B.

EXPLANATION OF THE LIST OF MEGASTHENES OF 153 KINGS IN 6402 YEARS.

WE are now arrived at the point from which we may proceed with some confidence to restore the accounts of Megasthenes, and to examine the degree of historical credibility to which they are entitled.

The tradition ran in this wise:

That according to authentic statements 153 kings reigned in India in 6402 years, ending with Sandrokottus, and during four ages, which were interrupted by democratical interregna of 200, of 300, and of 120 years.

It is needless to repeat that there can be no question about restoring the true chronology of the Indians by means of this list. But we must not overlook the fact that it stands alone amongst all the foreign and native accounts of India, in giving a chronology which is considered as consecutive, and a certain connected number of reigns, followed by three successive breaks; the separate years of reign being also noted. The sum total of these regnal years, moreover, was not a round number, but an historical one, 6402 years.

The first or mythical age, the list of kings and dates of the Arians in the Indus country, according to the facts adduced above, will stand thus:

Beginning; Manu-Dionysus

End; Krishna-Hercules

Years.

1000

Between these intervened thirteen human reigns, the first three of which, however, were mythical, and consequently had mythical dates annexed to them:

Brought forward

Spatembas, as the solar year 52 (weeks.)
Budyas, as the moon
Prareuas-Purûrava (rising sun)

28 (days.)

X.

We do not know the date that was assigned to him, but it naturally was mythical; none of the names can be historical till after him; at all events the dates of their reigns are expressed in numbers which corresponded to human reigns. Supposing the whole 13 to average 23 years each, we get about

Years.

2000

300 2300

Now we do not know whether this was a section of the first age, or the very close of it. close of it. We are without

any further details.

But upon analysing the extant lists of kings of the royal house of Magadha we find that, according to our present Brahminical accounts, there were about 48 reigns in 1600 years down to the close of the Nanda (reckoning the kings of that race as ten reigns, although they only comprise two generations). In reality, however, we have only about 32 kings, who reigned 553 or 673 years.

The beginning and end of the list, therefore, (the first and fourth age) must have comprised about 65 kings and 3900 years. There remain consequently, for the two middle ages, 88 kings in 2500 years, that is, on an average,

44 kings and 1250 length of reign of 28

years
years.

for each age,

and an average

In this computation we presume that the text of Megasthenes is to be understood as though the 620 years of the interregna, when there were no kings, are not to be comprised in the 6402. If, on the other hand, we deduct the 500 years of the first two interregna from the 2500 years which are to be placed to the account of the middle ages, and we cannot exclude this alternative, we have on an average,

44 kings in 1000 years with an average length of reign of less than 23 years.

It has been already mentioned that the extant Brahminical lists assign more than this number of kings to each of the two middle ages, and that we may consider 800 years as the probable date.

Now, as our computation is based upon the extant Brahminical lists of kings of this very kingdom of Magadha in which Megasthenes obtained his statistics, we may conclude that in the main the calculation is correct. At all events it appears from the criticism of the list of Megasthenes,

That the document we have before us is not a description of mythological developments, which were not worked up into the shape of narratives about historical kings and events until a later period. The older Indian computation, after deducting the first age, which was almost mythical, stands upon an historical basis, in tampering with which the Brahmins made it non

sense.

But we may also set it down as proven :

That here, as well as in Egypt, the Greeks obtained a more satisfactory reply to their rational inquiries after a chronology, than the one which our Brahminical authorities were able to extract from their records.

It is clear, at all events, that, in addition to the individual personages, circumstances, and events, which are

decidedly historical, down to the very latest tradition, this fundamental one has been preserved:

That the history of the Arians is computed by series of royal reigns, with continuous reference to the contemplated unity of one Indo-Arian kingdom; but that this regal succession was interrupted by three long epochs of anarchy, when the regal form of government was suspended.

All this is compatible with the existence of much that is unhistorical and uncritical in the details.

C.

HISTORICAL RESULT OF THE RESEARCHES INTO THE ARIAN BEGINNINGS.

WE will first analyse the purely chronological result. The oldest records and traditions of the Bactrian foretime, and of that of the "Five Rivers" or Indus country which grew out of it, are in harmony. We mean by this the record of the wanderings of the Arians, of the immigration to Bactria from the primitive country down to the immigration to the country of the Five Rivers east of the Indus; then the oldest traditions of the Zend books, of which the hymns only can be referred to Zarathustra himself; and, lastly, the historical hymns of the Rigveda.

If the Zoroastrian religion were Median as early as the 23rd century B. C., and were advancing towards the second stage of language as compared with the Vedic, Zoroaster the Bactrian cannot be placed later than 3000 B.C Nor can we venture to place him further back than 4000, if the immigration into India cannot have taken place earlier than this period; and conse

quently the exodus to the south of Bactria cannot be placed higher than 5000. But neither can it be placed later. For between it and the passage of the Indus, not only must the conquest of the intervening countries have taken place, but twelve vast countries were gradually peopled, and kingdoms founded on the road towards India; besides which a body of settlers pushed on to the Caspian, and laid the foundation of what was subsequently the Median kingdom, and through it of the Arian kingdoms of Persia, which grew out of Media. All this part of Asia became so thoroughly Arian by the expulsion or extermination of the aboriginal Turanian populations, that it has remained so to this hour, the nucleus of it at least, as being the oldest inhabitants.

This fits in most conveniently to the framework of general history, which the facts connected with language have obliged us to extend to nearly 20,000 years B. C., and which Egyptian research has enabled us, counting from below, to carry up to the oldest Pyramids, and even to Menes, i. e., up to the time when Egypt was a united kingdom with an established written. character, consequently almost to 4000 B. C.

Now there existed, prior to the year 4000 or 5000, the following epochs of Arian life, counting from below: First, the epoch of the common life of the Arians in its widest sense, that of the Iranians, Greeks, Italians, Germans, Slaves, and Celts. The existence even of the oldest of this series, the Celts, implies that the Semitic and Arian element was entirely separated, that the western and eastern polarisation was complete.

Secondly, the epoch of this very separation and the migration from the primeval country.

Now if our reasons for dating this exodus at about 9000 or 10,000 B. C. be sound, there will be space enough for the most colossal of all linguistic formations, the Arian, to its very zenith (that is, the Vedic which