treatise on Indian Chronology (Works, iv. p. 209.), the sacred books expressly place an Avatâra between the first and second eras. This impersonation, however, which does not exist in the Vedas, is Krishna. Possibly also the third divine hero, Râma, the extirpator of the royal races, is introduced by way of demarcation. between the second and third eras. Lassen points out this position of Râma as being an ancient tradition.2 It is clear that, according to Megasthenes, HerculesKrishna did not form a starting-point. The statement that his sons governed various kingdoms, and that the Pândava (elder or younger), the heroes of the third era, were descended from his late-born daughter, would look more like a termination. This is also in accordance with the history of Krishna, as related in the Mahâbharata.235 The first era, then, is represented by Megasthenes as having fourteen generations of human kings, with a God as the founder, and a God as the destroyer of the dynasty, in all fifteen or sixteen generations. Now, if we compare with this view of the subject the Arian tradition under discussion, we shall find, instead of Krishna, some of the patriarchs of the human race. In it, after Purûrava of the race of the Moon, in a line to which the ancestors of the kings of Magadha (Palibôthra) are said to belong, follows Ayus, whose son NAHUSHA (the man, human ?) is represented as being under the ban, on account of his overbearing character. Upon the death of his grandson, the highly honoured Yayâti, the partition of the world commences. He left his kingdom to his youngest son, Puru236, and to his other four sons the rest of the earth. 234 i. 501. note. "At the end of the Trêta-yuga, in Mahâb. i. cap. 2. v. 272., is placed the extermination of the Ksatriya by Parasu Râma” 235 iii. 275. v. 15. 872. seq. Lassen, Alterth. i. p. x. note. 236 In like manner, in Firdusi, when the earth is partitioned among the three sons of Ferêdun, the youngest, Iredsh, obtains the YADU, father of the Yadava, the people of the South : TURVASU, lawless races who were addicted to unnatural propensities, Mlekha (hence the Beloochees): the Yâvana are also said in some of the books to belong to them: DRUHYU, the progenitor of the inhabitants of the deserts by the sea, who had no kings: ANU, the patriarch of the Northern people. These four names are primeval; they occur in the hymns of the Rigveda in the same order. For our purpose the second and fourth are the most important. With respect to Turvasu, Max Müller has remarked in the "Outlines" that it seems to contain the tribal name of Turan and Turk. Turvasa, in the celebrated battle song of the Rigveda, the leader of the races who are the enemies of Indra, seems to be connected with it. 237 Originally, therefore, the Turanians are meant by it; so that from an Indian point of view the southeast of India might very well be assigned to this race, it being then inhabited, from the Vindya mountains, by Turanian races. But the sovereignty of the North is assigned to Anu. If this means any historical tribes whatever (which is very doubtful), they might be the Bactrians, or people of the North of Mesopotamia, more especially therefore the Assyrians. At all events it is a remarkable coincidence that the first God and the divine ancestor of the Assyrian kings is called ANU.238 original home country, i. e. Iran. The two others, Selm and Tur, obtain the western and eastern countries; Tur, indeed, Turkestan and Tshin (China). 237 Roth, on the Lit. and Hist. of the Veda, p. 94. In the Zend books the Turanians are styled Firdusi's TUIRYA, i. e. the foes or antagonists of the Arians. Turvasu means 66 one who possesses the treasures of his enemy," and Turvasa "one who conquers when he pleases." (Haug.) 238 According to Rawlinson, King Salman's name means "image of Anu," and Telani (the Telane of the Greeks), the cradle of the Now, according to the Sanskrit traditions, the patriarch Yayâti reigned a thousand years. 