History of India/Volume 1/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
EXPANSION OF THE HINDUS
THE history of India received a new light in the Age of Laws, or Philosophic Period, when the Greeks visited India and also compiled accounts of it from report. The first two epochs of Hindu history receive no light, therefore, from Greek literature, but in this third era India began to be known to Greece. Not to mention the philosopher Pythagoras, who is supposed by some scholars to have come under Indian influence, we may refer to the allusions to India in Herodotus, the Father of History, who lived in the fifth century before Christ.
Herodotus never visited India, but he gives from report valuable accounts of the Hindus, although he mingles them with legends and stories, and often confounds Hindu customs with those of the uncivilized aborigines who still inhabited large tracts in India. He tells us that the Indians were the greatest nation of the age, that they were divided into various tribes and spoke different tongues, that they procured great quantities of gold in their country, that India abounded in animals larger than those of any other country, and produced wild trees which bore wool (cotton) from which the Indians made their clothing. He also mentions the fact, which is probably historically true, that Darius, King of Persia, subjugated a part of India, and that his ships sailed down the Indus to the sea.
And lastly, Megasthenes came to India in the fourth century before Christ, and lived in the court of Chandragupta in Pataliputra, or ancient Patna, writing an account of India which still survives in fragments preserved by subsequent authors, although his original work is lost.
We have seen that by the end of the Brahmanic and Epic Periods the whole of the valley of the Ganges and Jumna from Delhi to North Behar had been conquered, peopled, and Hinduized, and we also know that towards the close of this period Hindu settlers and colonists left the valley of the Ganges and penetrated into remote unknown lands, into Southern Behar, Malwa, the Deccan, and Gujarat. Thus these non-Aryan provinces were becoming gradually known to the Hindus, and were slowly coming under Hindu influence and power when the Epic Period closed and the Philosophic Period began.
The waves of Hindu conquests rolled onwards, and the aborigines submitted themselves to a higher civilization and a nobler creed. Rivers were crossed, forests were cleared, lands were reclaimed, wide wastes were peopled, and new countries hitherto aboriginal witnessed the rise of Hindu power and of Hindu religion. Where a few scanty settlers had penetrated at first, powerful colonies grew; where religious teachers had retired in seclusion, quiet villages and towns arose. Where a handful of merchants had made their way by
.jpg)
TRAVELLING IN THE NILGIRI HTLLS.
some unknown river, boats plied up and down with valuable cargoes for a civilized population. Where hardy warriors or scions of royal houses had dwelt in exile or by the chase, powerful monarchs reigned over a conquered, civilized, and Hinduized aboriginal population. And where foresters had felled trees and cleared small tracts of land, smiling fields covered with waving corn spread for miles around, betokening the spread of civilization and of the civilized arts of life.
Such was the history of Aryan conquests from generation to generation and from century to century in the Philosophic Period, and each succeeding Sutra work shows that the circle of civilization spread wider, and that the zone of unreclaimed barbarism receded farther and farther. And long before the close of this period, in the fourth century B.C., the entire peninsula had been reclaimed, civilized, and Hinduized, and primitive barbarians dwelt only in rocks, forests, and deserts which the Aryans disdained to conquer. It is not merely a story of conquests, which would have little interest for the philosophical reader. It is a story of the spread of Hindu civilization among hitherto unknown countries and aboriginal nations. It was the acceptance, by the Andhras of the Deccan and the Saurashtras of Gujarat, by the Cholas, Cheras, and Pandyas of Southern India, by the Magadhas, the Angas, the Vangas, and the Kalingas of Eastern India, of that superior religion and language and civilization which the Hindu Aryans offered to them. The gift was accepted and cherished, and henceforth the Dravidian and other tribes of Southern and Eastern India were Aryans in religion, language, and civilization. This was the great work and result of the Philosophic Period.
Baudhayana lived probably in the sixth century before Christ, and was one of the earliest of the Sutrakaras. In his time the zone of Hindu kingdoms and .png)
Peak to North of Khinchinjunga, 21,500 Feet, Sikkim.
From a Photograph.
