The project of writing the “Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments” has long occupied my thoughts, but the duties of my office do not permit me, so long as I remain in active service, to devote the time and attention necessary for the execution and completion of so arduous an undertaking. There is, indeed, little prospect that my project will ever be fully carried into effect by me. Be that as it may, I have made some small progress in the collection of materials, and have been compelled from time to time to make detailed preparatory studies of special subjects. I propose to publish these studies occasionally under the general title of “Prolegomena to Ancient Indian History.” The essay now presented as No. I of the series is that which happens to be the first ready. It grew out of a footnote to the draft of a chapter on the history of Candra Gupta II.

It is well known that the people of Arakan are an offshoot of the Burman race, the accepted account being that they first crossed the range of mountains called the Arakan Yoma about b.c. 825 under a Prince Kanruga-gyi. It seems probable that the small portion of the country then inhabited was settled by a few of the advance-guard of the Chin-Lushai or IsTaga tribesmen, with perhaps some colonies of Indians on the sea-coast. These were expelled or absorbed; and the Arakanese kingdom, having its centre in the flat open plains of the Akyab district, gradually extended south as far as the Mawyon-gyaw Hills, in the Sandoway district, and north to Chittagong (a.d. 1450). It was finally crushed by an invasion of Burmans from the east of the Yoma in 1784. The people of Arakan have, however, preserved their peculiar dialect, and in certain customs they differ slightly from the Burmese, against whom in some of the purely Arakanese parts is still cherished a deep hatred, born from the cruel manner in which they were handled at the Burmese conquest. It must be admitted, indeed, that in their intertribal wars the peoples of the Tibeto-Burman race have endeavoured to enforce in the strictest possible manner the modern doctrine of the “survival of the fittest.” Owing to the steady immigration into Arakan of natives of India, principally from the Province of Bengal, which has been going on for centuries, the physical type of the people has been sensibly altered from the pure Mongoloid cast of their first progenitors.

Amongst the most remarkable instances of the result of careful observation and systematized thought which Western Asia has given to the world at large, are the Signs of the Zodiac, and the ancient extra-zodiacal constellation-figures, northern and southern; and by ‘ancient’ I mean those which have been enshrined for all future time in the Phainomena of Aratos. Of the Twelve Signs I shall only speak incidentally. It is now many years since Ideler and Guigniaut, contrary to the views of Letronne, arrived at the correct conclusion that the Signs of the Zodiac came, with so much else of archaic thought and civilization, from, the Euphrates Valley; and, having firmly established themselves in Hellenic usage, were afterwards carried by Greek conquerors as far as India in the east and Egypt in the south. But, although modern research has supplied an immense amount of material for the purpose, it is remarkable that the classic work of Ideler still gives the best account of the constellation-figures and their various stars. Surely, then, it is time that an effort was made to utilize in a connected form some at least of the results of subsequent investigation; and, although the inquiry, like all such, is progressive, and, like all researches into the ancient and archaic past, is beset with numerous difficulties, yet the principles to be applied and the general outlines of the subject are clear and distinct.

In his important “Contributions to the History of the Mahābhārata,” Dr. Bühler has proved that in Kumārila's time, i.e. in the first half of the eighth century, there existed a Mahābhārata, attributed to the sage Vyāsa, which was not merely an epic poem, but was looked upon as a Smṛti, or sacred tradition; and that it contained not only the Çānti and Anuçāsana Parvans, but also many other portions found in our editions of the Mahābhārata, which have been repeatedly declared to be “late additions.” Dr. Bühler has further shown that inscriptions of about A.D. 500 quote the Mahābhārata as an authority on sacred law, and describe it as a bulky work, containing 100,000 verses. And as we must allow some time, say a century or two, for the gradual development of this sacred character, he concludes “that the Mahābhārata certainly was a Smṛti or Dharmaçāstra from A.D. 300, and that about A.D. 500 it certainly did not differ essentially in size and in character from the present text.” Dr. Bühler adds that further researches “will in all probability enable us to push back the lower limits, which have been thus established provisionally, by four to five centuries and perhaps even further.”

It may interest students of Buddhism to learn that the famous Questions of King ‘Milinda’ appear to be known to the Tibetans.

