Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/66

 50 INDIA. Ganges, commencing with Taxila near the Indus, or Lahore on that river, and passing thence to Palibothra. This was called the Royal Road. It is remarkable that the Ramayana describes a road from Ayodhiya (Oude), over the Ganges and the Jumna, to Hastinapura and Lahore, which must be nearly identical with that mentioned in the Greek geographers. The commerce, which appears to have existed between the interior of Asia, India, and the land of the Sinae and Serica, is very remarkable. It is stated that from Tliina (the capital of the Sinae) fine cottons and silk were sent on foot to Baotra, and thence droven the Ganges to Limyrica. (^Peripl. p. 36.) The Periplus speaks of a sort of annual fair which was held within the territory of the Thinae, to which malabathrom (betel) was imported from India. It is not easy to make out whereabouts Thina itself was situated, and none of the modern attempts at identification appear to us at all satisfactory: it is clearly, however, a northern town, in the direction of Ladakh in Thibet, and not, as Ptolemy placed it, at Malacca in Tenasserim, or, as Vincent ( Voyage of Nearchus, vol. ii. p. 735) conjectured, at Arraocm. It is curious that silk should be so constantly mentioned as an article of import from other countries, especially Serica, as there is every reason to suppose that it was indigenous in India; the name for silk throughout the whole of the Indian Archipelago being the Sanscrit word sufra. (Colebrooke, Astat. Res. vol. v. p. 61.) It is impossible to give in this work any de- tails as to the knowledge of ancient India ex- hibited in the remains of native poems or histories. The whole of this subject has been examined with great ability by Lassen in his Indische Alterthiims- hunde; and to his pages, to which we are indebted for most of the Sanscrit names which we have from time to time inserted, we must refer our readers. From the careful comparison which has been made by Lassen and other orientalists (among whom Pott deserves especial mention) of the Indian names pre- served by the Greek writers, a great amount of evidence has been adduced in favour of tlie general faithfulness of those who recorded what they saw or heard. In many instances, as may be seen by the names we have already quoted, the Greek writers have been content with a simple adaptation of the sounds which they heard to those best suited for tlieir own pronunciation. When we consider the barbarous words which have come to Europe in modern times as tlie European representations of the names of places and peo[)les existing at the present time, we have reason to be surprised at the accuracy with which Greek ears appreciated, and the Greek language preserved, names which must have ap- peai-ed to Greeks far more barbarous than they would have seemed to the modern conquerors of the country. The attention of modern scholars has detected many words of genuine Indian origin in a Greek dress; and an able essay by Prof. Tychsen on such words in the fragments of Ctesias will repay the perusal of those who are interested in such subjects. (See Heeren, Asiatic Nations, vol. ii. Append. 4, ed. Lond. 1846.) The generic name of the inhabitants of the whole country to the E. of Persia and S. of the Himalaya mountains (with the exception of the Seres) was, in ancient times, Indi ('IfSoI), or Indians. It is true that the appellation referred to a much wider or much less extensive range of country, at different periods of history. There can, however, be no doubt, that INDIA. when the ancient writers speak of the Indi, they mean the inhabitants of a vast territory in the SE. part of Asia. The extension of the meaning of the name depended on the extension of the knowledge of India, and may be traced, though less completely, in the same manner as we have traced the gradual progress of knowledge relative to the land itself. The Indi are mentioned in more than one of the fragments of Hecataeus (Hecat. Frarjvi. 175, 178), and are stated by Aeschylus to have been a people in the neighbourhood of the Aethiopians, viho made use of camels. {Siippl. 284 — 287.) Herodotus is the first ancient author who may be said to give any real description of them ; and lie is led to refer to them, only because a portion of this countiy, which ad- joined the territory of Dareius, was included in one of the satrapies of his vast empire, and, therefore, paid him tribute. Some part of his narrative (iii. 94 — 106, iv. 44, vii. 65) may be doubted, as clearly from hearsay evidence; some is certainly fabulous. The sum of it is, that the Indians were the most populous and richest nation which he knew of (iii. 94), and that they consisted of many different tribes, speaking different languages. Some of them, he states, dwelt in the immediate neighbourhood of the Aethiopians, and were, like them, black in colour (iii. 98, 101); some, in the marshes and desert land still further E. The manners of these tribes, whom he calls Padaei, and Callatiae or Calantiae, were in the lowest grade of civilisation, — a wandering race, living on raw flesh and raw fish, and of can- nibal habits. (Cf. Strab. xv. p. 710, from which Mannert, v. 1. p. 3, infers that the Padaei were not after all genuine Indians, but Tatars.) Others (and these were the most warlike) occupied the more northern districts in the neighbourhood of Casjiatyrus (^Cashmir~) in the Regio Pactyice. Herodotus places that part of India which was subject to Dareius in the 20th satrapy, and states that the annual tribute from it amounted to 360 talents (iii. 94). Xenophon speaks of the Indians as a great nation, and one worthy of alliance with Cyaxares and the Modes (i. 5. § 3, iii. 2. § 25, vi. 2. § 1), though he does not specify to what part of India he refers. That, however, it was nearly the same as that which Herodotus de- scribes, no one can doubt. From the writers subsequent to Alexander, the following particulars relative to the people and their manners may be gathered. The ancients considered that they were divided into seven castes : — 1. Priests, the royal counsellors, and nearly connected with, if not the same as, the B^oxM"''fs or Brahmin.s. (Strab. XV. pp. 712 — 716 ; Arrian, Ind. 11.) With these Strabo (I. c.) makes another class, whom he calls Tapfxaves. These, as Grosskurd (iii. p. 153) has suggested, would seem, from the description of their habits, to hftve been fakirs, or penitents, and the same as the Gymnosophistae so often mentioned by Strabo and Arrian. This caste was exempted from taxes and service in war. 2. Husbandmen, who were free from war-service. They were the most numerous of the seven castes. (Strab. xv. p. 704.) The land itself was held to belong to the king, who farmed it out, leaving to the cultivator one-fourth of the produce as his share. 3. Hunters and shep- herds, who lead a wandering life, their office being to rear cattle and beasts of burden : the horse and the elephant were held to be for the kings only. (Strab. I. c.) 4. Artizans and handicraftsmen, of all kinds. (Strab. xv. p. 707.) 5. Warriws. (Strab. I. c.) 6. Political officers {efopoi, Strab.