama called the Mudra Rakshasa, of which the hero is the well-known Chandragupta. They were settled not far from the Upper Jamna. About the middle of the 7th century they were visited by the famous Chinese traveller Hiwen-Thsang, who writes their name as Kiu- lu-to. Yule, however, places the Passalae in the south-west of Tirhut, and the Kolubae on the Kondochates (Gandaki) in the north-east of Gorakhpur and north-west of Saran. The Abali answer perhaps to the Gvallas or Halvais of South Bahar and of the hills which covered the southern parts of the ancient Magadha. The Taluctae are the people of the kingdom of Tamralipta mentioned in the Mahabharata. In the writings of the Buddhists of Ceylon the name appears as Tamalitti, corresponding to the Tamluk of the present day. Between these two forms of the name that given by Pliny is evidently the connecting 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 emporium of the trade carried on between Gangetic India and Ceylon.]

The king of these keeps under arms 50,000 foot-soldiers, 4000* ...

[*IV. M— v. 1. III. M.]

... cavalry, and 400 elephants. Next come the Andarae,* ...

[*The Andarae 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 Godavari and the Krishna rivers, but which, before the time of Megasthenes, had spread their sway towards the north as far as the upper course of the Narmada (Nerbudda), and, as has been already indicated, the lower districts of the Gangetic basin. Vide Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 176. For a notice of Andhra (the modern Telingana) see General Cunningham's Anc. Geog. of Ind. pp. 527-530.

... a still more powerful race, which possesses numerous villages, and thirty towns defended by 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 Dardae, and silver among the Setae.*

[*Pliny here reverts to where he started from in his enumeration of the tribes. The Setae are the Sata or Sataka of Sanskrit geography, which locates them in the neighbourhood of the Daradas, (According to Yule, however, they are the Sanskrit Sekas, and he places them on the Banas about Jhajpur, south-east from Ajmir. -- Ed. Ind. Ant.)]

But the Prasii 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 Palibothri, — nay, even the whole tract along the Ganges. Their king has in his pay a standing army of 600,000 foot-soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, and 9000 elephants: whence may be formed some conjecture as to the vastness of his resources.

After these, but more inland, are the Monedes and Suari,*...

[*The Monedes or Mandei aro placed by Yule about Gangpur, on the upper waters of the Brahmani, S.W. of Chhutia Nagpur. Lassen places them S. of the Mahenadi about Sonpur, where Yule has the Suari or Sabarae, the Savara of Sanskrit authors, which Lassen places between Sonpur and Singhbhum. See Ind. Ant. vol. VI. note §, p. 127— ED. Ind. Ant.]

... in whose country is Mount Maleus, on which shadows fall towards the north in winter, and towards the south in summer, for six months alternately.*

[*This, of course, can only occur at the equator, from which the southern extremity of India is about 500 miles distant.]

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 Dramasa. The river Jomanes flows through the Palibothri into the Ganges between the towns Methora and Carisobora.*

[*Palibothri must denote here the subjects of the realm of which Palibothra was the capital, and not merely the inhabitants of that city, as Rennel and others supposed, and so fixed its site at the confluence of the Ganges and Jamuna. Methora is easily identified with Mathura. Carisobora is read otherwise as Chrysobon, Cyrisoborca, Cleisoboras. "This city," says General Cunningham, "has not yet been identified, but I feel satisfied that it must be Vrindavana, 16 miles to the north of Mathura. Vrindavana means 'the grove of the basil-trees,' which is famed all over India as the scene of Krishna's sports with the milkmaids. But the earlier name of the place was Kalikavartta, or 'Kalika's whirlpool.' . . . Now the Latin name of Clisobora is also written Carisobora and Cyrisoborka in different MSS., from which I infer that the original spelling was Kalisoborka, or, by a slight change of two letters, Kalikoborta or Kalikabarta." Anc. Geog. of Ind. p 375. (Carisobora -- vv. II. Chrysoban, Cyrisoborca. This is the Kleisobora of Arrian (ante, vol. V. p. 89), which Yule places at Batesar, and Lassen at Agra, which ho makes the Sanskrit Krishnapura. Wilkins (As. Res. vol. V. p. 270) says Clisobora is now called "Mugu-Nagar by the Musulmans, and Kalisapura by the Hindus." Vide Ind. Ant. vol. VI. p. 249, note.— Ed. Ind. Ant.]]

In the parts which lie southward from the Ganges the inhabitants, 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.*

[*Vide Ind. Ant. vol. VI. p. 133, note — Ed. Ind. Ant.]

Artemidorus* ...

[*A Greek geographer of Ephesus, whose date is about 100 B.C. His valuable work on geography, called a Periplus, was much quoted by the ancient writers, but with the exception of some fragments is now lost.]

... sets down the distance between the two rivers at 121 miles.

(23.) The Indus, called by the inhabitants Sindus, rising on that spur of Mount Caucasus which is called Paropamisus, from sources fronting the sunrise,*...

[*The real sources of the Indus were unknown to the Greeks. The principal stream rises to the north of the Kailasa 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.]

... receives also itself nineteen rivers, of which the most famous are the Hydaspes, which has four tributaries; the Cantabra,*...

[*The Chandrabhaga or Akesines, now the Chenab.]

