Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/812

788 788 INDIA [HISTORY. accurate an account of the social organization in the Gangetic valley as any which existed when the Bengal Asiatic Society commenced its labours at the end of the last century (1785). Up to the time of Megasthenes the Greek idea of India was a very vague one. Their historians spoke of two classes of Indians, certain mountain ous tribes who dwelt in northern Afghanistan under the Caucasus or Hindu Rush, and a maritime race living on the coast of Balu chistan. Of the India of modern geography lying beyond the Indus they practically knew nothing. It was this India to the east of the Indus that Megasthenes opened up to the Western world. He describes the classification of the people, dividing them, however, into seven castes instead of four, 1 namely, philosophers, husband men, shepherds, artisans, soldiers, inspectors, and the counsellors of the king. The philosophers were the Brahmans, and the pre scribed stages of their life arc indicated. Megasthenes draws a dis tinction between the Brahmans (B/mxM&quot;&quot;&quot;) ail( l the Sarmanae CSa.pfj.dvai), from which some scholars have inferred that the Bud dhist Sarmanas were a recognized class fifty years before the council of Asoka. But the Sarmause also include Brahmans in the first and third stages of their life as students and forest recluses. 2 The inspectors 3 or sixth class of Megastheues have been identified with Asoka s Mahdmdtra and his Buddhist inspectors of morals. The Greek ambassador observed with admiration the absence of slavery in India, the chastity of the women, and the courage of the men. In valour they excelled all other Asiatics ; they required no locks to their doors; above all, no Indian was ever known to tell a lie. Sober and industrious, good farmers, and skilful artisans, they scarcely ever had recourse to a lawsuit, and lived peaceably under their native chiefs. The kingly government is portrayed almost as described in Manu, with its hereditary castes of councillors and soldiers. Megasthenes mentions that India was divided into one hundred and eighteen kingdoms; some of which, such as that of the Prasii under Chandra Gupta, exercised suzerain powers. The village system is well described, each little rural unit seeming to be an in dependent republic. Megasthenes remarked the exemption of the husbandmen (Vaisyas) from war and public services, and enume rates the dyes, fibres, fabrics, and products (animal, vegetable, and mineral) of India. Husbandry depended on the periodical rains ; and forecasts of the weather, with a view to &quot; make adequate pro vision against a coming deficiency,&quot; formed a special duty of the Brahmans. &quot; The philosopher who errs in his predictions observes silence for the rest of his life.&quot; Before the year 300 B.C. two powerful monarchies had thus begun to act upon the Brahmanism of northern India, from the east and from the west. On the east, in the Gangetic valley, Chandra Gupta (316-292 B.C.) firmly consolidated the dynasty which during the next century produced Asoka (264-223 B.C.), established Buddhism throughout India, and spread its doctrines from Afghanistan to China, and from Central Asia to Ceylon. On the west, the heritage of Seleucus (312-280 B.C.) diffused Greek influences, and sent forth Grseco-Bactrian expeditions to (] IQ p un jab. Antiochus Theos (grandson of Seleucus Nicator) and Asoka (grandson of Chandra Gupta), who ruled these two monarchies in the 3d century B.C., made a treaty with each other (256). In the next century Eucratides, king of Bactria, conquered as far as Alexander s royal city of Patala, and possibly sent expeditions into Cutch and Guzerat, 181-161 B.C. Of the Grseco-Bactrian monarchs, Menander advanced farthest into North-Western India, and his coins are found from Cabul, near which he probably had his capital, as far as Muttra on the Jumna. The Buddhist dynasty of Chandra Gupta profoundly modified the religion of northern India from the east ; the empire of Seleucus, with its Bactrian and later off shoots deeply influenced the science and art of Hin dustan from the west. Brahman astronomy owed much to the Greeks, and what the Buddhists were to the architecture of northern India, that the Greeks were to its sculpture. Greek faces and profiles constantly occur in ancient Buddhist statuary, and enrich almost all the larger museums in 1 Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian, being fragments of the Indika, by J. W. M Crindle, M.A., p. 40 (ed. 1877). 