CHAPTER XXV. INDIE ET SINARUM REGIO. INDIA. 1. India was bounded on the W. by the Arabiti and Parueti M3., on the N. by the Paropamisus and Emodi M3., on the E. by the mountains of the Sina, and on the S. by the Ocean. To the W. it touched upon Ariana, to the N. upon the territory of the Saca and Scythia extra Imaum, and to the E. upon the possessions of the Sina. It was divided by the R. Ganges, into two nearly equal parts, the Western of which, named India intra Gangem, corresponded with that portion of modern India lying Westward of the Ganges; the Eastern part, or India extra Gangem, included India beyond the Ganges, Tibet, Assam, and nearly the whole of the Birman Empire. It derived its name from the R. Indus, which was considered by many as forming its frontier towards Persia: the two provinces together contained 1,815,600 square miles, or threefourths as many as the whole of modern Europe. 2. The Greeks knew but little of India till its invasion by Alexander the Great, as may be inferred from none of their existing poets mentioning even its name.. The fabled campaigns, which some of their mythologists represent Dionysus, or Bacchus', and Hercules to have undertaken against it, were invented, after they had arrived at a considerable knowledge of the country, by the later poets to flatter the vanity of the Macedonian hero; and were not compiled from those vague and poetical accounts of real transactions, which, in many other countries, form the dawning of history. Sesostris and Semiramis are said to have been the first who extended their empire into this vast peninsula; they were followed by Cyrus, and subsequently by Darius Hystaspis, who penetrated as far as the Punjab and the borders of Little Tibet. But all these invasions made them very little acquainted either with India or its inhabitants; indeed the accounts which they received concerning them, may for the most part be classed amongst those fables, which were related on all sides, of the people dwelling at the extremities of the then known world, where actual knowledge was made up for by the ingenuity of invention. Amongst these fables may be included that of the Pygmæi2, or nation of black dwarfs, who spoke the same language as the Nunc quoque qui puer es, quantus tum, Bacche, fuisti, Cum timuit thyrsos India victa tuos! Ovid. de Ar. Am. I. 189. Victa racemifero lyncas dedit India Baccho. Id. Met. XV. 413. Oriens tibi victus, adusque Decolor extremo quæ cingitur India Gange. 2 Ηΰτε περ κλαγγὴ γεράνων πέλει οὐρανόθι πρὸς Id. IV. 20. 'Ηέριαι δ' ἄρα ταίγε κακὴν ἔριδα προφέρονται. Hom. Ι. Γ'. 6. Ad other Indians, but were so small that the tallest amongst them seldom exceeded two feet in height. Some of them were said to build their houses with egg-shells, whilst others lived in holes under the earth, whence they came out in harvest-time with hatchets to cut down the corn, as if to fell a forest. They were admirable archers, for which reason the king of India kept 3,000 of them as guards. Their animals were all of a proportionable stature with themselves, and upon these they went out to make war against certain birds, called cranes, who came annually from Scythia to plunder them. They were once governed by a princess, named Gerana, who was changed into a crane for boasting herself fairer than Juno. Later traditions, however, remove these Pygmies to the deserts of Africa, where they represent them to have attacked Hercules when sleeping after his victory over Antæus; they discharged their arrows with great fury upon the arms and legs of the hero, who, being effectually roused, was so pleased with their intrepidity, that he wrapped a number of them in the skin of the Nemean lion, and carried them to Eurystheus. 3. The campaign of Alexander, though confined to the countries watered by the Indus and its branches, gave the ancients considerable knowledge of the peninsula. He entered it near the modern city Cabul, took the important fortresses of Massaga and Aornos, and crossed the Indus and Hydaspes, on the banks of which last be defeated Porus3, one of the Indian kings. Alexander was so much pleased with the conduct of Porus, that he not only restored to him his dominions, but increased his kingdom by the addition of several new provinces; in acknowledgment of this generosity, Porus became one of the most faithful friends of the Macedonian monarch, and never afterwards violated the assurances of peace which he had given him. Alexander then traversed the Punjab as far as the banks of the Hyphasis or Beyak, up to which point he had conquered the whole country, and reduced 5,000 cities under his power. His veteran troops, however, who had hitherto faithfully followed him a greater distance from their homes than had ever been traversed by any army, now refused to proceed farther Eastward; no inducements of wealth or glory, which the daring ambition of their