CHAPTER IV. and contented. It may therefore be inferred that they were not exposed to unnecessary interference, so long as they did their duty to the land. They were simple in their wants, and probably domestic in their lives. They knew nothing of politics; and they took no part in rebellions or revolutions. From time immemorial they had doubtless been brought up in the hereditary belief that all the land belonged to the Raja, that they were his servants, and that their primary duty was to cultivate the soil for his benefit; and this humble status they appear to have accepted with that blind ignorance which often constitutes material happiness. When the harvest was abundant, their share sufficed for all their wants; and in exceptional times of drought or famine, it is only natural to suppose, that as servants of the Raja, they could be supplied with food from the royal granaries, in the same way that the elephants and horses of the Raja received their daily rations. They married wives, and they became fathers of families; and if a great part of their time was devoted to labour in the fields, they doubtless had their times of holiday, and celebrated the same festivals which they still observe. Under such cir cumstances they would decorate themselves, and indeed the whole village, with garlands of flowers, not forgetting the trees, the temples, and the images of the gods; and then with the aid of some Bráhman they would offer their little sacrifices, and feast on such simple delicacies as their wives could pre

the Brahmans, and the narratives of the two Chinese pilgrims Fah-Hian and Hiouen-Thsang, the Raja only received one-sixth of the produce. Perhaps the Raja received three-fourths of the produce from his own special demesnes, which were cultivated by serfs; and one-sixth of the produce of all the lands throughout his empire, which were cultivated by the Ryots.

pare. Such scenes of rural life are not unknown CHAPTER IV. to modern India, although they are often alloyed by superstitious fear or priestly rapacity. But the Indian Ryots had one advantage over the agricultural population of almost every other country. They were not liable to military conscription. Indeed at no period of history do they seem to have been forced from their homes, and compelled to serve in the armies of the state. Megasthenes describes the soldier class as already forming an army of four hundred thousand men; and according to his account the Ryots were always regarded as non-combatants. Hostile armies might be fighting in their neighbourhood, but the Ryots went on ploughing and sowing, utterly regardless, and perhaps unconscious, of the work of slaughter that was going on around.76

Character of

the supervision over trades and

Megasthenes furnishes no information respecting the traders and artisans, excepting that they were artisans. subjected to an official supervision which seems to have amounted to oppression. Indeed such a system had a tendency to fetter all trade, whilst opening every avenue to corruption. But it is quite in accordance with Asiatic ideas. Indeed to this day the Hindús have proved themselves patient under every interference and exaction, provided only that nothing is done contrary to custom. It is the novelty of a measure which excites their suspicion and alarm, and occasionally drives them to acts of resistance or turbulence. It is therefore easy to

76 Megasthenes must have been all the more surprised at this immunity of the Indian cultivators, because during the Peloponnesian war hostilities generally commenced with the destruction of the standing corn of the enemy. But in the primitive religions of the Hindús, in which the earth was especially deified as the goddess of fecundity, such a proceeding would probably have been regarded as a species of sacrilege.

CHAPTER IV. infer that traders and artisans were reconciled to a system of supervision and extortion, under which perhaps they could in their turn purchase permission to charge a higher price or dispose of an inferior article.

Megasthenes as

regards politics reticent.

and religion.

Reticence of Upon some points Megasthenes is strangely Thus he only describes the external machinery of civil and military administration, and furnishes no information as regards politics or wars. Possibly he may have been deterred by diplomatic considerations from dwelling upon such topics; or he may have assumed that they would prove of but little interest in the western centres of Greek civilization. The religion of the Hindús seems scarcely to have excited his curiosity. Had Herodotus travelled in India, as he travelled in Egypt, he would no doubt have minutely described the several deities, with their temples and forms of worship; but he flourished in an earlier age, when religion was still the foundation of all intellectual culture. Megasthenes, on the contrary, was apparently imbued with the materialism of a later and rationalistic age, when reverence for popular deities was dying out in Hellas, and the Hindú sacrifices to their barbarian gods would be regarded with a pitying smile. Megasthenes certainly expresses the opinion that the Brahmans were in better repute than the Srámans, but he does not appear to have compared their dogmas. He simply saw that the Brahmans agreed in their opinions, whilst the Srámans were always wrangling."

This opinion of Megasthenes as regards the contentious character of the Buddhist monks is of more value than might be expected. Notwithstanding the superiority of their moral tenets, they are a most disputatious set; and unless kept within the strict area of orthodoxy by superior ecclesiastical authority, are prone to fall into heresy. Such was their character in the latter days of Sakya Muni, and such is their present character on the banks of the Irrawaddy.

78

of Bengal.