... which has three; the Acesines and the Hypasis which are both navigable; but nevertheless, having no very grat supply of water, it is nowhere broader than fifty stadia, or deeper than fifteen paces,*...

[*For remarks on the tributaries of the Indus see Notes on Arrian, chap, iv.,— Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 331-333.]

It forms an extremely large island, which is called Prasiane, and a smaller one called Patale.*

[*See Ind. Ant vol. V. p. 330. Yule identities the former of these with the area enclosed by the Nara from above Rohri to Haidarabad, and the delta of the Indus.— Ed. Ind. Ant.]

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 Daudagula* ...

[*v. 1. Dandaguda. Cape Kalingon is identified by Yule as Point Godavari.— Ed. Ind. Ant.]

... 625 miles;*...

[*"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 mouth of the Godavari 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 Raja Mahendri, which is only 30 miles to the north-east of Coringa. From the great similarity of the Greek I' and II, I think it not improbable that the Greek name may have been Dandapula, which is almost this 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 this 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, Geog. p. 518.]

... to Tropina 1225;* ...

[*(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.]

... to the cape of Perimula,*...

[*This cape is a projecting point of the island of Perimula or Perimuda, now called the island of Salsette, near Bombay.]

... where there is the greatest emporium of trade in India, 750 miles; to the town in the island of Patala mentioned above, 620 miles.

The hill-tribes between the Indus and the Iomanes are the Cesi; the Cetriboni, who live in the woods; then the Megallae, whose king is master of five hundred elephants and an army of horse and foot of unknown strength; the Chrysei, the Parasangae, and the Asangae,*...

[*v. 1. Asmagi. The Asangae, as placed doubtfully by Lassen about Jodhpur. — Ed. Ind. Ant.]

... where tigers abound, noted for their ferocity. The force under arms consists 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 over a space of 625 miles.*

[*DCXXV.—v. 1. DCXXXV. Pliny, having given a general account of the basins of the Indus and the Ganges, proceeds to enumerate here the tribes which peopled the north of India. The names are obscure, but Lassen has identified one or two of them, and de Saint-Martin a considerable number more. The tribes first mentioned in the list occupied the country extending from the Jamuna to the western coast about the mouth of the Narmada. The Cesi probably answer to the Khosas or Khasyas, a great tribe which from time immemorial has led a wandering life between Gujarat, the lower Indus, and the Jamuna. The name of the Cetriboni would seem to be a transcript of Ketrivani (for Kshatrivaneya). They may therefore have been a branch of the Kshatri (Khstri), one of the impure tribes of the list of Manu (l. x. 12). The Megallae must be identified with the Mavelas of Sanskrit books, a great tribe described as settled to the west of the Jamuna. The Chrysei probably correspond lo 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 them must have lain to the north of the Ran, between the lower Indus and the chain of the Aravali mountains.]

Below the deserts are the Dari, the Surae, then deserts again for 187 miles,*...

[*CLXXXVII.—v. 1. CLXXXVIII. ]

... these deserts encircling the fertile tracts just as the sea encircles islands.*

[*The Dhars inhabit still the banks of this 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. Sura, have their name preserved in "Saur," which designates a tribe settled along the Lower Indus— the modern representatives of the Saurabhira of the Harivamsa. They are placed with doubt by Lassen on the Loni about Sindri, but Yule places the Bolingae— Sanskrit, Bhaulingas — there.— Ed. Ind. Ant.]

Below these deserts we find the Maltceorae, Singhae, Marohae, Rarungae, Moruni.*

[*Moruni, &.c. -- v. 1. Moruntes, Masuae Pagungae, Lalii.]

These inhabit the hills which in an unbroken chain run parallel to the shores of the ocean. They are free and have no kings, and occupy the mountain heights, whereon they have built many cities.*

[*These tribes must have been located in Kachh, a mountainous tongue of land between the gulf of that name, and the Ran, where, and where only, in this region of India, a range of mountains is to be found running along the coast. The name of the Maltecorae has attracted particular attention because of its resemblance to the name of the Martikhora (i.e. man-eater), a fabulous animal mentioned by Ktesias (Cetesiae Indica, VII.) as found in India and subsisting upon human flesh. The Maltecorae were consequently supposed to have been a race of cannibals. The identification is, however, rejected by M. de St. Martin. The Singhae are represented at the present day by the Sanghis of Omarkot (called the Song by Mac- Murdo), descendants of an ancient Rajput tribe called the Singhars. The Marohae are probably the Maruhas of the list of the Varaha 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 Rarungae may perhaps be the ancestors of the Ronghi or Rhanga now found on the banks of the Satlej and in the neighbourhood of Dihli.]

