discoveries, it is to be remembered that they did not begin till the eighth century, when they first gained access to the treasures of the Greeks. On these subjects, however, as on all connected with the learning of the Bramins, the decisions of the most learned can only be considered as opinions on the facts at present before us; and they must all be regarded as open to question until our increased acquaintance with Shanscrit literature shall qualify us to pronounce a final judgment. The history of science, after all, is chiefly interesting from the means it affords of judging of the character of the nation possessed of it; and in this view we find the Bramins as remarkable as ever for diligence and acuteness, but with the same want of manliness and precision as in other departments, and the same disposition to debase every thing by a mixture of fable, and by a sacrifice of the truth to the supposed interests of the sacerdotal order. CHAP. I. CHAP. II. GEOGRAPHY. BOOK THE Hindús have made less progress in this than any other science. in According to their system, Mount Méru occupies the centre of the world.* It is a lofty mountain of a conical shape, the sides composed of precious stones, and the top forming a sort of terrestrial paradise. It may have been suggested by the lofty mountains to the north of India, but seems no part of that chain, or of any other that exists out of the fancy of the mythologists. It is surrounded by seven concentric belts or circles of land, divided by seven seas. The innermost of those circles is called Jambudwíp, which includes India, and is surrounded by a sea of salt water.t The other six belts are separated from each other by seas of milk, wine, sugar-cane juice, &c., and appear to be entirely fabulous. The name of Jambudwíp is sometimes confined to India, which at other times is called Bharata. That country, and some of those nearest to it, * Some consider Mount Meru as the North Pole: however this may be, it is, in all the geographical systems of the Hindús, the point to which every thing refers. + Col. Wilford, Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. pp. 291. 298, &c. appear to be the only part of the earth at all known CHAP. to the Hindús. Within India, their ancient books furnish geographical divisions, with lists of the towns, mountains, and rivers in each; so that, though indistinct and destitute of arrangement, many modern divisions, cities, and natural features can be recognised. But all beyond India is plunged in a darkness from which the boldest speculations of modern geographers have failed to rescue it.* It is remarkable that scarcely one Shanscrit name of a place beyond the Indus coincides with those of Alexander's historians, though many on the Indian side do. It would seem, therefore, as if the Hindús had, in early times, been as averse to travelling as most of them are still; and that they would have remained for ever unconnected with the rest of the world if all mankind had been as exempt from restlessness and curiosity as themselves. The existence of Indian nations in two places beyond the Indus furnishes no argument against * The ill success with which this has been attempted may be judged of by an examination of Col. Wilford's Essay on the Sacred Isles in the West, especially the first part (Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. p. 267.); while the superiority of the materials for a similar inquiry within India is shown by the same author's Essay on Gangetic Hindostan (Asiatic Researches, vol. xiv. p. 373.), as well as by an essay in the Oriental Magazine, vol. ii. See also the four first chapters of the second book of the Vishnu Purána, p. 161. II. BOOK this observation. Those near the sea coast were probably driven by political convulsions from their own country, and settled on the nearest spot they could find. (See Appendix III.) Of those in the northern mountains we cannot guess the history; but although both seem, in Alexander's time, to have lost their connection with India, and to have differed in many respects from the natives of that country, yet they do not appear to have formed any sort of acquaintance with other nations, or to have been met with beyond their own limits. At present, (besides religious mendicants who occasionally wander to Báku, the sacred fire on the Caspian, who sometimes go to Astrachan, and have been known to reach Moscow,) individuals of a Hindú tribe from Shikárpúr, a city near the Indus, settle as merchants and bankers in the towns of Persia, Turkistán, and the southern dominions of Russia; but none of these are given to general inquiry, or ever bring back any information to their countrymen. Few even of the neighbouring nations are mentioned in their early books. They seem to have known the Greeks, and applied to them the name of Yávan, which they afterwards extended to all other conquerors from the north-west; and there is good reason to think that they knew the Scythians under the name of Sacas.* But it was within India that they became acquainted with both those * Supposed to be the same with the Sace of the ancient Persians, as reported by the Greeks. nations, and they were totally ignorant of the regions from which their visitors had come. The most distinct indication that I have observed of an acquaintance with the Romans is in a writer of the seventh or eighth century, quoted by Mr. Colebrooke*, who states that the Barbaric tongues are called Párasica, Yávana, Ráumaca, and Barbara, the three first of which would appear to mean Persian, Greek, and Latin. The western country, called Rómaka, where it is said to be midnight when it is sunrise at Lanka, may perhaps be Rome also. It is mentioned in what is stated to be a translation from the "Sidhanta Sirimonit," and must, in that case, have been known to the Bramins before they had much communication with the Mahometans. China they certainly knew. We possess the travels of a native of that country in India in the fourth century; and the king of Magada is attested, by Chinese authors, to have sent embassies to China in the second and subsequent centuries. There is a people called Chína mentioned in Menu, but they are placed among the tribes on the north-west of India; and, * Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 453. + Ward's Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 457. Rómaka is also mentioned as meaning Rome by Col. Wilford (Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. p. 367., and elsewhere); but it is to be observed that Rome and Italy are, to this day, quite unknown in the East. Even in Persia, Rúm means Asia Minor; and the "Cæsar of Rome" always meant the Byzantine Emperor, until the title was transferred to the Turkish Sultan. CHAP. II. |