Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/152

 133 the Brachmanse, a name comprising many tribes, among which are the Maccocaling ee.-f north and north-west. The Chisiotosagfi or Chirotosagi are perhaps identical with the Chiconss (whom Pliny else- where mentions), in spite of the addition to their name of ' sagi/ which may have merely indicated them to be a branch of the ^ftkas, — that is, the Skythians, — ^by whom India was overran before the time of its conquest b^rthe Aryans. They are mentioned in Mann X. 44 together with the Pau^drakas, Odras, DrAvidas, K&mbojas, 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 Ktratas. — See P. V. de St.- Martin's work already quoted, pp. 195-197. But for the KhAchars, see Ind, Ant. vol. IV. p. 323. t V. 1. Bracmanss. 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 Brachmanse, whom he takes to be, not what they actu^ly were, the leading caste of the population, but a powerful race composed of many tribes — ^the Maccooalingse being of the number. This tribe, as well as the Gangaridse-Ealingse, and the Modogalingse afterwards mentioned, are subdivisions of the ^lingse, a widely diffused race, which spread at one time from the delta of the Ganges all along the eastern coast of the pe- ninsula, though afterwards they did not extend southward beyond Orissa. In the MahdihhArata they are mentioned as occupying, along with the Yangas (from whom Bengal is named) and three other leading tribes, the region which lies between Magadha and the sea. The Maccocaling», then, are the Mag lux of the Kalingsd. ' * Magha," says M. de St.-Martin, " is the name of one of the non- Aryan tribes of greatest importance and widest division in the lower Crangetic region, where it is broken up into several special ^oups extending from Arakan and Western Asam, where it is found under the name of Mogh (Anglic^ Mugs)^ as far as to the Mdghars of the central valleys of Nepftl, to the Maqhayas, Magahis, or Maghyas of Southern BaJiibr (the ancient Magadha), to the ancient Magra of Bengal, and to the Magora of Orissa. These last, by their position, may properly be taken to represent our Maccocalingsd." " The Modogalingse," continues the same author, '^lind equally their representatives in the ancient Mada, a colony which the Book of Manu mentions in his enumeration of the im- pure tribes of Ary&varta, and which he names by the side of the Andhra, another people of the lower Ganges. The Monghyr inscription, winch belongs to the earlier part of Digitized by Google