Next follow the Nareae, enclosed by the loftiest of Indian mountains, Capitalia.*

[*Capitalia is beyond doubt the sacred Arbuda, or Mount Abu, which, attaining an elevation of 6500 feet, rises far above any other summit of the Aravali range. The name of the Nareae recalls that of the Nair, which the Rajput chroniclers apply to the northern belt of the desert (Tod, Rajasthan, II. 211); so St. Martin; but according to General Cunningham they must be the people of Sarui, or 'the country of reeds, as nar and sar are synonymous terms for 'a reed' and the country of Sarui is still famous for its reed-arrows. The same author uses the statement that extensive gold and silver mines were worked on the other side of Mount Capitalia in support of his theory that this part of India was the Ophir of Scripture, front which the Tyrian navy in the days of Solomon carried away gold, a great plenty of almug-trees (red sandalwood), and precious stones (1 Kings xii.). His argument runs thus: — "The last name in Pliny's list is Varetatae, which I would change to Vataretae by the transposition of two letters. This spelling is countenanced by the termination of the various reading of Svarataratae, which is found in some editions. It is quite possible, however, that the Svarataratae maybhe intended for the Surashtras. The famous Varaha Mihira mentions the Surashtras and Badaras together, amongst the people of the south-west of India (Dr. Kern's Brihat Sanhita, XIV. 19.) These Badaras must therefore be the people of Badari, or Vadari. I understand the name of Vadari to denote a district abounding in the Badari, or Ber-tree (Jujube), which is very common in Southern Rajputana. For the same reason I should look to this neighbourhood for the ancient Sauvira, 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 frequented 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 Narmada river. About the fourth century some portion of it was diverted to the new capital of Balabhi, in the peninsula of Gujarat; in the Middle Ages it was shared with Khambay at the head of the gulf, and in modern 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 inscription of Rudra Dama, 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 Sauvira must have been to the north of Surashtra and Bharoch, and to the south of Nishada, or just where I have placed it, in the neighbourhood of Mount Abu. Much the same locality is assigned to Sauvira in the Vishnu Purana." —Anc. Geog. of Ind. pp. 496-497; see also pp. 560-562 of the same work, where the subject is further discussed.]

The inhabitants on the other side of this mountain work extensive mines of gold and silver. Next are the Oraturae, whose king has only ten elephants, though he has a very strong force of infantry.*

[*v. 1. Oratae. The Oraturai find their representatives in the Rathors, who played a great part in the history of India before the Musulman conquest, and who, though settled in the Gangetic provinces, regard Ajmir, at the eastern point of the Aravali, as their ancestral seat.
Image
Ajmir, Aravalli Range
]

Next again are the Varetatae,*...

[*v. 1. Suarataratae. The Varetatae cannot with certainty be identified.]

... subject to a king, who keep no elephants, but trust entirely to their horse and foot. Then the Odomboerae; the Salabastrae;* ...

[*The Odomboerae, with hardly a change in the form of their name, are mentioned in Sanskrit literature, for Panini (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 Salabastrae of Pliny, the addition which he has made to their name being explained by the Sanskrit word vastya, which means an abode or habitation. The word udumbara means the glomerous fig-tree. The district so named lay in Kachh. (The Salabastrae are located by Lassen between the mouth of the Sarasvati and Jodhpnr, and the Horatae at the head of the gulf of Khambhat; Automela he places at Khambhat. See Ind. Alterth. 2nd ed. 1. 760. Yule has the Sandrabatis about Chandravati, in northern Gujarat, but these are placed by Lassen on the Banas about Tonk. — Ed. Ind. Ant.)]

... the Horatae,*...

[*Horatae is an incorrect transcription of Sorath, the vulgar form of the Sanskrit Saurashtra. The Horatae were therefore the inhabitants of the region called in the Periplus, and in Ptolemy, Surastrene — that is, Gujarat. Orrhoth ([x]) 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 Purbandar coast. The capital, Automela, cannot be identified, but de St. Martin conjectures it may have been the once famous Valabhi, which was situated in the peninsular part of Gujarat at about 24 miles distance from the Gulf of Khambay.]

... 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 of theirs is much admired— Automela,*...

[*v. 1. Automula. See preceding note.]

... 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 Charmae has but sixty elephants, and his force otherwise is insignificant. Next come the Pandae, the only race in India ruled by women.*

[*The Charmae have been identified with the inhabitants of Charmamandala, a district of the west mentioned in the Mahabharata, and also in the Vishnu Purana, under the form Charmakhanda. They are now represented by the Charmars or Chamars of Bundelkhand and the parts adjacent to the basin of the Ganges. The Pandae, who were their next neighbours, must have occupied a considerable portion of the basin of the river Chambal, called in Sanskrit geography the Charmanvati. They were a branch of the famous race of Pandu, which made for itself kingdoms in several different parts of India.]

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, Derangae, Posingae, Buzae, Gogiarei, Umbrae, Nereae, Brancosi, Nobudhae, Cocondae, Nesei, Pedatrirae, Solobriasae, Olostrae,*...

[*The names in this list lead us to the desert lying between the Indus and the Aravali range. Most of the tribes 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 Suriyanis, who under that name have at all times occupied the country near the Indus in the neighbourhood of Bakkar. Darangae is the Latin transcription of the name of the great race of the Jhadejas, a branch of the Rajputs which at the present day possesses Kachh. The Buzae represent the Buddas, an ancient branch of the same Jhadejas (Tod, Annals and Antiq, of the Raj. vol. I. p. 86). The Gogiarei (other readings Gogarasi, Gogarae) are the Kokaris, who are now settled on the banks of the Ghara or Lower Satlej. The Umbrae are represented by the Umranis, and the Nerei perhaps by the Nharonis, who, though belonging to Baluchistan, had their ancestral seats in the regions to the east of the Indus. The Nubeteh, who figure in the old local traditions of Sindh, perhaps correspond to the Nobundae, while the Cocondae certainly are the Kokonadas mentioned in the Mahabharata among the people of the north-west. (See Lassen, Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenl. t. II. 1839, p. 45.) Buchanan mentions a tribe called Kakand as belonging to Gorakhpur.]

