The History of Antiquity Volume Iv Part 23

We remember with what emphasis the hymns of the Veda inculcated honour, fidelity, truth, and the eschewal of lying; and without doubt in the ancient period the Aryas on the Indus laid as much weight on truthfulness as the Airyas of Iran. But some observations in the book of the law showed us that this virtue no longer entirely prevailed in the land of the Ganges. Buddhism earnestly reiterates the precept not to lie, and in spite of the conduct of the king of Cashmere and other princes on the Indus towards Alexander, as related to us by the Greeks, we can believe their a.s.sertions that at that time these virtues prevailed through far larger circles than at present. The moderation of the Indians in eating and drinking is due primarily, no doubt, to the climate of the Ganges; in a less degree the laws of the Brahmans respecting food, and the moderation preached by Buddha, must have operated to the same end, and above all must have tended to remove the old love of drinking among the Aryas. The love of the Aryas for dress and adornment we know from the sutras; they showed us that the richer men wore costly ear-rings of diamonds, and the poorer wore ornaments of wood or lead.[627] Of Ayodhya the Ramayana boasts that no one was seen there without ear-rings and a necklace, without a chaplet on the head and perfumes.[628] The dress of the women was naturally still more costly and stately. The Epos is acquainted with the custom of colouring the hands and feet with sandal or lac;[629] in the later poems of the Indians we have endless praises of the jingling of the anklets, the shrill-sounding girdles, glittering with precious stones; the adornments of the neck, the eye-brows and forehead coloured with musk, antimony, and lac, the locks of hair and crowns of flowers. In all these matters the Hindus have not changed. Even now they love to wear snow-white garments, and next to these such as are of a brilliant colour; they carry gracefully the ample garment in which they wrap themselves; they dress their hair, and anoint it with palm oil, and though they no longer stain their beards blue and red, they paint on the forehead the symbol of the deity which each person specially worships. The turban, for which in some districts material interwoven with gold is preferred, is still picturesquely coiled round the head; by the different modes of wrapping may be distinguished the inhabitants of different districts. A poor man would rather give up anything than the silver ornaments of his girdle, and the poorest porter is rarely without a gold ear-ring. Weavers of garlands and silversmiths are still to be found in the most wretched villages, and any one would rather go without a dinner than without perfumes.

According to the Greeks the rites of burial were plain and simple. It was the custom of the Indians to burn the dead on pyres. As we have seen, cremation was for a long time the universal practice. It took place before the gates of the cities, where there were special places for the purpose; the corpses were wrapped in linen, and carried out on cushions amid hymns and prayers, some of the oldest of which we know (p.

62).[630] The bones and anything else which remained unburnt were thrown into the water. Aristobulus says that he had heard that among some Indians the widows burned themselves voluntarily with the corpses of their husbands, and those who refused to do so were held in less estimation.[631] The Greeks also observe, quite correctly, that it was not the custom among the Indians to erect mounds. In the fourth century, it is true, the followers of Buddha had erected stupas for his relics (p. 365), and possibly for those of his greatest disciples; but in any case these were so rare and so unimportant that they would hardly strike the eye; one Greek authority nevertheless a.s.serts that there were small tumuli in India. The reason given for this omission which seemed so strange to the Greeks, is that the Indians were of opinion that the remembrance of the virtues of a man together with the hymns sung in his honour (by which can only be meant the ritual of the burial and the funeral feast) were sufficient to preserve his memory.[632]

The industrial skill of the Indians was not unknown to the Greeks. As early as the fifth century fine Indian clothes, silken garments called _sindones_ or Tyrian robes, were brought by the trade of the Phenicians to h.e.l.las. Ctesias praises the swords of Indian steel of special excellence and rare quality, which were worn at the Persian court. Other evidence also shows that the Indians at an early time understood the preparation and working of steel.[633] Mining, on the other hand, according to the Greeks, they understood but ill, and their copper vessels, which were cast, not beaten, were fragile and brittle. At the sources of a river which flowed through lofty mountains into the Indus there grew, as Ctesias tells us, a kind of tree, called Siptachora, on the leaves of which lived small creatures like beetles, with long legs, and soft like caterpillars. They spoiled the fruit of the trees just as the woodlice spoiled the vines in h.e.l.las, but from the insects when pounded came a purple colour, which gave a more beautiful and brilliant dye than the purple of the h.e.l.lenes.[634] These insects of Ctesias are the beetles of the lac-tree, which suck the juice of the bark and leaves, and so provide the lac-dye. The home of this tree is the north, more especially the mountain-range on the upper Indus above Cashmere.

Ctesias' statement proves that the Indians knew how to prepare the lac-dye in the fifth century B.C. The same authority mentions an ointment of the Indians, which gave the most excellent perfume; it might be perceived at a distance of four stades. This ointment, which they prepared from the resin of a kind of cedar with leaves like a palm, the Indians called Karpion. Possibly cinnamon-oil is meant, which is obtained from the outer-bark of the cinnamon tree.[635]

