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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1877.
disputed point how far Seleukos had carried his and with six hundred thousand men attacked and arms into India when he attempted its conquest- subdued all India.' Phylarchos (Fragm. 28) in
"Justinus (xv. 4) says of Seleukos Nikator, Atheneus, p. 18 D., refers to sone other wonder. He carried on many wars in the East after the ful enough presents as being sent to Seleukos by division of the Makedonian kingdom between Sandrokottos. himself and the other successors of Alexander, "Diodorus (lib.xx.), in setting forth the affairs first seizing Babylonia, and then reducing Bak. of Seleukos, has not said a single word about triang, his power being increased by the first suc- the Iudian war. But it would be strange that cess. Thereafter he passed into India, which that expedition should be mentioned so incidentally had, since Alexander's death, killed its governors, by other historians, if it were true, as many recent thinking thereby to shake off from its neck the writers have contended, that Seleukos in this war yoke of slavery. Sandrokottos had made it reached the middle of India as far as the Ganges free: but when victory was gained he changed the and the town Palimbothra,-nay, even advanc. uame of freedom to that of bondage, for he him- ed as far as the mouths of the Ganges, and thereself oppressed with servitude the very people fore left Alexander far behind him. This baseless which he had rescued from foreign dominion.. theory has been well refuted by Lassen (De Pentap. Sandrokottos, having thus gained the crown, Ind. 61),- by A. G. Schlegel (Berliner Calender, held India at the time when Seleukos was laying 1829, p. 31 ; yet see Benfey, Erech. u. Grüber. Encycl. the foundations of his future greatness. Seleukos 0. Indien, p. 67), and quite recently by Schwancame to an agreement with him, and, after set. beck, in a work of great learning and value entling affairs in the East, engaged in the war titled Megasthenis Indica (Bonn, 1846). In the first against Antigonos (302 B.C.).'
place, Schwanbeck (p. 13) mentions the passage Besides Justinus, Appianus (Syr. c. 55) of Justinus (I. ii. 10) where it is said that no one makes mention of the war which Seleukos had | had entered India but Semiramis and Alexander; with Sandrokottos or Chandragupta king whence it would appear that the expedition of the Prasii, or, as they are called in the of Seleukos was considered so insignificant by Indian language, Prachy a *:-He (Seleu- Trogus as not even to be on a par with the Indian kos) crossed the Indus and waged war on war of Alexander. Then he says that Arrianus, Sandrokottos, king of the Indians who dwelt | if he had known of that remoto expedition u bout it, until he made friends and entered of Seleukos, would doubtless have spoken dif. into relations of marriage with him.' So also ferently in his Indika (c. 5. 4), where he says Strabo (XF. p. 724): -Seleukos Nikator gave to that Megasthenes did not travel over much of Sandrokottos' (sc. a large part of Ariane). Conf. India, but yet more than those who invaded it p. 699:-The Indians afterwards held a large part along with Alexander the son of Philip.' Now in of Arianê, (which they had received from the this passage the author could have compared Meg. Makedonians), 'entering into marriage relations asthenes much more suitably and easily with Seleuwith him, and receiving in return five hundred kos. I pass over other proofs of less moment, nor elephants' (of which Sandrakottos had nine thou- indeed is it expedient to set forth in detail here all sand-Plinius, vi. 22-5); and Plutarch, Alex. 62 :- the reasons from which it is improbable of itself
For not long after, Androkottos, being king, that the arms of Seleukos ever reached the region presented Seleukos with five hundred elephants, of the Ganges. Let us now examine the passage
The adjective arpaçakós in Ælianus On the Nature of 'Ivdôv, of the Indians around it,' as Schwanbeck himself Animals, xvii. 30 (Megasthen. Fragm. 13. init.) bears a very has written it (p. 13). close resemblance to the Indian word Pr&ch yas (that I The following passage of the Indian comedy Mudri. is, dwellers in the East'). The substantive would be IIpát
rakshasa seems to favour the Indian expedition "MeanOl, and Schwanbeck (Megasthenis Indien, p. 82) thinks
while Kusumapura (i.e. Pataliputra, Palimbothra) the city
of Chandragupta and the king of the mountain regions, that this reading should probably be restored in Stephanus
was invested on every side by the Kirktas, Yavanas, Kambo of Byzantium, where the MSS. exhibit IIpáo lot, a form jas, Persians, Baktrians, and the rest." But that drama", Entermediate between Πράξιλος And Πράς. But they are (Schwanbeck, p. 18), "to follow the authority of Wilson, was called IIpáciou by Strabo, Arrianus, and Plinius; Ipaíolou written in the tenth century after Christy-certainly ten cenin Plutarch (Aler. chap. 62), and frequently in lianus;
turies after Seleukos. When even the Indian historians have II paciou by Nicolaus of Damascus, and in the Florile.
no authority in history, what proof can dramas give written
after many centuries? Yavanas, which was also in later σιιιm of Stobaeus, 87, 88; Βρείσιoι And Βραίσιοι are the
times the Indian name for the Greeks, was very anciently MS. readings in Diodorus, xvii. 93 ; Pharragii in Curtias, IX. ii. 3; ProBid se in Justinus, XII. viii. 9. See
the name given to a certain nation which the Indians say
dwelt on the north-western boundaries of India and the note on Fragm. 13.
same nation (Manu, I. 44) is also numbered with the + Moreover, Schwanbeck calls attention (p. 14) to the weirds of Appianus (i. 1), where when he says, somewhat in
Kambojas, the Sakas, the Paradas, the Pallavas, and the curately, that Sandrakottos was king of the Indians around
Kirtas as being corrupted among the Kshatriyas. (Conf. the Indus (TV Tepl Toy 'Ivody 'Ivo
Lassen, Zeitschrift für d. Kunde des Morgenlandes, III.
) he seems to meanD. 245.) These Yavanas are to be understood in this pasthat the war was carried on on the boundaries of India. But age also, where they are mentioned along with those tribes this is of no importance, for Appianus has TÔ Tepi auroy with which they are usually classed.