youthful monarch held out to them, could prevail in altering their determination, and when, at length, overwhelmed by anger and disappointment, he hid himself from them for two days, they retired to their tents full of sorrow and regret, but with resolutions fixed and unchanged. They are said to have been hurried on to this signal disobedience, not only by the horrible fatigues which they had already suffered, and the many hardships which the nature and climate of the country compelled them to undergo, but by the report of the deserts which they had still to cross, and the enemies they had yet to encounter: they recollected how their ranks had been already thinned in the parching plains of Persia and India, and how dearly bought some of their boasted victories had been, in the vain endeavour, which their monarch had held out to them, of reaching the remotest bounds of the earth. This disobedience was confirmed by the reports, which reached their camp, of the warlike preparations made against them by the king of the Gangarida and Pharrasii, or Prasii, which were said to be so enormous, as to fill even the veterans with such apprehension, that they declared first privately, and afterwards openly, they would follow their chief no farther in that direction. In this crisis of his affairs, Alexander yielded to the general wish, but he did so only under the pretext that the auspices forbade the crossing of the river; he accordingly made preparations for retreating, but first having enlarged the circuit of his encampment, he built twelve immense altars on the banks of the river, and ordered beds and other pieces of furniture to be left behind, of greater dimensions than corresponded with the ordinary proportions of man, intending them as a subject of wonder for all posterity. He then retreated to the Hydaspes, and having fitted out a large fleet in addition to the ships which he had brought overland from the Indus, he descended the river to the country of the Malli, whom he attacked and defeated; after this he sailed down the Indus to Patala, and subsequently to the sea, into which he advanced 400 stadia, being falsely represented by some of his companions as the first Greek who had ever navigated the ocean. Having performed sacrifices to Neptune, he ascended the Indus to Xylenopolis, which he had ordered to be built in his absence; he staid here some time to make arrangements for his fleet's proceeding to Babylon by the Erythræan Sea and Persian Gulf, and finally set off himself at the head of his army, traversed the Southern provinces of Persia, in the deserts of which he lost the greater part of his troops, and arrived at length at the Babylonian metropolis. His admiral, Nearchus, remained four months at Xylenopolis, waiting the proper season for the prosecution of his voyage, which occupied him three months more, at the expiration of which period he joined his sovereign at Babylon. 4. India, taken as a whole country, was at no period of its history governed by one monarch. At the time of Alexander's death it contained, amongst many others, two great and well known kingdoms; that of Porus in Punjab, and that of the Prasii in Bahar and Allahabad, the reports concerning whom so alarmed the Macedonians. The first of these was soon subdued by the Greek rulers of Bactriana, who from time to time extended their conquests over various parts of India: the kingdom of the Prasii on the other hand increased to a fearful extent, stretching as far Westward as the Indus, and including within its limits all the tribes on the lower course of this great river. Its king became at last involved in disputes with Seleucus Nicanor, and the Bactrian Satraps, who pushed their conquests as far as the Jumna and the Ocean, thus confining the Prasii to their old limits. Upon the breaking up of the Bactrian empire, and its invasion by the Scythians, the latter people, not contented with the conquest of the Persian provinces, crossed over into India about a century before the birth of Christ, when they seized upon the whole country watered by the Indus, which hence obtained the name of Indo-Scythia. Besides these, there were several other independent governments in the Southern part of the peninsula, which, from their having occasionally changed their extent as well as their names, appear to have also undergone considerable revolutions. 5. India is said to have contained more than a hundred different nations; its inhabitants were a fine, athletic race, and were divided anciently into seven Castes, though now there are only four. They had arrived at a very high degree of cultivation when they became connected with the Greeks, and many of their existing institutions, both religious and civil, may be traced back to that early period. India was reckoned by the ancients amongst the most opulent of all the countries of Asia1; it was also exceedingly fertile, producing almost every kind of grain, as well as many sorts of spices in great abundance. Its elephants were especially famed for their size and strength, and were much preferred to the African3; it was also greatly 4 Intactis opulentior Thesauris Arabum, et divitis Indiæ, Hor. Carm. III. xxiv. 2. 