239 Here then we have the same conclusion, but under different names. The above remarks may suffice to prove the two points under immediate consideration: first, that the tradition of Megasthenes is really an Indian one, even according to the extant Brahmin traditions; secondly, that there is a break at the fifteenth king, in so far as the tradition of Hercules-Krishna forms the transition to a new race of princes. It is, however, still uncertain whether it is a simple break in the first period or the close of it. The Brahminical tradition would favour the former supposition, inasmuch as it evidently makes but one section in the first period with Yayâti. It contains a succession of names after Yayâti of Indian races, in the form of the hero of the same name, who is placed at the head. In the first place, for instance, PURU, in the list of the race of the Moon of Ayodhya (Aud), which has been already noticed. There was evidently a break at Puru. This, therefore, is the oldest genuine Indian name of a king, and from him a totally new world proceeds, acccording to the tables of the Moon-race, given in the Mahâbhârata. YAYATI, therefore, represents the interval between the era of the primeval world which is altogether unhistorical, and the Indian foretime proper. The name itself signifies "advancement, progress.' There can hardly be any history in all this, certainly no Indian history. It must depend upon the character of the sequel of the tradition whether the royal house, " Anu's hillock." The comparison between it and the Merman teacher, Oannes, proposed by Rawlinson, has also struck other commentators. But as there is here no question about similarity, but the very name itself, and as the North must mean the Semitic Lords of Northern Asia, we consider it justifiable to notice the coincidence. 239 Lassen, Alterth. i. p. xviii. n. 4. . whole period is to be discarded, or be considered as a stopgap to a lacuna in the historical reminiscence of the real beginnings. We have, however, a right to regard it in the light of a clearly distinct First period. The connexion between it and the most ancient Indian kingdoms was expressed by 200 years in the list of Megasthenes. The first era, therefore, concluded with a kingdom in the Punjab, of which only very vague reminiscences had been preserved. The second era in our Indian traditions evidently commences with the Sarasvati period and its kingdoms. Its great heroes are the BHARATA, and the Râmâyana is the epic representation of it and its violent end. In the third, the Pankâla (the five races), the conquerors of the Bharatidæ, struggle with the Kuru, and the latter again with the Pândava, after whose war of extermination the last era ensues. In the Vedas Panka Krshtayas and Panka Kshitayas (the five agricultural countries, or the five habitations in the concrete sense) represent the Arian races and then the human race generally. As the first era closes with Krishna-Hercules (according to Megasthenes), so probably does the second with Râma. As the Râmâyana is the epos of the former epoch, so is the Mahabharata the epos of the third. Here it is the princes themselves who, by their contentions, bring about their own downfall. The mythical thousand years here intervene again, as in the former case, between one epoch and the other.240 It is needless to enter into any further proof of the 240 From Haug's communication it appears that the period of a thousand years is mentioned in the late Pârsee books, and is called Hazâreh, i. e. Chilias; this is the time of the Prophets. Each of the three great prophets has his Hazâreh: Osheder-mah (wellgoverning Moon), Osheder-bâmi (well-governing Dawn), and lastly Sosiosh (who awakens the dead at the last day). See Haug, Gött. Gel. Anz., Dec. 1853. correctness of these views, inasmuch as it does not lead to any chronology. We have only to bear in mind that the reminiscences of three long historical periods, full of great events and locally definable, offer a confirmation of these accounts. The length of the period we do not know, but the three intervening periods alone comprise together 620 years, according to historical, not epical, data. If the conclusion to be drawn from these observations is that the cosmic eras were mutilated forms of real epochs, and the cataclysms were intervening periods of misrule, and that whatever historical matter the epic poems contain, be it more or less, is upon the whole circumscribed within the first three ages, and progresses organically during these—it will certainly be worth while to see whether it is really so hopeless a task to define the starting-point of the Fourth. The fact of the Brahminical starting-point, 3102 B. C., being in error by more than a thousand years at the time of Alexander and Buddha is sufficient to put them altogether out of the question. The only certain point is that Kandragupta, the Sandrokottus of Megasthenes, ascended the throne of Palibothra in the kingdom of Magadha beween 320 and 312, and I have no hesitation in agreeing with Lassen that this event took place in 315. But how are we to proceed any farther? Certainly only by commencing from below, and calculating upwards. C. THE LISTS OF THE AGE OF BUDDHA DOWN TO THAT IMME- SANDROKOTTUS overthrew the house of the Nanda. |