Page:India — Wonderland of the East.djvu/11



The Twentieth Satrapy — Its reconquest by Alexander — The two great movements of the ancient world — The missionary religions — The Land and the People.

F the two great 'outsiders' of our story, China has already occupied some small share of our attention in the last volume, and will again do so in the next. The present is undoubtedly the proper juncture for considering India. The subject is almost a part of the story of Macedon. The great Peninsula is the only part of the earth from which Alexander was turned back (though not by an enemy). To glance at times still earlier, India is catalogued as the twentieth and the richest satrapy of Darius! Indian archers are said to have borne their part in the Battle of Plataea, and (to return to Alexander) we have hazarded the conjecture that the founder of the great and important Empire of ancient India was actually stimulated and inspired by the doings of the Macedonian conqueror. We may, then, well pause before