of Vashishtha, Some other tribes are also mentioned in the next verse to have received similar treatment.' Priyavrata, Swayambhva's son, divided the earth Col. Wilford, however, thus interprets them, which is obviously wrong: Plaksha includes Lesser Asia and America. Kusa answers to the countries between the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, and the Western boundary of India. Krauncha includes Germany. Shaka means the British isles. Pushkara is Ireland. Shalmali are countries by the Adriatic and Baltic, 1 Mr. Colebrooke (Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. I, p. 453) quotes an ancient Hindu writer, who states that the Barbaric tongues are called the Parasica, the Yavana, the Romaka and the Barbara; "the first three of which," says he, "would be the Persian, the Greek and the Latin. But which is the fourth and how Latin became known in India, it is difficult to say." And yet it is a well-authenticated fact that in the time of Vicramaditya there was constant intercourse between India and Rome, Owing to the destruction of the greater part of Sanskrit literature, it is impossible now to interpret correctly these geographical facts, not only because these are only the fragmentary remains of the Science of Geography inextricably mixed up with Puranic mythology and theology, but to a great extent because many of these ancient dwipas and countries have been so materially altered in consequence of the Cataclysm called the Deluge, as to have become impossible of identification now. The father of the modern geological science, Cuvier, expresses the following opinion regarding this Deluge in his Descours Sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe, p. 283 (5th Edition) :"I consider with Messrs. Deluc and Dolomieu that if there is anything established in geology, it is the fact that the surface of the earth has been the subject of a great and sudden revolution, the date of which cannot go much further back than five or six thousand years; that this revolution has sunk (enforce) or caused to disappear (fait-disparaitre) some of those lands which were formerly inhabited by men, together with those species of animals which are now the most common." We thus find that the Hindu civilization overran the entire universe, and that its landmarks are still to be seen all over the globe. Nay, it still lives and breathes around us. Says Monsieur Delbos: "The influence of that civilization worked out thousands of years ago in India is around and about us every day of our lives. It pervades every corner of the civilized world. Go to America and you find there, as in Europe, the influence of that civilization which came originally from the banks of the Ganges." LITERATURE. Was it not wisdom's sovereign power -ÆSCHYLUS: Prometheus Chained. THERE is no surer test of the real greatness of a nation than its literature. Literature embodies not only the intellect of a nation but also its spirit. It is a record of the learning, the wisdom, the refinement, the achievements, the civilization of a nation-a record of all that a nation thinks, says and does. Literature thus holds a mirror to the state of a nation, and serves as an index to mark its position in the scale of civilization and greatness. Mr. W. C. Taylor thus speaks of Sanskrit literature: "It was an astounding discovery that Hindustan possessed, in spite of the changes of realms and chances of time, a language of unrivalled richness and variety; a language, the parent of all those dialects that Europe has fondly called classical-the source alike of Greek flexibility and Roman strength. A philosophy, compared with which, in point of age, the lessons of Pythagoras are but of yesterday, and in point of daring speculation Plato's boldest efforts were tame and commonplace. A poetry more purely intellectual than any of those of which we had before any conception; and systems of science whose antiquity baffled all power of astronomical calculation. This literature, with all its colossal proportions, which can scarcely be described without the semblance of bombast and exaggeration claimed of course a place for itself—it stood alone, and it was able to stand alone. "To acquire the mastery of this language is almost the labour of a life; its literature seems exhaustless. The utmost stretch of imagination can scarcely compre hend its boundless mythology. Its philosophy has touched upon every metaphysical difficulty; its legislation is as varied as the castes for which it was designed." Count Bjornstjerna says: 66 The literature of India makes us acquainted with a great nation of past ages, which grasped every branch of knowledge, and which will always occupy a distinguished place in the history of the civilization of mankind."2 "The Hindu," says Mr. W. D. Brown, "is the parent of the literature and the theology of the world." Professor Max Muller says: "Although there is hardly any department of learning which has not received new light and new life from the ancient literature of India, yet nowhere is the light that comes to us from India so important, novel, and so rich as in the study of religion and mythology."4 General Cunningham says: "Mathematical science was so perfect and astronomical observations so complete that the paths of the sun and the moon were accurately measured. The philosophy of the learned few was perhaps for the first time, firmly allied with the theology of 1.Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. II (1834), W. C. Taylor's paper on Sanskrit Literature, Theogony of the Hindus, p. 85. 3 The Daily Tribune (Salt Lake City) for February 20, 1884. the believing many, and Brahmanism laid down as articles of faith the unity of God, the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, and the responsibility of man. The remote dwellers upon the Ganges distinctly made known that future life about which Moses is silent or obscure, and that unity and Omnipotence of the Creator which were unknown to the polytheism of the Greek and Roman multitude, and to the dualism of Mithraic legislators, while Vyasa perhaps surpassed Plato in keeping the people tremblingly alive to the punishment which awaited evil deeds."1 Professor Heeren says: "The literature of the Sanskrit language incontestably belongs to a highly-cultivated people, whom we may with great reason consider to have been the most informed of all the East. It is, at the same time, a scientific and a poetic literature." He "Hindu literature is one of the richest in and poetry." also says: prose Sir W. Jones says that "human life would not be sufficient to make oneself acquainted with any considerable part of Hindu literature.” Professor Max Muller says: "The number of Sanskrit works of which Mss. are still in existence amounts to ten thousand. This is more, I believe, than the whole classical literature of Greece and Italy put together."4 The Indian Sanskritist, Pandit Shyamji Krishnavarma, in his paper on the use of writing in Ancient India, speaks of Sanskrit literature as a literature more ex 1 Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, 2 Heeren's Historical Researches, Vol. II. p. 201, 3 Asiatic Researches, Vol. I, p. 354. 4 Max Muller's India: What can it teach us? p. 84, |