Page:A History of Civilisation in Ancient India based on Sanscrit Literature Vol 1.djvu/62

14 We have no difficulty in fixing the dates of this epoch. Chandragupta, the contemporary of Alexander the Great, united Northern India in 320 B.C. We may, therefore, date the Third Epoch from 1000 B.C. to 320 B.C. For the sake of convenience, we will call it the Philosophical or Rationalistic Period.

The great political, literary, and religious incidents of the period require the wide space of seven centuries that we have allotted to the epoch; and all the facts that we know confirm these dates. The dates which Dr. Bühler has given to the Sutras of Gautama, Baudhâyana, Vasishtha, and Âpastamba fall within the limits given above. Dr. Thibaut assigns the eighth century to the Sulva Sûtras or geometry. Writers on Sânkhya philosophy assign the seventh century to Kapila's philosophy, and Gautama Buddha lived, as we know, in the sixth century.

These dates, which have been ascertained with tolerable certainty, confirm the dates which we have accepted for the previous or the Epic Period. For, if the philosophy of Kapila, which was a distant and matured result of the Upanishads, was started in the seventh century, the Upanishads themselves must have been composed several centuries earlier. And we are presumably correct in assigning B.C. 1000 for the Upanishads,—the works which closed the Epic Period.

The epoch begins with the brilliant reign of Chandragupta. His grandson Asoka the Great made Buddhism the state religion of India, settled the Buddhist Scriptures in the great council of Patna, and published his edicts of humanity on stone pillars and on rocks. He prohibited the slaughter of animals, provided medical aid to men and cattle all over his empire, proclaimed the duties of citizens and