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OF THE HINDUS.
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invasion of India, or at least at the period at which MEGASTHENES was sent ambassador to SANDRACOPTUS, and that these notices are recorded by STRABO and ARRIAN. The nature of the expressions which those and other writers have employed has been canvassed by Mr. COLEBROOKE *, and shewn satisfactorily to establish the existence at that time of the regular Brahmans, as well as of other sects: what those sects were, however, it was no part of his object to enquire, and he has left it still to be ascertained how far it can be concluded that the Jainas were intended.
Much perplexity in the Greek accounts of the Brahmans Gymnosophists has, no doubt, occurred from their not having been acquainted with the subdivision of the priestly caste into the four orders of student, householder, hermit, and mendicant, and therefore they describe the Brahman sometimes as living in towns, sometimes in woods, sometimes observing celibacy, and sometimes married, sometimes as wearing clothes, and sometimes as going naked; contradictions which, though apparently irreconcileable if the same individuals or classes be meant, were appreciated by the shrewdness of BAYLE more justly than he was himself aware of', and are all explained by the Acháras,
* (and by Lassen, Ind. Alt., II, 700 ff., 710.]
I "It may be that they (the Brachmanes) did not follow the same institutes in all ages, and that with a distinction of time one might reconcile some of the variations of the authors who have spoken of them." — Article Brachinans, Note C. Harris (1, 454) also has rightly estimated the real character of the Ger
