________________
124
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1877.
organized and equipped for war, holds the second dies they bury him, and deliver over such proplace in point of numbers, and gives itself up toperty as he leaves to his relatives. The judges idleness and amusement in the times of peace. also decide cases in which foreigners are conThe entire force-men-at-arms, war-horses, cerned, with the greatest care, and come down war-elephants, and all-are maintained at the sharply on those who lake unfair advantage of king's expense.
them. [What we have now said regarding 50 The sixth caste consists of the Overseers. India and its antiquities will suffice for our preIt is their province to inquire into and superin- sent purpose.] tend all that goes on in India, and make report to the king, or, where there is not a king, to
BOOK I. the magistrates.
FRAGM. II. The seventh caste consists of the Coun.
Arr. Erped. Aleo. V. 6. 2-11. cillors and Assessors, of those who de- Of the Boundaries of India, its General liberate on public affairs. It is the smallest
: Character, and its Rivers.t class, looking to number, but the most respected, According to Eratosthenes, and Megasthenés on account of the high character and wisdom of who lived with Siburtios the satrap of its members ; " for from their ranks the advisers Arachô sia, and who, as he himself tells us, of the king are taken, and the treasurers of the often visited Sandrakott oss the king of the state, and the arbiters who settle disputes. The Indians, India forms the largest of the four parts generals of the army also, and the chief magis- into which Southern Asia is divided, while trates, usually belong to this class.
the smallest part is that region which is includ68 Such, then, are about the parts into which ed between the Euphrates and our own sea. the body politic in India is divided. No one is The two remaining parts, which are separated allowed to marry out of his own caste, or to from the others by the Euphrates and the exercise any calling or art except his own: for Indus, and lie between these rivers, are scarcely instance, a soldier cannot become a husbandman, of sufficient size to be compared with India, or an artizan a philosopher.
even should they be taken both together. The (42.) 5* India possesses a vast number of huge same writers say that India is bounded on its elephants, which far surpass those found elsewhere eastern side, right onwards to the south, by the both in strength and size. This animal does great ooean; that its northern frontier is formed not cover the female in a peculiar way, as some by the Kaukasos range as far as the junction of affirm, but like horses and other quadrupeds. that range with Tauros; and that the boundary "The period of gestation is at shortest sixteen towards the west and the north-west, as far as months, and at farthest eighteen. Like mares, the great ocean, is formed by the river Indus. they generally bring forth but one young one A considerable portion of India consists of a at a time, which the dam suckles for six years. level plain, and this, as they conjecture, has 5. Most elephants live to be as old as an ex. been formed from the alluvial deposits of the tremely old man, but the most aged live two river,-inferring this from the fact that in other hundred years.
countries plains which are far away from the 51 Among the Indians officers are appointed sea are generally formations of their respective even for foreigners, whose duty is to see that rivers, so that in old times a country was even no foreigner is wronged. Should any of them called by the name of its river. As an instance, lose his health, they send physicians to attend there is the so-called plain of the Hermog him, and take care of him otherwise, and if he river in Asia (Minor), wbich, flowing from the
1. "Epopo, Diod. Strab. 'Errio KOTO!, Arr. Is this the class of officers referred to as sheriffs-mahamatra-in the Asoka inscriptions ? Conf. Ind. Ant. vol. V. pp. 267-8.-ED.
"It appears strange that Megasthenes should have divided the people of India into seven castes... Herodotus, however, had divided the people of Egypt into seven castes, namely priests, soldiers, herdsmen, swineherds, tradesmen, interpreters, and steersmen; and Megasthenes may therefore have taken it for granted that there were seven castes in India. It is a curious fact that, from the time of Alexander's expedition to comparatively recent date, geographers
and others have continually drawn analogies between Egypt and India."-Wheeler's Hist. of India, vol. III. p. 192, note 16.6. Conf. Fragm. xxxvi.
+ For some remarks on this point see Blochmann's translation of the Ain-i Akbart, p. 118. I Conf. Epit. ad init:
The name of Chandragupta is written by the Greeka. Sandrokottos, Sandrakottas, Sandrakottos, Androkottoe, and (best) Sandrokoptos. Cf. Schlegel, Bibl. Ind. I. 245.Schwanbeok, p. 12, n. 6.