... who adjoin the island Patale, from the furthest shore of which to the Caspian gates the distance is said to be 1925 miles.*

[*There were two defiles, which went by the name of 'the Kaspian 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-Western Asia into the north-east provinces of Persia. According to Arrian (Anab. III. 20) the Kaspian Gates lay a few days' journey distant from the Median town of Rhagai, now represented by the ruins called Rha, found a mile or two to the south of Teheran. 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.]

Then next to these towards the Indus come, in an order which is easy to follow, the Amatae, Bolingae, Gallitalutae, Dimuri, Megari, Ordabae,* ...

[*v. 1. Ardabae.]

... Mesae; after these the Uri and Sileni.*

[*In the grammatical apophthegms of Panini, Bhaulingi is mentioned as a territory occupied by a branch of the great tribe of the Salvas (Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. p. 613, note, or 2nd ed. p. 760 n.), and from this indication M. de St. Martin has been led to place the Bolingae at the western declivity of the Aravali mountains, where Ptolemy also places his Bolingae. The Madrabhujingha of the Panjab (see Vishnu Pur. p. 187) were probably a branch of this tribe. The Gallitalutae are identified by the same author with the Gahalata or Geblots; the Dimuri with the Dumras, who, though belonging to the Gangetic valley, originally came from that of the Indus; the Megari with the Mokars of the Rajput chronicles, whose name is perhaps preserved in that of the Mehars of the lower part of Sindh, and also in that of the Megharis of Eastern Baluchistan; the Mesae with the Mazaris, a considerable tribe between Shikarpur and Mitankot on the western bank of the Indus; and the Uri with the Hauras of the same locality — the Hurairas who figure in the Rajput lists of thirty-six royal tribes. The Sulalas of the same tribes perhaps represent the Sileni, whom Pliny mentions along with the Uri.]

Immediately beyond come deserts extending for 250 miles. These being passed, we come to the Organagae, Abaortae, Sibarae, Suertae, and after these to deserts as extensive as the former. Then come the Sarophages, Sorgae, Baraomatae, and the Umbrittae,*...

[*vv. II. Paragomatae, Umbitrae. — Baraomatae Gumbritaeque.]

... who consist of twelve tribes, each possessing two cities, and the Aseni, who possess three cities.*

[*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 Panjab. They are obscure, and their names cannot with any certainty be identified if we except that of the Sibarae, who are undoubtedly the Sauviras of the Mahabharata, and who, as their name is almost invariably combined with that of the Indus, must have dwelt not far from its banks. The Afghan tribe of the Afridis may perhaps represent the Abaortae, and the Sarabhan or Sarvanis, of the same stock, the Sarophages. The Umbrittae and the Aseni take us to the east of the river. The former are perhaps identical with the Ambastae of the historians of Alexander, and the Ambasthas of Sanskrit writings, who dwelt in the neighbourhood of the lower Akesines.]

Their capital is Bucephala, built where Alexander's famous horse of that name was buried.*

[*Alexander, after the great battle on the banks of the Hydaspes in which he defeated Poros, founded two cities — Bukephala, or Bukephalia, so named in honour of his celebrated charger, and Nikaia, so named in honour of his victory. Nikaia, it is known for certain, was built on the field of battle, and its position was therefore on the leftside of the Hydaspes — probably about where Mong now stands. The site of Bukephala it is not so easy to determine. 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 and 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 Jalalpur rather than at Jhelam, 30 miles higher up the river, the site which is favoured by Burnes and General Court and General Abbott. Jalalpur is about ten miles distant from Dilawar, where, according to Cunningham, the crossing of the river was most probably effected.]

Hillmen follow next, inhabiting the base of Caucasus, the Soleadae, and the Sondrae; and if we cross to the other side of the Indus and follow its course downward we meet the Samarabriae, Sambruceni, Bisambritae,*...

[*v. 1. Bisabritae. ]

... Osii, Antixeni, and the Taxillae* ...

[*The Soleadae and the Sondrae cannot be identified, and of the tribes which were seated to the east of the Indus only the Taxillae are known. Their capital was the famous Taxila, which was visited by Alexander the Great. "The position of this city," says Cunningham, "has hitherto remained unknown, partly owing to the erroneous distance recorded by Pliny, and partly to the want of information regarding the vast ruins which still exist in the vicinity of Shah-dheri. All the copies of Pliny agree in stating that Taxila was only 60 Roman, or 55 English, miles from Peucolaitis or Hashinagar, which would fix its site somewhere on the Haro river to the west of Hasan Abdal, or just two days' march from the Indus. But the itineraries of the Chinese pilgrims agree in placing it at three days' journey to the east of the Indus, or in the immediate neighbourhood of Kala-ka-Sarai. He therefore fixes its site near Shah-dheri (which is a mile to the north-east of that Sarai), in the extensive ruins of a fortified city abounding with stupas, 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 Sanskrit Takshasila, of which the Pali form is Takhasila, whence the Greek form was taken. The word means either 'cut rock; or 'severed head.' — Anc. Geog. of Ind. pp. 104-121.]

... with a famous city. Then succeeds a level tract of country known by the general name of Amanda,*...