Last year (1895), when I was making inquiries on this subject from Lāmas at Darjiling, I found that most of the Lāmas knew of the existence in their literature of conversations purporting to have been held between Nāgasēna and a certain ancient king, who, however, was named ‘Ananta,’ and not ‘Menander’ or ‘Milinda.’ I failed to procure any Tibetan text or book bearing on this question, except the few references which will presently be cited. But from the character of the questions, as quoted from memory by the Lāmas, and the statement that this king Ananta was the greatest of Nāgasēna's converts, there could be little doubt that he is intended for the same person as the ‘Milinda’ (or Menander) of the Pāli text.

Besides Ṡubḥ-i-Ezel and his family, there reside at Famagusta, in Cyprus, three Ezelīs, all natives of Zanjān, who have settled there in order to be near their master. Two of these, Ustā Maḥmūd and Sheykh 'Alī Bakhsh, are brothers, sons of a certain Hājī Muḥammad Ḥuseyn, who was one of the Bābīs put to death in cold blood by Amīr Aslān Khān after the suppression of the Bābī rising at Zanjān in the winter of 1850. The third, named Āqā 'Abdu'1-Aḥad, who is the author of the following narrative, is the most interesting personality of the three. Living alone in a small, bare lodging, surrounded by unsympathetic and suspicious Turks, and admitted to the presence of Ṡubḥ-i-Ezel (for whose sake he has thus cut himself off from his friends, his relatives, and his native land) only, perhaps, once in ten days or a fortnight, he nevertheless exhibits a constant cheerfulness of demeanour, a scrupulous neatness of apparel, and an uncomplaining resignation and patience which command one's respect. I first made his acquaintance, and that of his two fellow-townsmen, during the fortnight which I spent at Famagusta in the spring of 1890; but it was not until the spring of last year (March 18–25, 1896) that I had an opportunity of seeing him again, and only then did I learn that a suggestion which I had formerly made to him, that he should set down in writing his recollections of the siege of Zanjān and of the calamities which subsequently befell the Bābīs there, had actually led him to compile the interesting narrative of which I here offer a translation.

The doctrine of the Pratītyasamutpāda is expounded at considerable length in the sixteenth chapter of the Caṇḍamahā-roṣaṇa-tantra (MSS. of the Royal Asiatic Society, the Société Asiatique, and Cambridge).

As is well known, the doctrine expressed in this very difficult formula forms one of the details of Buddhist doctrine regarded by the early Buddhists themselves as of primary importance; and its meaning has been frequently discussed. Mr. Waddell lately published in our Journal the explanation of the Lamas of Tibet; and the fullest account of the whole question will be found in Professor Rhys Davids's “American Lectures,” pp. 120, 155–161, where previous discussions are referred to. Since then M. Senart has published a very interesting article on the same subject, which is as rich in the results ascertained as remarkable for the elegance of its deductions.

The following history of the reign of the great conqueror, Samudra Gupta, who was emperor of Northern India, and made extensive, though temporary, conquests in the south, about the middle of the fourth century of the Christian era, is offered as a specimen of the author's projected “Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments.” Though that projected history may never be completed, I venture to think that fragments of it may not be altogether valueless, and that they may suffice to prove that even now the materials exist for the construction of an authentic and fairly readable “History of Ancient India.”

In the early years of the tenth century a.d. the Emperor Leo VI, surnamed the Philosopher, gave much scandal to the ecclesiastics of Constantinople by his fourth marriage with the beautiful Zoe; a fourth being naturally a degree worse than a third marriage, and this the Eastern Church had lately “censured as a state of legal fornication,” for reasons which Gibbon discusses in chapter xlviii of the “Decline and Fall” However, “the Emperor required a female companion, and the Empire a legitimate heir,” and so, since he had found himself again a childless widower, Leo the Philosopher promptly celebrated his fourth nuptials, the patriarch Nicholas notwithstanding, who, having refused his blessing, was exiled. The fruit of this marriage was Constantine, surnamed Porphyrogenitus, that is, Born-in-the-Purple, from the porphyry chamber in the palace at Constantinople, where he had first seen the light; and in the year 911 a.d., when of the age of six, Constantine VII succeeded his father on the throne.