3 Quæque sui monitis obtemperat Inda magistri Its ivory is frequently spoken of: India mittit ebur,· Indum sanguineo veluti violaverit ostro Ovid. Trist. IV. vi. 7. Virg. Georg. I. 57. Id. En. XII. 67. celebrated for its tigers and serpents, the last of which were magnified by the historians of Alexander into an enormous size. India produced many perfumes, as well as precious stones and gold ; its woods, and the trees in them, were of a vast magnitude and height, and its ebony was very famous ; there is likewise some slight mention made of its indigo and sugar-cane. 6. The great range of mountains, which bounded India on the North, was known by the names of Paropamisus and Emodus, or Emodi Ms. 10 The former of these names, which the Macedonians out of compliment to Alexander, are said to have changed to Caucasus, was applied to the range in the neighbourhood of the Indus, and is still known as the Hindoo Coosh, or Indian Caucasus; the latter appellation was used to denote the remainder of the range, as far Eastward as the borders of the Sinæ, and is still preserved in that of Himachal, or Himaleh. It is the loftiest range of mountains in the world, several of its peaks rising to the height of more than 26,000 feet; and, from its being covered with perpetual snow, it obtained the name of Emodus, signifying in the native language snowy, an interpretation also given to the modern term Himaleh. It was from these mountains that the range of the Imaus struck out into Scythia, and divided it into two parts. The great river Ganges", which still maintains its name, rises Qua colitur Ganges, toto qui solus in orbe Virg. Georg. II. 137. Jd. En. IX. 31. Ovid. Trist. V. iii. 23. Audet, et adversum fluctus impellit in Eurum. Lucan. 111. 230. Omnibus on the Southern side of the Emodi Montes, and winds its way with a South-Easterly course of 1,650 miles into the Gangeticus Sinus, or Bay of Bengal, to which it gave name, and which it enters by several mouths: it receives in its course the waters of many great rivers, all much larger than the Thames, and from its importance to the natives, they paid it, as they still do, the most superstitious veneration. 7. INDIA INTRA GANGEM, or India West of the Ganges, included together with the I. of Ceylon 966,400 square miles, or about as many as the modern countries of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, Germany, Italy, and Greece. Its Western coast was traversed by a lofty range of mountains called Bettigus or Bettigo, now known as the Western Ghauts; it terminated in Comaria Pr., the Southernmost point of the whole peninsula, which has retained its name to the present day in that of C. Comorin. 8. To the South of the Emodi Ms., in the centre of India, are three great ridges of mountains dividing the courses of the rivers in that part of the country, and uniting as it were, in the Bettigo Mons already alluded to. The Northernmost of these, called Vindius or Vindhya, crosses the country from the R. Ganges to the head of the Gulf of Cutch, and sends out a spur into the Great Desert, known by the name of Apocopi Ms., or Deorum Pœnæ. Below it, and parallel with it, is Sardonyx Mons, now called Sautpoora, which separates the waters of the Nerbuddah and Tapty; and still lower down is Adisathrus M. Sechachull, dividing the course of the Tapty from the Godavery. The range of Mt. Bettigo, or the Western Ghauts, is connected towards the South with another ridge considerably lower than itself, called Orudii, or Aruræi Ms., now known as the Eastern Ghauts, from its running through the Eastern part of the peninsula. 9. The R. Indus 12, or Sindus as it was called by the natives, rises in the angle formed by the mountains Emodi and Imaus, in that part of Scythia which was inhabited by the Sacæ, and is now known by the name of Little Tibet; it assumes first a Northerly, and afterwards a Southerly course, breaks through the high mountains Paropamisus (in which some of the ancients placed its source), and enters the Erythræan Sea by seven mouths: it is still called Indus, or Scind, and is 1,700 miles long. It receives on its right bank the Choaspes fl. or Cabul R., called also Choes, from a little river of this name, which joins it. On the N. bank of the Choaspes was Massaga, the capital of the Assaceni, which Alexander besieged for a long time without success, until the troops who defended it, capitulated on condition that they should be allowed to depart Omnibus in terris, quæ sunt a Gadibus usque Juv. Sat. X. 2. 12 Quaque, ferens rapidum diviso gurgite fontem, Lucan. III. 236. |