[*As the name Amanda is entirely unknown, M. de St. Martin proposes without hesitation the correction Gandhara, on the ground that the territory assigned to the Amanda corresponds exactly to Gandhara, of which the territory occupied by the Peucolitae (Poukelaotis), as we know from other writers, formed a part. The Geretae are beyond doubt no others than the Gouraei 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 Pliny. Two tribes settled in the same locality are perhaps indicated by the name — the Arsa, mentioned by Ptolemy, answering to the Sanskrit Urasa; and the Ghilit or Ghilghit, the Gahalata of Sanskrit, formerly mentioned.]

... whereof the tribes are four in number— the Peucolaitae,*...

[*v. 1. Peucolitae.]

... Arsagalitae, Gerrretae, Asoi.

Many writers, however, do not give the river Indus as the western boundary of India, but include within it four satrapies, — the Gedrosi, Arachotae, Arii, Paropamisadae,*...

[*Gedrosia comprehended probably nearly the same district which is now known by the name of Mekran. Alexander marched through it on returning from his Indian expedition. Arachosia extended from the chain of mountains now called the Suleiman as far southward as Gedrosia. Its capital, Arachotos, was situated somewhere in the direction of Kandahar, the name of which, it has been thought, preserves that of Gandhara. According to Colonel Rawlinson the name of Arachosia is derived from Harakhwati (Sanskrit Sarasvati), and is preserved in the Arabic Rakhaj. It is, as has already been noticed, the Haranvatas of the Bisutun inscription. Aria denoted the country lying between Meshed and Herat; Arians, of which it formed a 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 Bisutun 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.]

... making the river Cophes its furthest limit; though others prefer to consider all these as belonging to the Arii.

Many writers further include in India even the city Nysa and Mount Merus, sacred to Father Bacchus, whence the origin of the fable that he sprang from the thigh of Jupiter. They include also the Astacani,*...

[*Other readings of the name are Aspagani and Aspagonae. 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 Byzantium the city of Kaspapyros is called a Gandaric city, and that in Herodotus the same place is attributed to the Paktyi, and we have added that in our opinion there is only an apparent contradiction, because the district of Paktyike and Gandara may very well be but one and the same country. It is not difficult, in fact, to recognize in the designation mentioned by Herodotos the indigenous name of the Afghan people, Pakhtu (in the plural Pakhtun), the name which the greater part of the tribes use 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 Afghans in their actual fatherland five centuries at least before the Christian era. Now, as the seat of the Afghan or Pakht nationality is chiefly in the basin of the Kophes, 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 Gandarie 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 Gandhara— that of Asvaka. This word, derived from asva, a horse, signified merely the cavalier; it was less an ethnic, in the rigorous acceptation of the word, than a general appellation applied by the Indians of the Punjab to the tribes of the region of the Kophes, renowned from antiquity for the excellence of its horses. In the popular dialects the Sanskrit word took the usual form Assaka, which reappears scarcely modified in Assakani ([x]) or Assakieni ([x]) in the Greek historians of the expedition of Alexander and subsequent writers. It is impossible not to recognise here the name of Avghan or Afghans. . . which is very evidently nothing else than a contracted form of Assakan. . . Neither the Gandarie of Hekataios nor the Paktyi of Horodotos are known to them (Arrian and other Greek and Latin writers of the history of Alexander), but as it is the same territory (as that of the Assakani), and as in actual usage the names Afghans and Pakhtun are still synonymous, their identity is not a matter of doubt." — E'tude sur le Geographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, pp. 376-8. The name of the Gandhara, it may here be added, remounts to the highest antiquity; it is mentioned in one of the hymns of the Rig-Veda, as old perhaps as the 15th century B.C. — Id. p. 364.]

... in whose country the vine grows abundantly, and the laurel, 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 in other parts of this work. A little further on I shall speak of the satrapies, but the island of Taprobane* ...

[*Vide ante, p. 62, n. *.]

... requires my immediate attention.

But before we come to this island there are others, one being Patale, which, as we have indicated, lies at the mouth of the Indus, triangular in shape, and 220* ...

[*CCXx.-v. 1. CXXX.]

... miles in breadth. Beyond the mouth of the Indus are Chryse and Argyre,*...

[*Burma and Arakan respectively, according to Yule.— Ed. Ind. Ant. ]

... rich, as I believe, in metals. For I cannot readily believe, what is asserted by some writers, that their soil is impregnated with gold and silver. At a distance of twenty miles from these lies Crocala,*...

[*In the bay of Karachi, identical with the Kolaka of Ptolemy. The district in which Karachi is situated is called Karkalla to this day.]

... from which, at a distance of twelve miles, is Bibaga, which abounds with oysters and other shell-fish.*

[*This is callel Bibakta by Arrian, Indika, cap. xxi.]

Next comes Toralliba,*...

[*v. 1. Coralliba.]

... nine miles distant from the last-named island, beside many others unworthy of note.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:01 am

Part 2 of 2

Fragm. LVI. B.

Solin. 52. 6-17.

Catalogue of Indian Races.


