Page:Agastya in the Tamil land.djvu/93

78 greater should be his care and circumspection in satisfying himself whether every fact rings true or not. If once that attitude is relaxed, history is likely to become more a fairy tale than a strictly scientific record of carefully-tested facts. Still, it may be urged that there are cases where the assumption of more than one historic character going under one identical name seems to be necessary. Such an assumption, however, can be resorted to only in cases where strict historical conditions vouch for it. The creation of a dozen Agastyas to answer all the differences brought about by historic conditions and then to formulate the existence of a family of Agastyas to which all of them are to be traced is scarcely a justifiable procedure. In fact, this delectable method of creating a number of Agastyas, Rāvaṇas and Hanumāns and of an equal number of families to go under such generic proper names is too vague and indefinite for practical application. What does this family name connote in India? Does it cover only a simple family (gens), or a group (phratry) composed of many families, or a whole tribe composed of such groups? If gōtra names, such as Atri, Bhāradvāja, be considered as family names, millions of the present-day Āryans could be distributed under a few gōtras and be considered as the Atris and Bhāradvājas of this century. But this would hardly serve the purpose of any clear identification of the individuals concerned. Thus the gōtra name will in no way serve our purpose and need not be resorted to as signifying a definite individual in any period of our history except the first founder of a particular gōtra. Is it not a little disconcerting that proper names intended to identify definite individuals should thus be converted into indefinite generic names for uncontrolled and even whimsical application?

In this connection, the attention of these scholars may be drawn to a very wholesome principle of scientific