"The country of the Aryas (Aryavarta) lies to the east of the region where the River (Sarasvati) disappears, to the west of the Black Forest (Kalakavana), to the north of the Paripatra (Vindhya mountains), and to the south of the Himalaya. The rule of conduct which prevails there is authoritative.
"Some declare the country between the Yamuna and Ganga (to be the Aryavarta).
"Now the Bhallavins quote also the following verse:
"In the west the boundary river, in the east the region where the sun rises, as far as the black antelopes wander, so far spiritual pre-eminence is found.
"The inhabitants of Avanti (Malwa), of Anga (East Behar), of Magadha (South Behar), of Saurashtra (Gujarat), of the Deccan, of Upavrit, of Sindh, and the Sauviras (South Panjab) are of mixed origin.
"He who has visited the Arattas (in the Panjab), Karaskaras (in South India), Pundras (in North Bengal), Sauviras (in the Panjab), Vangas (in Eastern Bengal), Kalingas (in Orissa), or Pranunas shall offer a Punastoma or a Sarvaprishtha sacrifice"—such was the extreme limit of the Hindu world about the sixth century before Christ.
That portions of Southern India had not only been colonized by this date, but had become the seats of Hindu kingdoms and of distinct schools of laws and learning, is proved by the writings of Baudhayana. Baudhayana himself may have been a southerner, at any rate he takes care to mention the peculiar laws and customs of Southern India. We will cite one passage:—
"There is a dispute regarding five practices, in the south and in the north.
"We will explain those peculiar to the south.
"They are to eat in the company of an uninitiated person, to eat in the company of one's wife, to eat stale food, to marry the daughter of a maternal uncle or of a paternal aunt.
"Now the customs peculiar to the north are: to deal in wool, to drink rum, to sell animals that have teeth in the upper and in the lower jaws, to follow the trade of arms, and to go to sea.
"He who follows these practices in any other country than where they prevail commits sin.
"For each of these customs the rule of the country should be the authority."
Let us now take leave of Baudhayana and come to the next Sutrakara of India. If Baudhayana be supposed to have flourished in the sixth century before Christ, Apastamba probably flourished in the fifth. There can be little doubt that Apastamba lived and taught in the Andhra country, and the limits of that great monarchy embraced all the districts between the Godavari and the Krishna, the capital apparently being situated near the modern Amaravati on the lower Krishna. It was the Andhra text of the Taittiriya Aranyaka which Apastamba recognized and followed, and his teachings are to this day held in regard by the Apastambiya Brahmanas of Nasik, Puna, Ahmadabad, Satara, Sholapur, Kolhapur, and other places in the Deccan.
.jpg)
CAPITAL OF HALF COLUMN FROM A TEMPLE IN ORISSA.
Thus we find that the conquest of Southern India which was commenced at the close of the Epic Period went on through succeeding centuries; that by the sixth century, Bengal, Orissa, Gujarat, and the Deccan had been conquered and Aryanized; and that by the fifth century the Deccan as far south as the Krishna River was the seat of a powerful Hindu Empire. By the fourth century B. c. the whole of Southern India south of the Krishna River had been Hinduized, and three great Hindu kingdoms, those of the Cholas, the Cheras, and the Pandyas had been founded, stretching as far south as Cape Comorin; and Ceylon, too, had been discovered. And when we come towards the close of this century, we issue now from the obscurity of isolated passages in the Sutra works into the sunlight of Greek accounts of India. For it was in this century that Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleucus, came to India and resided in the royal court of Chandragupta in Pataliputra, or ancient Patna, between 317 and 312 B.C.
The account of the races and kingdoms in India given by Megasthenes is full and intelligible, and gives us a clear idea of the state of the country at the close of the Philosophic Period.
The Prachyas, by which name we are now to understand the Magadhas, had become the most powerful and foremost nation in India in the fourth century B.C., as the Kurus, the Panchalas, the Videhas and the Kosalas had been in the Epic Period. They had their capital at Pataliputra, a flourishing town described as eighty stadia, or nine miles, long and fifteen stadia, or nearly two miles, wide. It was a parallelogram in shape, girded with a wooden wall pierced with loopholes for the discharge of arrows, and defended by a ditch in front.
