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SEPTEMBER, 1877.]
THE INDIKA OF MEGASTHENES.
245
honour to the Hylobioi are the physicians, since that such as commit the act are regarded as they are engaged in the study of the nature of foolhardy, those naturally of a severe tem. man. They are simple in their habits, but do not per stabbing themselves or casting themselves live in the fields. Their food consists of rice and down a precipice, those averse to pain drownbarley-meal, which they can always get for the ing themselves, those capable of enduring mere asking, or receive from those who enter- pain strangling themselves, and those of tain them as guests in their houses. By their ardent temperaments throwing themselves into Inowledge of pharmacy they can make mar- the fire. Kalan os was a man of this stamp. riages fruitful, and determine the sex of the He was ruled by his passions, and became a offspring. They effect cures rather by regulat- Blave to the table of Alexander. He is on ing diet than by the use of medicines. The this account condemned by his countrymen, but remedies most esteemed are ointments and plas- Mandanis is applauded because when mesters. All others they consider to be in a great sengers from Alexander invited him to go to the measure pernicions in their nature. This class son of Zeus, with the promise of gifts if he comand the other class practise fortitude, both by plied, and threats of punishment if he refused, he undergoing active toil, and by the endurance of did not go. Alexander, he said, was not the son pain, so that they remain for a whole day mo- of Zeus, for he was not so much as master of tionless in one fixed attitude.
the larger half of the world. As for himself, • Besides these there are diviners and sorcerers, he wanted none of the gifts of a man whose and adepts in the rites and customs relating to desires nothing could satiate; and as for his the dead, who go about begging both in villages threats he feared them not : for if he lived, India and towns.
would supply him with food enough, and if he Even such of them as are of superior culture died, he would be delivered from the body of and refinement inculcate such saperstitions re- flesh now afflicted with age, and would be transgarding Hades as they consider favourable to lated to a better and a purer life. Alexander expiety and holiness of life. Women pursue phi- pressed admiration of the man, and let him losophy with some of them, but abstain from have his own way. sexual intercourse.
FRAGM. XLV. FRAGM. XLII., XLIII.
Arr. VII. ii. 3-9. See ante, p. 244.
Of Kalanos and Mandunis. Fragm. XLIV.
This shows that Alexander was by no means Strab. XV. 1. 68,-p. 718.
beyond understanding what is "the better," but Of Kalanos and Mandanis.
in fact he was completely overmastered by the Megasthenés, however, says that self-destruc- passion for glory. When he arrived at Taxila tion is not a dogma of the philosophers, but and saw the Indian gymnosophists, he felt a
servations on the sect of the Jains, bas quoted this passageished in India when it was visited by the Greeks under froni Clemens to controvert the opinion that the religion
Alexander, and continued to flourish from the time of and institutions of the orthodox Hindus are more modern
Megasthenes, who described them in the fourth century than the doctrines of Jins and of Buddha. “Here," he before Christ, to that of Porphyrius, who speaks of them, on Jaye, "to my apprehension, the followers of Baddha are later authority, in the third century after Christ." clearly distinguished from the B:..chmanes and Sarmanes.
"The babits of the physicians. Elphinstone remarks, The latter, called Germanes by Strabo, and Samanganat "seem to correspond with those of Brahmane of the fourth by Porphyrius, are the ascetics of a different religion,
stage." and may have belonged to the sect of Jina, or to another.
"It is indeed," says the same aut aurity, "a remarkable The Brachmanes are apparently those who are described by circumstance that the religion of Buddhs should never have Philostratus and Hierocles as worshipping the sun; and been expressly noticed by the Greek authors, though it had by Strabo and by Arrian as performing sacrifices for the existed for two centuries before Alexander. The only excommon benefit of the nation, as well as for individuals ... planation is that the appearancs Lad manners of its folThey are expressly discriminated from the sect of Buddha lowers were not so peculiar as to enable a foreigner to by one ancient author, and from the Sarmanes or Sama distinguish them from the mass of the people." - neans (ascetics of various tribes) by others. They are de
"Kalanos followed the Makedonian army from Taxila, scribed by more than one authority is worshipping the sun,
und when afterwards taken ill burnt himself on a funeral pyre a performing sacrifices, and as denying the eternity of the in the presence of the whole Makedonian army, without world, and maintaining other teneta incompatible with the evincin any symptom of pain. His real name, according supposition that the secta of Buddha or Jins could be
to Plutarch, was Sphines, and he received the name Kalanos meant. Their manners and doctrine, described by among the Greeke because in saluting persons he used the these authors, are quite conformable with the notions and form kalé instead of the Greek xaipe. What Plutarch practice of the orthodox Hindus. It may therefore be here calls kalé is probably the Sanskrit form kalyana, contidently inferred that the followers of the Vedas floar-1 which is commonly used in addressing person, and
signifies 'good, just, or distinguished.""--Smith's Classical (1 Samana is the PAli form of the older sramana.) Dictionary.