The present section is exclusively devoted to the text of Udbhaṭa's Alaṅkārasārasahgraha, a short account of which was given in the former part of these Notes. Unfortunately I have had to depend almost entirely upon one manuscript, a copy, in Dr. Bühler's collection, of that found by him in Jesalmir and deposited in the Government Library in Poona. It is neatly and carefully written, however, and can generally be relied upon; and, where the text-portion of it fails, the commentary which accompanies it not infrequently supplies the deficiency. Besides these, the quotations from Udbhaṭa which are found in later writers have afforded valuable aid.

In a paper entitled ‘On some Ceremonies for Producing Rain,’ which I published in the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, I gave a short description of the Har Paraurī, or the “Behāri Women's Ceremony for Producing Rain,” to the following effect:—

“The other day I came across another curious custom, peculiar to this part of the country, the observance whereof is supposed to bring down rain. It was at about ten o'clock in the night of Saturday, the 25th June last (1892), as I was about to retire to bed, I heard a great noise made by the singing, in high-pitched tones, of some women in front of our house (at Chupra). I thought that the women were parading the streets, singing songs, as they often do before some marriage takes place in a family. But, on making inquiries next morning, I came to learn that the previous night's singing formed part and parcel of a rainbringing ceremony, known, at least in this district (Saran), as the Har Paraurī, and that some women of the locality had formed themselves into a little band and paraded the neighbouring streets, singing certain songs, which they superstitiously believed would surely bring down showers. Curiously enough, a tolerably good shower of rain fell during the afternoon of the following day.”

It is probably well known to most readers interested in tenure questions, that the villages of the Dakhan Districts of Bombay are in that form in which no joint-ownership of the whole (separately named) area appears: the holdings within the village are entirely separate, and no area of waste land is included as the ‘ common ’ property of the whole body, and capable of partition. But apart from the fact that the village is a geographical unit, the feeling of being a ‘ community ’ is maintained by the common interests and customs of the local group, by obedience to one hereditary headman, and by its self-contained life : having its own staff of artizans and servants, the village does not need to look outside its own limits for the supply of its ordinary wants. This constitution is quite different from that of the joint-village of Upper India, though some features (such as the artizan staff) must necessarily be common to both.

More marvellous and more remarkable than the real conquests of Alexander are the stories circulated about him, and the legends which have clustered round his name and his exploits. The history of Alexander has, from a very early period, been embellished with legends and tales. They spread from nation to nation during the whole of the ancient times, and all through the Middle Ages. Many scholars have followed up the course of this dissemination of the fabulous history of Alexander. It would, therefore, be idle repetition of work admirably done by men like Zacher, Wesselofsky, Budge, and others, should I attempt it here. All interested in the legend of Alexander are familiar with those works, where also the fullest bibliographical information is to be found. I am concerned here with what may have appeared to some of these students as the bye-paths of the legend, and which, to my mind, has not received that attention which is due to it, from more than one point of view. Hitherto the histories of Alexander were divided into two categories; the first were those writings which pretended to give a true historical description of his life and adventures, to the exclusion of fabulous matter; the other included all those fabulous histories in which the true elements were smothered under a great mass of legendary matter, the chief representative of this class being the work ascribed to a certain Callisthenes. The study of the legend centred in the study of the vicissitudes to which this work of (Pseudo-) Callisthenes had been exposed, in the course of its dissemination from the East, probably from its native country, Egypt, to the countries of the West.

The Alaṅkṅaraśāstra may be said to bear somewhat the same relation to the Plays and Poems that the Vedānta system does to the Upanishads, and the student of that general literature is not fully equipped without it. The most popular and probably the most generally useful work of this class is the Kāvyaprakása, and the main object of this paper is to assist the unlearned by indicating as far as possible the sources from which its illustrations were drawn. As, however, much of its material was derived from older treatises of the same kind, it will be desirable in the first instance to notice them very briefly in chronological order, especially as no such epitome exists at present; and in doing so I shall not only draw from my own resources, but also endeavour to bring together valuable items of information scattered about in Reports, Prefaces, Periodicals, and such like literature not always easy of access. The first section of the paper will, therefore, be devoted to Notes on the date and authorship of the Kāvyaprakāśa, and on the treatises which preceded it; and before that work itself is dealt with I hope to give the hitherto unpublished text of Udbhaṛa's short treatise, to which reference is made below.

