when the Greeks were yet in a state of barbarism, the Hindus were enjoying the advantages of a regular system of civil polity; and that their knowledge, as far as inquiry has gone, appears to have been indigenous, and not furnished to them by strangers. OF NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOTE A. (Referred to, vol. i. p. 9.) Hindu Accounts of Sandrocotus, King of the Prasii, and the celebrated Capital of Palibothra. SANDROCOTUS, sovereign of the ancient Prasii, is in the Sanscrit language termed Chandra-Gupta, which, according to Mr. Wilford, means him who was saved by the Moon. "By Athenæus he is called Sandracoptos, by other writers Saudracottos, and by some Androcottos. He was called Chandra simply; and, accordingly, Diodorus Siculus calls him Xandrames, from Chandra, or Chandram in the accusative case; for, in the western parts of India, the spoken dialects from the Sanscrit do always affect that case."* Sir William Jones, from a poem written by Somadeva, and a tragedy called the Coronation of Chandra, or Chandra-Gupta, "discovered, that he really was the Indian king Wilford, As. Researches, vol. v. p. 234. |