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 mountains.*

[*The Hypanisis also there, a very noble river, which formed the limit of Alexander's march, as the altars erected on its banks prove. See Arrian's Anab. V. 29, where we read that Alexander having arranged his troops in separate divisions ordered them to build on the banks of the Hyphasis twelve altars to be of equal height with the loftiest towers, while exceeding them in breadth. From Curtius we learn that they were formed of square blocks of stone. There has been much controversy regarding their site, but it must have been near the capital of Sopithes, whose name Lassen has identified with the Sanskrit Akapati, 'lord of horses.' These Asvapati were a line of princes whose territory, according to the 12th book of the Ramayana, lay on the right or north bank of the Vipasa (Hyphasis or Bias), in the mountainous part of the Doab comprised between that river and the Upper Iravati. Their capital is called in the poem of Valmiki Rajagriha, which still exists under the name of Rajagiri. At some distance from this there is a chain of heights called Sekandar-giri, or 'Alexander's mountain.'— See St. Martin's E'tude, &c. pp. 108-111.]

The least breadth of the Ganges is eight miles, and its greatest twenty. Its depth where it is shallowest is fully a hundred foot. 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 Indianw 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 elephants, which, when made quite tame and docile, they use for ploughing and for riding on.

The extraordinary custom of the women burning themselves with their deceased husbands, has, for the most part, fallen into desuetude in India; nor was it ever reckoned a religious duty, as has been very erroneously supposed in the West. This species of barbarity, like many others, rose originally from the foolish enthusiasm of feeble minds. In a text in the Bedas, conjugal affection and fidelity are thus figuratively inculcated: “The woman, in short, who dies with her husband, shall enjoy life eternal with him in heaven." From this source the Brahmins themselves deduce this ridiculous custom, which is a more rational solution of it than the story which prevails in Europe; that it was a political institution, made by one of the Emperors, to prevent wives from poisoning their husbands, a practice, in those days, common in Hindostan.

-- History of Hindostan; From the Earliest Account of Time, To the Death of Akbar; Translated From the Persian of Mahummud Casim Ferishta of Delhi: Together With a Dissertation Concerning the Religion and Philosophy of the Brahmins; With an Appendix, Containing the History of the Mogul Empire, From Its Decline in the Reign of Mahummud Shaw, to the Present Times, by Alexander Dow.


In the Ganges there is an island extremely populous, 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 Prasian nation, which is extremely powerful, inhabits a city called Palibotra, whence some call the nation itself the Palibotri. Their king keeps in his pay at all times 60,000 foot 30,000 horse, and 8000 elephants.

Beyond Palibotra is Mount Maleus,*...

[*Possibly, as suggested by Yule, Mount Parsvanatha, near the Damuda, 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 Panjab, mentioned by Anion; see vol. V. pp. 87, 96, 333. — Ed. Ind. Ant.]

... on which shadows in winter fall towards the north, in summer 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 informs us, who allows that this happens in many parts of India. Those living near the river Indus in the regions that turn southward are scorched more than others by the heat, and at last the complexion of the people is visibly affected by the great power of the sun. The mountains are inhabited by the Pygmies.

But those who live near the sea have no kings.

The Pandaean nation is governed by females, and their first queen is said to have been the daughter of Hercules. The city Nysa is assigned to this region, as is also the mountain sacred to Jupiter, Meros by name, in a cave on which the ancient Indians affirm Father Bacchus was nourished; while the name has given rise to the well-known fantastic story that Bacchus was born from the thigh of his father. Beyond the mouth 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 silver.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Fri Sep 10, 2021 10:37 pm

Fragm. LVII.

Polyaen. Stratej. I. 1. 1-3.

Of Dionysos.

(Cf. Epit. 25 et seq.)


Dionysos, in his expedition against the Indians, in order that the cities might receive him willingly, 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 battle by cymbals 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, in the course of his Indian campaign, 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 Korasibie, another Kondaske, but to the third he himself gave the name of Meros, 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 with missiles from a commanding position on the heights above.  

(Dionysos, after conquering the Indians, invaded Baktria, taking with him as auxiliaries the Indians and Amazons. That country has for its boundary the river Saranges.*

[*See Ind. Ant., Notes to Arrian in vol. V. p. 332.]

The Baktrians seized the mountains overhanging that river with a view to attack Dionysos, in crossing 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 be 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.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Fri Sep 10, 2021 10:40 pm

Fragm. LVIII.

Polyaen. Strateg. I. 3. 4.

Of Hercules and Pandaea.

(Cf. Fragm. L. 15.)


Herakles begat a daughter in India whom he called Pandaia. To her he assigned that portion of India which lies to southward and extends 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 treasury 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.
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Re: Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian

Postby admin » Fri Sep 10, 2021 11:24 pm

Fragm. LIX.

Of the Beasts of India.

AElian, Hist. Anim. XVI. 2-22*


[*"In this extract not a few passages occur which appear to hare been borrowed from Megasthenes. This conjecture, though it cannot by any means be placed beyond doubt by conclusive proofs, seems nevertheless, for various reasons, to attain a certain degree of probability. For in the first place the author knows with unusual accuracy the interior parts of India. Then again he makes very frequent mention of the Prasii and the Brahmans. And lastly one can hardly doubt that some chapters occurring in the middle of this part have been extracted from Megasthenes. I have, therefore, in this uncertainty taken care that the whole of this part should be printed at the end of the fragments of Megasthenes."— Schwanbeck.]

