description applies equally to Brahmanical ascetics of various schools.

The Greeks mention no temples, palaces, or other large buildings; but, according to Arrian, their towns were too numerous to be reckoned, and very probably as near toge ther as those described by Colonel Edwardes in Sindh. Arrian remarks that towns near the sea or any river were built of wood, because no buildings of brick would last long; not merely owing to the "violence of the rains, but also of the rivers, which, overflowing their banks, cause an annual inundation over all the flat country; but the cities which are seated on an eminence are frequently built of brick and mortar." He then goes on to speak of Palibothra, the chief city of India, "in the confines of the Prasii, near the confluence of the two great rivers the Erannoboas and the Ganges," which means Patna, near the confluence of the Sone and the Ganges. On the authority of Megasthenes, Palibothra is said to be eight miles long and one and a half broad, “surrounded by a ditch which takes up six acres of ground and is thirty cubits deep; the walls are adorned with five hundred and seventy towers and sixty-four gates." They reckon the length of India along the road called the King's Road," and they also mention milestones. Numerous conjectures are made concerning the size of India; Ctesias affirming it to be “equal in bigness to all the rest of Asia," whilst Onesicritus thinks it only one-third as large; and Nearchus asserts that the flat country extends to four months' journey. But they

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This mode of building is still adopted on the Indus, where the houses are raised on platforms twelve or thirteen feet from the ground. The houses at Rangoon, on the Irawaddy, are similarly constructed.

were aware that they knew very little about it; and Arrian says, "even Megasthenes himself seems to me not to have travelled over much of India."* They all agree in calling Palibothra, or Patna, the chief city of the Indians; and Strabo describes the magnificent processions of its festivals in terms which remind us of Alexander's entrance into Babylon :-elephants adorned with gold and silver, chariots with four horses, carriages drawn by oxen, well-appointed troops, gilded vases, tables, thrones, goblets set with emeralds and other precious stones, garments of various colours embroidered in gold, tame lions and panthers, singing birds; also birds remarkable for their plumage, sitting on trees transported on large waggons.†

* Arrian, ch. ii., iii., v.

+ Elphinstone, History of India, p. 243.

CHAPTER II.

"What eye can trace thy mystic lore,

Lock'd up in characters as dark as night ?"-ROGERS.

THE Macedonian invasion adds another scene to our diorama, for we now perceive the armies of Alexander traversing the whole of Asia, gathering followers in Syria, Chaldæa, Scythia, and Bactria, and pouring the heterogeneous multitude into India. From this time forward the historians of the western world may be appealed to for aid in disentangling the perplexed narratives of the East; but there was a hindrance. Hindu Kings had no dates, and the Greek version of their names was not recognizable; consequently it was impracticable to adjust the era of Alexander with that of any Indian potentate. Porus, Taxiles, and Sandracottus had no place in Sanskrit literature, although Strabo and others, who follow Megasthenes, represent the last as the most successful and powerful Raja of the period succeeding Alexander's death.

He was, they say, a military adventurer, who succeeded in fighting his way to the chief throne in India, and held his court at Palibothra, on the Ganges. But Sanskrit names translated into Greek baffled all conjecture, until about the year A.D. 1780, when it happily occurred to Sir William Jones that the Sandracottus of the Greeks might be the Chandragupta of the Hindus; and then it was observed that the Greeks often wrote the name Xandra Coptus, and that the Hindus in a similar manner wrote Chandra Gupta, -Chandra being the moon, and Gupta, protected by the family-name of several dynasties which flourished at vari

ous eras.

It was a happy day for Indian history when this discovery was made, for one date being fixed there was hope of adjusting the rest; but very much had to be done, for Sanskrit literature had opened upon scholars as a sea without landmarks. The Gods and the Kings floated free upon the waters, unfixed by dates, Vishnu and Siva side by side with Indra and Agni, Buddhism taking precedence of Brahmanism, and Buddha figuring as a Negro, B.C. 2000. But now the drifting history began to find safe anchorage, and gradually Indra and Agni, Brahme and Brahma were ranged in chronological order; whilst Vishnu and Siva were forced to give up their claims to remote antiquity. The Greek invasion and the reign of Chandragupta were as strongholds, either before or after which all names and facts were to take their places; and it was on coins, and in inscriptions, or columns, rocks, temples, and statues, that names and facts were to be sought for.

In A.D. 1787 Sir William Jones founded the Asiatic Society, in Calcutta, and particularly invited attention to

inscriptions. The Society commenced its publications in quarto volumes, much occupied with questions of priority,not only the priority of the Gods in the Vedas and Gods in the Puranas, but the priority of Pagodas in the east or of excavations in the west of the Peninsula, and many other questions now long settled. Some errors were proved, and much interesting detached information was recorded; but progress generally was slow, until the year 1828, when the late Mr. James Prinsep plunged into the subject with all the ardour of youth and genius. Professor Wilson was happily at that time still in India, and lent the essential aid of his cautious judgment and profound knowledge of Eastern languages. Thus supported, Mr. Prinsep and his enthusiastic young friends studied and collected coins until they established the fact that coins subsequent to Alexander bore inscriptions which were Hindu, but not Sanskrit. The Oriental scholars, not only of India, but of Paris and Germany, applied themselves in earnest to decipher these legends. In 1834 Dr. Mill succeeded in reading some obsolete characters on a pillar at Allahabad, and this prepared the way for the decipherment of the still older character of the coins.

To collect coins and study inscriptions became the rage; and as it was obvious that history could not be reached in any other way, it was a most justifiable occupation. In all these researches James Prinsep was the leader: he commenced with very little knowledge of Oriental languages, but his generous ardour brought him every required assistHis was a spirit free from jealousy and vanity: he worked openly himself, and invited and welcomed every contribution from others with a genuine, hearty love for truth and progress.

ance.