It would seem that the whole of Northern India was now included in the powerful and extensive empire of Chandragupta, for the Jumna, flowing through Mathura and Caresbora, was said to run through the kingdom of Pataliputra. The nation surpassed in power and glory every other people in India, and their king Chandragupta had a standing army of 600,000 foot soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 elephants.
Speaking of South Bengal, Megasthenes mentions the Kalingoi living nearest the sea, the Mandu and the Malli living higher up, the Gangerides, near the mouths of the Ganges, and the Modo-Galingoi in an island in the Ganges. It is impossible not to recognize in the first and last of these names the ancient name of Kalinga, which included Orissa and the sea-coast of Bengal.
Megasthenes describes Parthalis as the capital of the Kalingoi. The powerful king of this place had 60,000 foot-soldiers, 1,000 horse, and 700 elephants. A large island in the Ganges is said to have been inhabited by the Modo-Galingoi (Madhya-Kalinga), and beyond them several powerful tribes lived under a king who had 50,000 foot-soldiers, 4,000 cavalry, and 400 elephants. Beyond them again lived the Andaroi, in whom it is impossible not to recognize the Andhras of Southern India. The Andhras were a great and powerful nation who had settled originally between the Godavari and the Krishna, but who before the time of Megasthenes had extended their kingdom as far north as the Narmada. Megasthenes writes that they were a powerful race, possessed numerous villages and thirty walled towns, and supplied their king with 100,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and 1,000 elephants.
In the extreme northwest, Megasthenes speaks of the Isari, the Cosyri, and other tribes located probably in Kashmir or its neighbourhood. The Indus is said to skirt the frontiers of the Prachyas, by which we understand that the powerful and extensive empire of Magadha extended as far as the frontiers of the Panjab, and embraced all Northern India.
In the time of Megasthenes a great portion of modern Rajputana was still the home of aboriginal tribes, of men who lived in woods, among tigers noted for their ferocity. He speaks of the tribes who lived in the fertile tracts surrounded by deserts, and of tribes who inhabited the hills, which ran in an unbroken chain parallel to the shores of the ocean. He also speaks of the tribes who lived enclosed by the loftiest mountain, Capitalia, which has been identified with Abu. He speaks further on of the Horatoi, who were undoubtedly the Saurashtras. They had a capital on the coast, which was a noble emporium of trade, and their king was the master of 1,600 elephants, 150,000 foot, and 5,000 horse.
"Next come the Pandoi, the only race in India ruled by women. They say that Hercules had but one daughter, who was on that account all the more beloved, and that he endowed her with a noble kingdom. Her descendants rule over 300 cities and command an army of 150,000 foot and 500 elephants."
Such is the half-mythical account which Megasthenes gives us of the Pandyas, who were the ruling nation in the extreme south of India. These Pandyas have a history which is remarkable.
The Yadavas, who, under the leadership of Krishna, left Mathura and settled in Dwarka in Gujarat, did not flourish there long. They fell fighting among themselves, and the remainder left Dwarka by sea. It is believed that they came to Southern India, where they founded a new kingdom. They probably called themselves Pandyas because they pretended to be of the same race with the Pandavas, and they named their new southern capital Mathura, or Madura, as the town is called to the present day. Megasthenes no doubt refers to Krishna under the name of Hercules, and he had probably heard some legend which was then current in India, about the foundation of the southern kingdom by Krishna for his daughter.
And lastly, the island of Ceylon was known in the time of Megasthenes. It was conquered by Vijaya, a prince of Magadha who had been exiled by his father for his misdeeds in the fifth century before Christ. When Megasthenes came to India, Ceylon was already a Hindu kingdom. The island was called Taprobane by the Greeks, the name being slightly altered from the Pali name Tambapanni, which corresponds to the Sanskrit Tamraparni, or the copper-leaved. Megasthenes says that the island was separated from the mainland by a river, and that the country was productive of gold and large pearls, and elephants much larger than the Indian breeds. Ælian, who wrote long after Megasthenes, but got much of his information about India from the account of Megasthenes, states that Taprobane was a large mountainous island full of palm groves, that the inhabitants dwelt in huts of reeds, and that they transported their elephants in boats which they constructed for the purpose, and sold them to the King of Kalinga.