(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 omitted 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, and pale-green ringdoves. One who 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 size, and have their crests not red as elsewhere, or at least in our country, but have the flower-like coronals of which the crest is formed variously coloured. Their rump feathers, again, are neither curved nor wreathed, but 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 smaragdus.

(3) There is found in India also another remarkable 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 talkative than the parrot, and of greater natural cleverness. 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 of Boukephala and its neighbourhood, and in the city called Kuropolis, and others which Alexander the son of Philip built, the Kerkion. This name had, I believe, its origin in the fact that the bird wags its tail in the same way as the water-ousels ([x]).

(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 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 ([x]) 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 Hellenic king, this hoopoe is the favourite 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, therefore, 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 unjust 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 three together. In the course of the protracted journey which they had then to undergo, the old people succumbed to fatigue and died, and the boy showed them no light regard, but buried them in himself, having cut off his head with a sword. Then, as the Brachmanes tell us, the all-seeing sun, in admiration of this surpassing act of piety, transformed the boy into a bird which is most beautiful to behold, 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 Aristophanes, the comic poet, appears to me to have followed when he says in the Birds, "For thou wert ignorant, and not always bustling, nor always thumbing AEsop, who spake of the crested lark, calling it the first of all birds, born before ever the earth was; and telling how afterwards her father became sick and died, and how that, as 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."*

[*Lines 470-75:— "You're such a dull incurious lot, unread in AEsop's lore, / Whose story says the lark was born 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 a translation.]  

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 resembling in appearance the land crocodile, and somewhere 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 off it is used by the Indians as a file. It cuts through brass and eats iron. They call it the phattages (pangolin or scaly ant-eater) ...

(8.) The Indian sea breeds sea-snakes which have broad 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.

(Fragm. XII.B follows here.)

(11.) There is found in India a graminivorous animal which is double the size of a horse, and which has a very bushy tail purely black in colour. The hair of this tail is finer than human hair, and its possession is a point on which Indian women set great store, for therewith they make a charming coiffure, by binding and braiding 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 animal 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 view 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 in the Indian Sea, and these five times larger than the largest elephant. A rib of this monstrous 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 shellfish called Kerukes are also met with, and the purple-fish of a size that would admit it easily into a gallon measure, while on the other hand the shell of the sea-urchin is large enough to cover completely 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 full and boisterous flood deluge all the land, the fish are carried into the fields, where they swim and wander to and fro, even in shallow water, and that when the rains which flood the rivers cease, and the waters retiring from the land resume their natural channels, 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 recesses ([x]), 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 with the utmost difficulty they can live in it at all.

(13.) The following fish are also indigenous 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 crabs. 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 ([x]), 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 largest 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 from 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 the elephant, which answers to this character and the parrot, and apes of the sphinx kind, and the creatures called satyrs. Nor must we forget 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 secrecy; but the Indian ants construct for themselves 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 lines run straight, and it is difficult for anything to enter them or flow into them, the windings and perforations being so tortuous. On the outside they leave only a single aperture to admit themselves 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 inundations 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. Moreover, the mounds they live in, though placed in contiguity, so far from being loosened and torn asunder by the deluge, are rather strengthened, especially by the morning dew: for they put on, so to speak, a coat of ice formed from this dew — thin, no doubt, but still of strength; while at the same time they are made more compact at their base by weeds and bark of trees adhering, which the silt of the river has carried down. Let so much about Indian ants be said by me now, as it was said by Iobas long ago.

(16) In the country of the Indian Areianoi there is a subterranean chasm down in which there are mysterious vaults, concealed ways, and thoroughfares invisible to men. These are deep withal, and stretch to a very great distance. How they came to exist, and how they were excavated, the Indians do not say, nor do I concern myself to inquire. Hither the Indians bring more than thrice ten thousand head of cattle of different kinds, sheep and goats, and oxen and horses; and every person who has been terrified by an ominous dream, or a warning sound or prophetic voice, or who has seen a bird of evil augury, as a substitute for his life casts into the chasm such a victim as his private means can afford, giving the animal as a ransom to save his soul alive. The victims conducted thither are not led in chains nor otherwise coerced, but they go along this road willingly, as if urged forward by some mysterious spell; and as soon as they find themselves on the verge of the chasm they voluntarily leap in, and disappear for ever from human sight so soon as they fall into this mysterious and viewless cavern of the earth. But above there are heard the bellowings of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the neighing of horses, and the plaintive cries of goats, and if any one goes near enough to the edge and closely applies his ear he will hear afar off the sounds just mentioned. This commingled sound is one that never ceases, for every day that passes men bring new victims to be their substitutes. Whether the cries of the animals last brought only are heard, or the cries also of those brought before, I know not, — all I know is that the cries are heard.

(17) In the sea which has been mentioned they say there is a very large island, of which, as I hear, the name is Taprobane. From what I can learn, it appears to be a very long and mountainous island, having a length of 7000 stadia and a breadth of 5000.*

[*In the classical writers the size of this island is always greatly exaggerated. Its actual length from north to south is 271-1/2 miles, and its breadth from east to west 137-1/2 and its circuit about 650 miles.]

It has not, however, any cities, but only villages, of which the number amounts to 750. The houses in which the inhabitants lodge themselves are made of wood, and sometimes also of reeds.

