Indian Antiquary Vol 06

SR No.: 032498
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 458
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 21 MB

Page 179

MAY, 1877.]
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE INDIKA OF MEGASTHENES.
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tribes inhabiting the Kaukasos have intercourse cranes, for it is in their country the cranes lay with women in public, and eat the bodies of their eggs, and thus the eggs and the young their relatives, and that there are monkeys cranes are not to be found anywhere else. which roll down stones, &c. (Fragm. XV. fol. Frequently a crane escapes having the brazen lows, and then Fragm. XXIX.)
point of a weapon in its body, from wounds reFRAGM. XXIX.
ceived in that country. Equally absurd is Strab. XV. i. 57,-p.711.
the account given of the Enôto koitai, I Of fabulous tribes.
of the wild men, and of other monsters. The But deviating into fables he says there are wild men could not be brought to Sandrakottos, men five spans and even three spans in height, for they refused to take food and died. Their some of whom want the nose, having only two heels are in front, and the instep and toes are orifices above the mouth through which they turned backwards. Some were brought to the breathe. Against the men of three spans, war, court who had no mouths and were tame. They ag Homer has sung, is waged by the cranes, and dwell near the sources of the Ganges, and subsist also by partridges, which are as large as geese.tl or the savour of roasted flesh and the perfumes These people collect and destroy the eggs of the ' of fruits and flowers, having instead of mouths
FRAGM. XXVII. B.
Ælian. V. L. iv. 1. The Indians neither put out money at usury, nor know how to borrow. It is contrary to estab. lished usage for an Indian either to do or suffer a wrong, and therefore they neither make contracts nor require securities. Conf. Suid. V. Ivdol.
FRAGM. XXVII. C. Nicol. Damasc. 44; Stob. Serm. 42. Among the Indians one who is unable to recover & loan or a deposit has no remedy at law. All the creditor can do is to blame himself for trusting a rogue.
FRAGX. XXVIII.
Athen. iv. p. 153.
Of the Suppers of the Indians. Megasthenes, in the second book of his Indila, says that when the Indians are at supper a table is placed before each person, this being like a tripod. There is placed upon it a golden bowl, into which they first put rice, boiled as one would boil barley, and then they add many dainties prepared according to Indian receipts.
FRAGM. XXVII. D. Nicol. Damasc. 44; Stob. Serm. 42. He who causes an artisan to lose his eye or his hand is put to death. If one is guilty of a very heinous offence the king orders his hair to be cropped, this being a punishment to the last degree infamous.
Herodotus (bk. iii. 38, 99, 101) has noted the oxistence of both practices among certain Indian tribes.
. Cf. Strab. II. i. 9,--p. 70:-Déimachos and Megas. thenes are especially unworthy of credit. It is they who tell those stories about the men who sleep in their ears. the men without mouths, the men without nostrils, the mon with one eye, the men with long legs, and the men with their toes turned backward. They renewed Homer's fa ble about the battle between the Cranes and the Pygmies, asserting that the latter were three spins in height. They told of the ants that dig for gold, of Pans with wedge-shaped heads, and of serpente swallow. ing down oxen and stage, horns and all,--the one author meanwhile accusing the other of falsehood, as Eratosthenes bas remarked.
Ktësias in his Indika mentions Pygmies as belonging to India. The Indians themselves considered them as belonging to the race of the Kirkta, a barbarous people who inhabited woods and mountains and lived by hunting, and who were so diminutive that their name became a synonym for dwarf. They were thought to fight with vultures and eagles. As they were of Mongolian origin, the Indians represented them with the distinctive features of that race, but with their repulsiveness exaggerated. Hence Megins. thenes spoke of the Amuktéres, men without noses, who bad merely breathing-boles above the mouth. The Kirste are no doubt identical with the Soyrites (V. L. Syrictes) of Plinius and the Kirrhadai of the Periplus Maris Erythræi.
I The Enðtokoitai are called in Sanskrit Karnapravaramas, and are frequently referred to in the great epio poeme-e.g. Mahabh. II. 1170, 1875. The opinion was universally prevalent among the Indians that berbaru
tribes had large ears: thus not only are the Karnapravo. ramas mentioned, but also Kamikas, Lambakarnás, Mahd. kamas (i.e. long or large eared), Ushtrakamnus (i.e. camel. eared), Oshthakarnás (i.e. having the cars close to the lipe), Panikamas (i.e. having hands for ears). Schwanb. 66. "It is easy," says Wheeler (Hist. Ind. vol. III. p. 179), "for any one conversant with India to point out the origin of many of the so-called fables. The ants are not na big as foxes, but they are very extraordinary excavators, The stories of men pulling up trees, and using them nu clubs, are common enough in the Mahabharata, especially in the legends of the exploits of Bhima. Men do not have ears hanging down to their feet, but both men and women will occasionally elongate their ears after a very extraordinary fashion by thrusting articles through the lobe.... If there was one story more than another which excited the wrath of Strabo, it was that of a people whose ears hung down to their feet. Yet the story is still current in Hindustan. BAbu Johari Das says:
An old woman once told me that her husband, a sepoy in the British army, had seen a people who slept on one ear, and covered themselves with the other.' (Domestic Mannersand Customs of the Hindus, Banáras, 1860.)" The story may be referred to the Himalayas. Fitch, who travelled in India about 1585, says that a people in Bhután had ears & span long."
These wild men are mentioned both by Ktësias and Baeto. They were called Antipodes on account of the peculiar structure of their foot, and were reckoned among Æthiopian roes, though they are often referred to in the Indian epics under the name Paschadangulajas, of which the duo dodákTudo of Megasthenés is an exact translation. Vide Schwanb. 68.