I was not allowed inside the shrine inclosure at Jām, so sent my Mirza to look for the “Yadgār” of Humāyūn, which the Sheikh told me was there. The Mirza brought back a copy of the inscription, and described the situation as follows:—“The above inscription is written, or rather painted, with black ink or some other composition, on an oblong slab of white Herat stone, which is fixed with mortar on to the top of the railing (partly built of plain and glazed bricks and partly of stone) enclosing the grave of Sheikh Jāmi, which is in the open air. The slab in question is about ¾ ẕar' (about 30 inches) in length and about 3 girah (8 inches) in breadth, the inscription running lengthwise. The surface bearing the writing is smooth and polished. In some places the paint—or ink—has been removed, and it shows that the surface of the slab was first punctured with some pointed instrument, and afterwards the paint laid on. An old Khwāja told me that formerly this slab was fixed in the Diwān (arch) facing the Sheikh's tomb, but that afterwards it was removed from there and placed on top of the railing where it now stands. The Khwāja also said that he used to see the word Hindi written after ‘Muhammad Humāyūn,’ but that now it has been obliterated. Sheikh Abdur Rahmān, one of the descendants of Sheikh-i-Jām, says that the inscription is believed to be in Humāvūn's own handwriting.”

[Mr. W. Crooke, late of Mirzapur, and Editor of North Indian Notes and Queries, kindly gave me the notes of the following story as told by the Brahman. In his version the story is much shortened, the Iguana episode does not occur, and the finale is different. But this story is more dramatic than the Jataka, and it is not improbable that here we have a version nearer than that is to the original.]

The following dissertation is the second in my series of “Prolegomena to Ancient Indian History,” of which the first was the essay entitled “The Iron Pillar of Delhi (Mihraulī) and the Emperor Candra (Chandra)” published in this Journal in January, 1897. The article entitled “Samudra Gupta,” published, in the same number of the Journal, gives in narrative form the history of the Emperor Samudra Gupta. The present paper is devoted to the detailed technical discussion of the authorities for the statements of that narrative. I may perhaps be pardoned for inviting attention to the proposed identification of King Acyuta; the justification of the reading Mahendragiri as a king's name; the probable identification of the kings Viṣṇugōpa and Hastivarman; the certain identification of the kingdom of Pālakka; the suggested identifications of the kingdoms of Devarāṣṭra and Kustbalapura; the probable identification of King Candravarman; the location of the Ābhīra tribe; and the attempted identification and differentiation of the Ṣāhi, Ṣāhānuṣāhi, and Daivaputra kings.

In the Calcutta Review of 1877, I published an Essay on the Phenician Alphabet, which was reprinted in Series I of my “Linguistic and Oriental Essays,” 1880. In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1884, I published an Essay on the Origin of the Indian Alphabet, which was reprinted in Series II of my “Linguistic and Oriental Essays,” 1887. As further light has been thrown upon the subject in the years, which have elapsed since 1877 and 1884, I return to this difficult, but interesting, subject, treating each branch of it separately.

In 1866, I first visited Baku on the Caspian Sea on a journey from India to Nijni Novgorod Fair. Travelling with me at the time was a Hindu trader from Scinde, who was going to Russia to sell jewellery. He had previously heard of the Hindu Fire-Temple near Baku, and was most anxious to visit it.

Having been for years past engaged in researches on the early history of Siātn and its border countries, I had, as a matter of course, to go into their ancient geography— a hitherto unexplored field—and this naturally led me to a study of the documents that the Western geographers of antiquity left us, more especially Ptolemy, who gives us the first collection of anything like authentic data on the countries in question. Thus it came to pass that I found myself hopelessly entangled in the “selva selvaggia, ed aspra e forte” of Ptolemy's geography of India extra-Gangem. I must confess that the results attending my first attempts at interpreting this portion of the work of the great Alexandrian were far from encouraging. This was, however, to be expected, seeing that even master hands like those of Klaproth, Cunningham, Yule, Lassen, and others, whilst meeting with fair success in identifying Ptolemy's names of places west of the meridian of the Ganges, had failed to evolve the slightest order out of the chaos of his trans-Gangetic geography, and to locate with certainty even a single one of the numerous cities he names beyond the outskirts of the Gulf of Bengal.