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

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

BOOK V. THE ARIANS ON THE INDUS AND. THE GANGES

CHAPTER I. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE

CHAPTER II. THE ARYAS ON THE INDUS

CHAPTER III. THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND OF THE GANGES

CHAPTER IV. THE FORMATION AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE ORDERS

CHAPTER V. THE OLD AND THE NEW RELIGION

CHAPTER VI. THE CONSTITUTION AND LAW OF THE INDIANS

CHAPTER VII. THE CASTES AND THE FAMILY

CHAPTER VIII. THE THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMANS

BOOK VI. BUDDHISTS AND BRAHMANS

CHAPTER I. THE STATES ON THE GANGES IN THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C

CHAPTER II. BUDDHA'S LIFE AND TEACHING

CHAPTER III. THE KINGDOM OF MAGADHA AND THE SETTLEMENTS. IN THE SOUTH

CHAPTER IV. THE NATIONS AND PRINCES OF THE LAND OF THE INDUS

CHAPTER V. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE INDIANS IN THE. FOURTH CENTURY B.C

CHAPTER VI. CHANDRAGUPTA OF MAGADHA

CHAPTER VII. THE RELIGION OF THE BUDDHISTS

CHAPTER VIII. THE REFORMS OF THE BRAHMANS

CHAPTER IX. AÇOKA OF MAGADHA

CHAPTER X. RETROSPECT

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It was not only in the lower valley of the Nile, on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and along the coast and on the heights of Syria that independent forms of intellectual and civic life grew up in antiquity. By the side of the early civilisation of Egypt, and the hardly later civilisation of that unknown people from which Elam, Babylon, and Asshur borrowed such important factors in the development of their own capacities; along with the civilisation of the Semites of the East and West, who here observed the heavens, there busily explored the shores of the sea; here erected massive buildings, and there were so earnestly occupied with the study of their own inward nature, are found forms of culture later in their origin, and represented by a different family of nations. This family, the Indo-European, extends over a far larger area than the Semitic. We find branches of it in the wide districts to the east of the Semitic nations, on the table-land of Iran, in the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges. Other branches we have already encountered on the heights of Armenia, and the table-land of Asia Minor (I. 512, 524). Others again obtained possession of the plains above the Black Sea; others, of the peninsulas of Greece and Italy. Nations of this stock have forced their way to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean; we find them settled on the western coast of the Spanish peninsula, from the mouth of the Garonne to the Channel, in Britain and Ireland no less than in Scandinavia, on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic. Those branches of the family which took up their abodes the farthest to the East exhibit the most independent and peculiar form of civilisation.

The mutual relationship of the Arian, Greek, Italian, Letto-Sclavonian, Germanic, and Celtic languages proves the relationship of the nations who have spoken and still speak them; it proves that all these nations have a common origin and descent. The words, of which the roots in these languages exhibit complete phonetic agreement, must be considered as a common possession, acquired before the separation; and from this we can discover at what stage of life the nation from which these languages derive their origin stood at the time when it was not yet divided into these six great branches, and separated into the nations which subsequently occupied abodes so extensive and remote from each other. We find common terms for members of the family, for house, yard, garden, and citadel; common words for horses, cattle, dogs, swine, sheep, goats, mice, geese, ducks; common roots for wool, hemp or flax, corn (i. e. wheat, spelt, or barley), for ploughing, grinding, and weaving, for certain metals (copper or iron), for some weapons and tools, for waggon, boat and rudder, for the elementary numbers, and the division of the year according to the moon.1 Hence the stock, whose branches and shoots have spread over the whole continent of Europe and Asia from Ceylon to Britain and Scandinavia, cannot, even before the separation, have been without a certain degree of civilisation. On the contrary, this common fund of words proves that even in that early time it tilled the field, and reared cattle; that it could build waggons and boats, and forge weapons, and if the general name for the gods and some names of special deities are the same in widely remote branches of this stock, – in India, Iran, Greece, and Italy, and even on the plains of Lithuania, – it follows that the notions which lie at the base of these names must also be counted among the common possessions existing before the separation.

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These, the oldest accounts from the West on the ancient pre-Aryan population of India, and on the black-skins of the Rigveda, we owe to Herodotus. His statements about their physical formation are correct; those on their savage life may be exaggerated; but even to this day a part of these nations live in the marshes and mountains in a condition hardly removed from that of animals.

After the army of Alexander of Macedon had encamped in the Panjab, the Greeks could give more accurate accounts of India. Megasthenes assures us that India reached in breadth, from west to east, an extent of from 15,000 to 16,000 stades (1940 to 2000 miles), while the length, from north to south, was 22,000 stades (2750 miles);28 and in these distances he is not very greatly in error, for, measured in a direct line, the breadth is 13,600 stades (1720 miles), and the length 16,400 stades (2050 miles). To the north India was bounded by lofty mountains, which the Greeks called Caucasus, and the Indians Paropamisos (Paropanishadha29), and Emodos, or Imaos. Emodos, like Imaos, is the Greek form of the old Indian name for the Himalayas, Haimavata (Himavat).30 In India there were many great mountains, but still greater plains; and even the mountains were covered with fruit-trees, and contained in their bowels precious stones of various kinds – crystals, carbuncles, and others. Gold also and silver, metals and salt, could be obtained from the mines,31 and the rivers carried down gold from the mountains.32 The streams of India were the largest and the most numerous in the world. The Indus was larger than the Nile, and all the rivers of Asia; the Ganges, which took an easterly direction on reaching the plains, was a great river even at its source, and reached a width of 100 stades, or 12½ miles. In many places it formed lakes, so that one bank could not be seen from the other, and its depth reached 20 fathoms.33 The first statement is exaggerated, the second is correct for the lower course of the river. The Indus, according to Megasthenes, had 15 navigable affluents, and the Ganges 19, the names of which he could enumerate.34 In all there were 58 navigable rivers in India.

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