Indian Antiquary Vol 09

SR No.: 032501
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 398
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 81

MARCH, 1880.)
THE BRANCHIDA.
69
king, Xerxes, one hundred and fifty years guilty than Xerxes, in his belief. The massacre before. This surrender brought on them so of the unfortunate population was, in fact, an much odium that when the dominion of Xerxes example of human sacrifice on the largest scale was overthrown on the coast, they retired with offered to the gods by the religious impulses of him into the interior of Asia. The Persian Alexander, and worthy to be compared to that king also carried away with him to Susa the of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, when he colossal bronze statue of Apollo, which had been sacrificed three thousand Grecian prisoners on cast by Kanachus. This statue was afterwards the field of Himera, where his grandfather restored by Seleukos Nikator (about 300 B.C.) Hamilkar had been slain seventy years before." to the temple rebuilt by Paionios and Dhapnis. Such is the brief account given us of this
When Xerxes had carried away the Bran- atrocious massacre. It would seem that Alexchide, he did not retain them in Susiana, as Mr: | ander, influenced by his feelings towards the Newton seoms to imply (Travels and Discoveries aristocratic party in the Ionian cities (which bad in the Levant, vol. II., P 158), but transported always been under the patronage of the Persian them to a small town in Sogdiana, between kings,) treated the Branchidæ as he had already Balkh and Samarkand, where their descendants dealt with the Milesians, that is, by simple were found by Alexander. They were now a extirpation. Be this as it may, there is much "bilingual and partially dishellenized race, yet room for conjecture left as to the influence prostill attached to their traditions and origin" duced on the arts and philosophy of the neigh(Grote). "Delighted to find themselves once houring populations, by the residence of a more in commerce with Greeks, they poured colony of Ionian Greeks in Sogdiana during forth to meet and welcome the army, tendering the one hundred and fifty years of their survival. all they possessed. Alexander, when he heard There must have been some influence exerted. who they were and what was their parentage, It has been a long question how and through desired the Milesians to determine how they what channels the civilization of India was should be treated. But as these Milesians were affected by Greek intercourse. Both in literaneither decided nor unanimous, Alexander an- ture and art the offect of contact is plainly nounced that he would determine for himself. visible, and this, too, apparently at an earlier Having first occupied the city in person with a period than the establishment of the Grecoselect detachment, he posted his army all round Baktrian kingdom. We must look elsewhere, the walls, and then gave orders not only to then, than to the court of Seleukos and his sucplunder it, but to massacre the whole popula- cessors for the channel of this inter-action, and it tion, men, women, and children. They were would seem that the town of the Branchid se, slain without arms or attempt at resistance, situated in the centre of Sogdiana, will provide us resorting to nothing but prayers and suppliant with some clue to the solution of the question. manifestations. Alexander next ordered the That thus intercommunication of thought did walls to be levelled, and the sacred groves cut take place at an early period may be gathered down, so that no habitable site might remain, from several considerations. The Rámáyana nor anything except solitude and sterility. has been called the Iliad of India.' It was Such was the revenge taken upon these un long ago observed by Turnour, and more rehappy victims for the deeds of their forefathers cently by Weber, that some incidents, especially in the fourth or fifth generation before. Alex- those connected with the adventures of Ulysses ander doubtless considered himself as executing in the Odyssey) and of Rama and his followers the wrath of Apollo against an accursed race in Ceylon, bear a marked resemblance to one who had robbed the treasure of the god. The another. But, as a more striking instance Macedonian expedition had been proclaimed to of agreement, let us take the myth of the bo undertaken originally for the purpose of birth of Apollo (the god of the Branchide) revenging upon the contemporary Persians the and that of the Indian Buddha. Mr. Coxe, ancient wrongs done to Greece by Xerxes; 80 in his Aryan Nation, Vol. II, p. 21, gives that Alexander would follow out the same senti- the following account of the birth of the Sun. ment in revenging upon the contemporary God :-“Then, as she drew near (i.e. Eileithyia) Branobide the acts of their ancestors-yet more Leto cast her arms around a tall palm tree