The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6). Duncker Max

      4

1

Whitney, "Language," p. 327; Benfey, "Geschichte der Sprachwissenchaft," s. 598.

2

"Rigveda," 1, 59, 2; 7, 5, 6; 10, 69, 6. Cf. Manu, 10, 45. That in the Rigveda the Dasyus are always enemies, and even evil spirits, is beyond a doubt, and cannot excite any wonder when we remember how the Indians confound the natural and supernatural; Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 22, 358 ff. On the original meaning of the word Dasyu, and its signification in the Mahabharata, cf. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 12, 633.

3

Muir, loc. cit. 5, 110, 113.

4

Lassen, loc. cit. 12, 440.

5

Lassen, loc. cit. 12, 461.

6

According to Whitney ("Language," p. 327), the language of the Kolas and Santals is quite distinct from the Dravidian languages. Lassen's view on the relation of the Vindhya tribes to the Dravida and the Nishada is given, loc. cit. 12, 456.

7

The Ganges (Ganga) is mentioned only twice in the Rigveda, and then without any emphasis or epithet; "Rigveda," 10, 75, 5; 64, 9. This book is of later origin; Roth, "Zur Literatur und Geschichte des Veda," s. 127, 136, 137, 139.

8

This name, it is true, may also have arisen from the fact that the Indians turned to the east when praying.

9

The root syand means "to flow."

10

Arrian, "Ind." 1, 3; "Anab." 4, 25.

11

1 Kings ix. 26-28; x. 11, 12, 22.

12

Lassen, loc. cit. 12, 651 ff.; 22, 595 ff.

13

Arrian, "Ind." 1, 3.

14

Steph. sub. voc.

15

Herod. 3, 94, 105; 4, 44.

16

Herod. 3, 102 ff.

17

"Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 47.

18

Herod. 7, 66, 70.

19

Herod. 3, 101.

20

Herod. 3, 94; 4, 44.

21

Herod. 3, 96, 98 ff.

22

Ctes. "Ecl." 1.

23

"Ecl." 1, 8.

24

"Ecl." 6.

25

Ctes. "Ecl." 3; Aelian, 16, 2.

26

Herodotus only makes a passing mention of the elephant in Libya, 4, 191.

27

Ælian 17, 29. Arrian also ("Anab." 4, 14) maintains that the Indus is 100 stades in breadth, and even broader; Megasthenes also relates that the elephants tore down walls, and that the bamboo was a fathom in thickness. Strabo, p. 711. That Ctesias followed Persian-Bactrian accounts is clear from the fact that the scene of all his history is the north-west of India. He knows that India is a civilised land, though he also believes that it obeys only one king; he knows the veneration of the Indians for their kings, their contempt of death, and some products of Indian industry. The fabulous stories of the Pygmæans, Dog-heads, Shovel-eared, Shadow-feet, and Macrobii he did not invent, but copied. Similar marvels of men with dogs' heads, and without a head, and of unicorns, are narrated by Herodotus, only he ascribes these stories to the western Ethiopians, not to the eastern (4, 191). Homer had already sung of the Pygmæans ("Il." 3, 6). Hecatæus had spoken of the Shovel-eared and Shadow-feet (fragm. 265, 266, ed. Klausen), and also Aristophanes ("Aves," 1553). Of the griffins, the one-eyed Arimaspians, the long-lived, happy Hyperboreans, Aristeas of Proconnesus had told and Æschylus had sung long before Ctesias (above, III. 232). Megasthenes repeats the legends of the Pygmæans, Shovel-eared, Shadow-feet, Dog-heads, and adds accounts of men without mouths, and other marvels. Ctesias, therefore, had predecessors as well as followers in these stories. The fantastic world with which the Indians surrounded themselves, the nicknames and strange peculiarities which they ascribed to some of the old population and to distant nations, reached the Persians, and through them the Greeks. "Kirata" of small stature in the Eastern Himalayas, against which Vishnu's bird fights, Çunamukhas (Dog-heads), "brow-eyed" cannibals, "one-footed" men, who bring as tribute very swift horses, occur in the Indian epics, and in other writings. On the divine mountain Meru, according to the Indians, dwell the Uttara Kuru, i. e. the northern Kurus, who live for 10,000 years, among whom is no heat, where the streams flow in golden beds, and roll down pearls and precious stones instead of gravel. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1, 511; 2, 653, 693 ff.; Muir, loc. cit. 22, 324 ff. According to the cosmology of the Buddhists, whose Sutras also knew these Uttara Kuru, Mount Meru is the centre of the world. To the south of Meru is Yambudvipa, to the north the region of the Uttara Kuru, who live for 1000 years, while the inhabitants of Yambudvipa only live for 100 years. Burnouf, "Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme," p. 177; Koppen, "Buddh." p. 233. Ptolemy, obviously following Indian sources, puts the Ὄττορα Κόῤῥα to the north of the Imaus, beyond the highest range, which with the Indians is a spur of the divine mountain Meru. This land and nation is obviously the garden of Yima and his elect, whom the myth of Iran places on the divine hill. These are the long-lived Hyperboreans of the Greeks, who dwell in the remote north beyond the Rhipaean mountains – one of the old common myths of the Aryan and Greek branch of the Indo-Germanic stock.

28

Megasthenes and Eratosthenes in Strabo, pp. 689, 690; Arrian, "Ind." 3, 8.

29

Lassen explains Paropamisus as Paropa-nishadha, "lower mountain," in opposition to Nishadha, "high mountain," by which the high ridge of the Hindu Kush is meant, loc. cit. 12, 27, n. 4.

30

Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 22, 324, 328.

31

Strabo, pp. 690, 691.

32

Diod. 2, 35; Strabo, pp. 700, 717.

33

Megasthenes in Strabo, pp. 690, 702; cf. Arrian, "Ind." 4. Diodorus allows the upper Ganges a breadth of 30 stades, at Palibothra a breadth of 32 stades – 2, 37; 17, 93.

34

Arrian, "Ind." 4.

35

Diod. 2, 37.

36

Strabo, p. 691.

37

Diod. 2, 37.

38

Strabo, p. 695.

39

Diod. 2, 37.

40

Strabo, pp. 690, 691.

41

Aristobulus

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