(18.) In the sea which surrounds the islands, tortoises are bred of so vast a size that their shells are employed to make roofs for the houses: for a shell, being fifteen cubits in length, can hold a good many people under it, screening them from the scorching heat of the sun, besides affording them a welcome shade. But, more than this, it is a protection against the violence of storms of rain far more effective than tiles, for it at once shakes off the rain that dashes against it, while those under its shelter hear the rain rattling as on the roof of a house. At all events they do not require to shift their abode, like those whose tiling is shattered, for the shell is hard and like a hollowed rock and the vaulted roof of a natural cavern.

The island, then, in the great sea, which they call Taprobane, has palm-groves, where the trees are planted with wonderful regularity all in a row, in the way we see the keepers of pleasure-parks plant out shady trees in the choicest spots. It has also herds of elephants, which are there very numerous and of the largest size. These island elephants are more powerful than those of the mainland, and in appearance larger, and may be pronounced to be in every possible way more intelligent. The islanders export them to the mainland opposite in boats, which they construct expressly for this traffic from wood supplied by the thickets of the island, and they dispose of their cargoes to the king of the Kalingai. On account of the great size of the island, the inhabitants of the interior have never seen the sea, but pass their lives as if resident on a continent, though no doubt they learn from others that they are all around enclosed by the sea. The inhabitants, again, of the coast have no practical acquaintance with elephant-catching, and know of it only by report. All their energy is devoted to catching fish and the monsters of the deep; for the sea encircling the island is reported to breed an incredible number of fish, both of the smaller fry and of the monstrous sort, among the latter being some which have the heads of lions and of panthers and of other wild beasts, and also of rams; and, what is still a greater marvel, there are monsters which in all points of their shape resemble satyrs. Others are in appearance like women, but, instead of having locks of hair, are furnished with prickles. It is even solemnly alleged that this sea contains certain strangely formed creatures, to represent which in a picture would baffle all the skill of the artists of the country, even though, with a view to make a profound sensation, they are wont to paint monsters which consist of different parts of different animals pieced together. These have their tails and the parts which are wreathed of great length, and have for feet either claws or fins. I learn further that they are amphibious, and by night graze on the pasture-fields, for they eat grass like cattle and birds that pick up seeds. They have also a great liking for the date when ripe enough to drop from the palms, and accordingly they twist their coils, which are supple, and large enough for the purpose, around these trees, and shake them so violently that the dates come tumbling down, and afford them a welcome repast. Thereafter when the night begins gradually to wane, but before there is yet clear daylight, they disappear by plunging into the sea just as the first flush of morning faintly illumines its surface. They say whales also frequent this sea, though it is not true that they come near the shore lying in wait for thunnies. The dolphins are reported to be of two sorts — one fierce and armed with sharp-pointed teeth, which gives endless trouble to the fisherman, and is of a remorselessly cruel disposition, while the other kind is naturally mild and tame, swims about in the friskiest way, and is quite like a fawning dog. It does not run away when any one tries to stroke it, and it takes with pleasure any food it is offered.

(19.) The sea-hare, by which I now mean the kind found in the great sea (for of the kind found in the other sea I have already spoken), resembles in every particular the land hare except only the fur, which in the case of the land animal is soft and lies smoothly down, and does not resist the touch, whereas its brother of the sea has bristling hair which is prickly, and inflicts a wound on any one who touches it. It is said to swim atop of the sea-ripple without ever diving below, and to be very rapid in its movements. To catch it alive is no easy matter, as it never falls into the net, nor goes near the line and bait of the fishing-rod. When it suffers, however, from disease, and, being in consequence hardly able to swim, is cast out on shore, then if anyone touches it with his hand death ensues if he is not attended to, — nay, should one, were it only with a staff, touch this dead hare, he is affected in the same way as those who have touched a basilisk. But a root, it is said, grows along the coast of the island, well known to every one, which is a remedy for the swooning which ensues. It is brought close to the nostrils of the person who has fainted, who thereupon recovers consciousness. But should the remedy not be applied the injury proves fatal to life, so noxious is the vigour which this hare has at its command.

Frag. XV. B. follows here.*

[*This is the fragment in which AElian describes the one-horned animal which he calls the Kartazon. Rosenmuller, who has treated at largo of the unicorn, which he identifies with the Indian rhinoceros, thinks that AElian probably borrowed his account of it from Ktesias, who when in Persia may have heard exaggerated accounts of it, or may have seen it represented in sculpture with variations from its actual appearance. Tychsen derives its name from Kerd, an old name, he says, of the rhinoceros itself, and tazan, i.e., currens velox, irruens. Three animals were spoken of by the ancients as having a single horn — the African Oryx, the Indian Ass, and what is specially called the Unicorn. Vide ante, p. 59.]

(22.) There is also a race called the Skiratai,* ...

[*Vide ante, Fragm. xxx. 3, p. 80, and p. 74, note +, where they are identified with the Kiratas. In the Ramayana there is a passage quoted by Lassen (Zeitschr. f. Kunde d. Morgenl. II. 40) where are mentioned "the Kiratas, some of whom dwell in Mount Mandara, others use their ears as a covering; they are horrible, black-faced, with but one foot 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 Kausi in Nipal, and another in Tipera.— Ed. Ind. Ant.)]

... whose country is beyond India. They are snub-nosed, either because in the tender years of infancy their nostrils are pressed down, and continue 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.  
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