It seems somewhat extraordinary that neither CHAPTER IV. the Greeks nor the Romans knew anything of Greek ignorance Bengal. They had acquired a certain stock of information respecting the Punjab, and the Gangetic valley as far as Patna, or Patali-putra, but they had never made their way through Bengal as far as the mouths of the Ganges. They had some knowledge of the western coast of India from the mouths of the Indus to the island of Ceylon; but the eastern coast of Coromandel, and indeed the whole of the Bay of Bengal, was utterly unknown. Strabo, who flourished at the commencement of the Christian era, was conscious of this want of information. The Indian trade was carried on from Alexandria, vià the river Nile and old Suez canal, as far as the western shores of India; but, as Strabo himself says, very few of the merchants from Egypt ever succeeded in reaching the Ganges; and those who did were so ignorant, as to be quite unqualified to furnish an account of the places they had visited.79

Strabo, India, sects. 14, 15.

* Strabo, India, sect. 4. The yearly voyages undertaken by the Roman merchants between Egypt and western India are sufficiently described by Pliny (vi. 26). The voyage out lasted about seventy days; that is, thirty days from Egypt to Ocelis, the modern Gehla, on the south-western corner of Arabia; and forty days from Ocelis to Muziris, probably the modern Mangalore, on the western coast of India. The Indian Ocean was at this period infested by pirates, who seem to have had strongholds on the Malibar coast, especially in the neighbourhood of Muziris. Accordingly every Roman ship carried a company of archers on board. Muziris was also undesirable on account of the distance from the roadstead to the port, which rendered it necessary to carry all cargoes for loading and discharging on board canoes. Barace, possibly the modern Baroche, was thus considered a more convenient port. It is said to have been situated in the kingdom of Pandya or Pandion. The pepper of Cothinara, probably the modern Cochin, was brought to Barace in canoes.

Two important marts on the western coast are also mentioned by Ptolemy, namely, Plithana and Tagara. Plithana has been identified with Paitan, on the river Godavari, the capital of Sáliváhana, whose era, corresponding to A.D. 77, is still maintained throughout the Dekhan. The name of Tagara still lingers in that of Deoghur, the later capital of Maharashtra, at present known as Dowlatabad.

Embassy of
Pandion or

Cæsar.

CHAPTER IV. One authentic story has been preserved of an embassy sent by an Indian prince, named Pandion Porus to Augus- or Porus, which is invested with historic interest. This Porus was probably a representative of the same old family of Puru, to which the former Porus belonged who had been defeated by Alexander some three centuries previously. It is easy to conceive that rumours of the victory at Actium, the conquest of Egypt, and the greatness of imperial Rome, would reach the shores of western India, and inspire a powerful Raja, like Porus, with a desire, not unknown amongst Asiatic princes, to secure powerful ally from the western world.81 Porus sent

a

80 A dynasty of Rajas, known as the Pandyan dynasty, appears to have reigned over a kingdom also called Pandya, which formerly occupied the whole of the south-eastern quarter of the Peninsula, and had its capital at the town of Madura. It has accordingly been conjectured that it was one of these Pandya Rajas who sent the embassy to Augustus. It seems almost impossible that any Indian sovereign in such a remote quarter, could either hope for an alliance with the Roman emperor, or even suppose that Augustus could desire to march a Roman army through his dominions. On the other hand, the tradition of the invasion of Alexander the Great would still be preserved in the Punjab; and the reigning Porus might readily arrive at the conclusion that Augustus Cæsar was another Alexander. Moreover it will be seen hereafter that the embassy was accompanied by a priest, either a Brahman or a Sráman, from Baroche on the western coast at the mouth of the Nerbudda. Such a man might easily have found his way to the Punjab; but it would have been hard for him to have reached Madura.

It is not, however, impossible that an ancient empire, extending over an undefined region in the west and south, may have been nominally ruled by Pandya Rajas, who were representatives of the house of Porus or Pandion, and had some connection with the Pandavas mentioned in the Maha Bharata. Both Arrian and Pliny have preserved traditions of such a Pandyan empire. Herakles is said to have had an only daughter, named Pandæa, whom he subsequently married, and thus became the father of a race of Pandya sovereigns. Arrian also states that Herakles gave Pandæa a kingdom bearing her name (India, chaps. viii. and ix.). Pliny adds that this is the only kingdom throughout India which is ruled by women (vi. 23); but that there are kings of other nations, who were descended from Pandæa. Traces of this Amazonian empire are undoubtedly to be found amongst the Malabars on the western coast to this day (see History, vol. i., part ii., Mahá Bhárata, chap. xvi., note 17). Colonel Tod has pointed out an analogy in the legend of the birth of Pandu (compare Rajasthan, vol. i., page 30).

81 This passion of eastern princes to form remote alliances under certain circum.