2 Brahmacharins and Vanaprasthas (uo /3ioi). Weber very properly declines to identity the 2ap,uaj/cu exclusively with the Buddhist Sarmana. Hist. Ind. Lit., p. 28 (ed. 1878). 3 The ((popoi (riodorus, Strabo), eViV/coTroi (Arrian). India. The purest specimens have been found in the Punjab, where the lonians settled in greatest force. As we proceed eastward from the Punjab, the Greek type begins to fade. Purity of outline gives place to luscious- ness of form. In the female figures, the artists trust more and more to swelling breasts and towering chignons, and load the neck with constantly accumulating jewels. Never theless, the Grecian type of countenance long survived in Indian art. It is perfectly unlike the present coarse con ventional ideal of sculptured beauty, and may even be traced in the delicate profiles on the so called sun temple at Kanarak, built in the 12th century A.D. on the remote Orissa shore. It must suffice to indicate the ethnical and dynastic Ethnu influences thus brought to bear upon India, without influ - attempting to assign dates to the individual monarchs. ence8 The chronology of the twelve centuries intervening between the Grseco-Bactrian period and the Mahometan conquest still depends on a mass of conflicting evidence derived from inscriptions, legendary literature, unwritten traditions, and coins. 4 Four systems of computation exist, based upon the Vikranicaditya, Saka, Seleucidan, and Parthian eras. In the midst of this confusion we see dim masses moving southwards from Central Asia into India. The Grasco-Bactrian kings are traced by coins as far as Muttra on the Jumna ; and Sanskrit texts have recently revealed their advance through the Middle Land of the Brahmans (Madhyadesha) toSaketa (or Ajodhya), the capital of Oudh, and to Patna in Behar. 5 The credentials of the Indian embassy to Augustus in 22-20 B.C. were written on skins, a circumstance which indicates the extent to which Greek usage had overcome Brahmanical prejudices. During the century preceding the Christian era Scythian or Tartar hordes began to supplant the Grseco-Bactrian influence in the Punjab. Scythic and Non-Aryan Influences. About 126 B.C. the Tartar tribe of Su is said to have Expul driven out the Greek dynasty from Bactria, and the Gr&amp;lt;eco- sio11 ol Bactrian settlements in the Punjab were overthrown by the ^ rU( Tue-Chi. c The Scythian migrations towards India culmi- dynast nated in the empire of Kanishka, who held the fourth Buddhist council, circa 40 A.D., and practically became the royal founder of northern Buddhism. The Scythic element Scy- played an important part in the history of northern India, thians, Under Kanishka and his successors a connexion was estab lished with the Buddhist nations of central and eastern Asia, traces of which survived to the time of Hwen Tsang (629-645 A.D.) in the name of China-pati, about 10 miles to the west of the Beas river. 7 China-pati is said to Lave been the town which Kanishka appointed for the residence of his Chinese hostages, It has been suggested that the Asivamedha, or great horse sacrifice, in some of its Indian developments at any rate, was based upon Scythic ideas. &quot;It was in effect,&quot; writes Mr Edward Thomas, &quot;a martial challenge, which consisted in letting the victim who was to crown the imperial triumph at the year s end go free to wander at will over the face of the earth, its sponsor being bound to follow its hoofs, and to conqueror conciliate&quot; the chiefs through whose territories it passed. Such a prototype seems to him to shadow forth the life of the Central Asia communities of the horseman class, &quot;among 4 The evidence is well indicated in the Report of the Archaeological Survey of Western India for 1874-75, p. 49 (Mr E. Thomas s monograph). & Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., p. 251-52, with his valuable notes, quot ing Goldstiicker (ed. 1 S 78). 6 Pe Guignes, supported by Professor Cowell on the evidence of coins. Appendix to Elphinstone s History of India, p. 269 (ed. 1866). 7 General Cunningham s Anc. Geog. Ind., p. 200.