Of the military affairs of the Indians, besides what has been already quoted about the order of soldiers, the Greeks tell us that the bow was their favourite weapon. In the Veda and the Epos we found this to be the chief arm (p. 35, 89), and the good management of it was the first qualification of a hero. The Greeks tell us that the Indian bow, made of reed, was as tall as the man who carried it. In stringing it the Indians placed the lower end of the bow against the earth, and drew the string back while pressing with the left foot against the bow; their arrows were almost three cubits long. Nothing withstood these arrows; they penetrated shield and cuira.s.s.[636] Others were armed with javelins instead of the bow, and with shields of untanned ox-hide, somewhat narrower than a man but not less tall. When it came to a hand-to-hand contest, which was rarely the case among the Indians, they drew the broad-sword three cubits in length, which every one carried, and which must have been wielded with both hands. The Indians rode without a saddle; the horses were held in with bits, which took the form of a lance. To these the reins were fastened, but along with them a curb of leather, in which occasionally iron, and among the wealthier people ivory points, were placed, so as to pierce the lips of the horse when the rein was drawn.[637] The Indian hors.e.m.e.n carried two lances and a shield smaller than that of the foot soldier. In every chariot of war besides the driver were two combatants, and on the elephants three besides the driver. On the march the chariots were drawn by oxen, and the horses led in halters, so that they came into the battle-field with vigour undiminished.[638] The beating of drums and the sound of cymbals and sh.e.l.ls, which were blown, gave the signal of attack to the army.[639] The Epos exhibits to us the kings for the most part in their chariots, and in these and on the elephants it places but one combatant beside the driver. The oldest trace of the use of elephants in war is not to be found in the battle-pieces of the Epos, into which the elephants were introduced at a later time. We hear nothing of elephants in the single contests of the heroes, but it is said that in the year 529 B.C. an Indian nation put elephants in the field against Cyrus (p.

16). At a later time Ctesias is our first authority for this practice; he describes it, about the year 400 B.C., as the fixed custom of the Indians.

FOOTNOTES:

[569] Arrian, "Ind." 7. Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 22, 23.

[570] [Greek: Methora te kai Kleisobora.] Arrian, "Ind." 8, 5.

[571] [Greek: Pazalai] in Arrian, "Ind." 4, 5. Ptolem. 7, 1. Pa.s.salae in Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 22.

[572] Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 22, "gentes montanae inter oppidum Potala et Jomanem." La.s.sen, "Alterthum." 1, 657, _n._ 2.

[573] La.s.sen, _loc cit._ Pliny, _loc. cit._

[574] Megasthenes in Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 6, 22, 23. Arrian, "Ind." 8.

La.s.sen, _loc. cit._ 1, 156, 618; 2, 111.

[575] Strabo, p. 710, 718.

[576] Curtius, 8, 9; 9, 1.

[577] Strabo, p. 717.

[578] Strabo, p. 710. Curtius, 8, 9.

[579] Strabo, p. 710. Cf. Curt. 8, 9.

[580] Strabo, p. 688.

[581] Megasthenes in Strabo, p. 703.

[582] Strabo, p. 710, 718.

[583] _Supra_, p. 216, etc. Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 417.

[584] La.s.sen, "Alterth." 2, 227.

[585] Strabo, p. 710. Diod. 2, 42.

[586] Megasthenes, fragm. 37, ed. Schwanbeck.

[587] Arrian, "Ind." 12, 1-5. Strabo, p. 707-709. Diod. 2, 41.

[588] Strabo, p. 704.

[589] Diod. 2, 36, 40. Arrian, "Ind." 11, 10.

[590] Arrian, "Ind." 11, 11. Diod. 2, 40. Strabo, p. 704.

[591] Like the warriors among the Vrijis, Glaukas, Khattias, Malavas Kshudrakas, etc. cf. _supra_, p. 401 ff.

[592] Manu, 7, 154; _supra_, p. 210.

[593] _Supra_, p. 219, 228. "Ramayana," ed. Schlegel, 1, 7.

[594] The following are the castes who ought to hunt wild animals according to the book of the law: the Medas, Andhras, Chunchus, Kshattars, Ugras, and Pukkasas. Manu, 10, 48-50; cf. _supra_, p. 247.

[595] Strabo, p. 703. Arrian, "Ind." 11. Diod. 2, 40.

[596] Strabo, p. 712-716. Arrian, "Ind." 11, 7, 8; 15, 11, 12.

[597] Strabo, p. 714.

[598] Strabo, p. 716. Diod. 2, 40.

[599] In Strabo, p. 712 (cf. 718, 719), as in Clem. Alex. "Strom." p.

305, we must obviously read [Greek: Sarmanai] for [Greek: Garmanai]. The third sect is called by Strabo [Greek: Pramnai]; perhaps with La.s.sen we ought to explain it by _pramana_, _i.e._ logicians.

[600] Megasthenis fragm. ed. Schwanbeck, p. 46; cf. Manu, 1, 75. Strabo, p. 713.

[601] Strabo, p. 712, 713, 716, 718. Arrian, "Anab." 7, 23.

[602] Strabo, p. 707. Arrian, "Ind." 12, 8, 9. Curt. 8, 9.

[603] _E.g._ Burnouf, "Introd." p. 379.

[604] Arrian, "Ind." 7; Diod. 2, 38, 39; Polyaen. "Strateg." 1, 1; _supra_, p. 73.

[605] Arrian, "Ind." 8, 4, 7, 8; 9, 1-9.

[606] Arrian, "Ind." _loc. cit._ The remark in Pliny that among the Pandas (in Guzerat) women ruled, owing to the daughter of Heracles, obviously refers to this story: "Hist. Nat." 6, 22.

[607] Megasthenes in Strabo, p. 712. But others derived even the Oxydrakes from Dionysus, simply for the reason that wine was produced in this district; Strabo, p. 687, 688.

[608] Arrian, "Ind." 8, 5.

[609] Strabo, p. 688. Curtius, 9, 4. Arrian, "Ind." 5, 12. Diod. 17, 96.

[610] Strabo, p. 718.