________________
SEPTEMBER, 1877.)
THE INDIKA OF MEGASTHENES.
249
called in Indian speech tala, and that there grew thereafter the succession was generally heredion them, as there grows at the tops of the palm- tary, but when a failure of heirs occurred trees, a fruit resembling balls of wool; that they in the royal house the Indians elected their subsisted also on such wild animals as they could sovereigns on the principle of merit. Héracatch, eating the flesh raw,-before, at least, the kles, however, who is currently reported to have coming of Dionusos into India. Dionusos, como as a stranger into the country, is said to however, when he came and had conquered the have been in reality a native of India. This people, founded cities and gave laws to these Hêrakles is held in especial honour by the Soucities, and introduced the use of wine among rasê noi, an Indian tribe possessing two large the Indians, as he had done among the Greeks, cities, Methoraf and Kleis o bora, and and taught them to sow the land, himself sup- through whose country flows a navigable river plying seeds for the purpose, either because called the Iobares. But the dress which Triptolemos, when he was sent by Dêm ê. this Hêrakles wore, Megasthenes tells us, resemter to sow all the earth, did not reach these bled that of the Theban Herakles, as the parts, or this must have been some Dionusos Indians themselves admit. It is further said who came to India before Triptolemos, and that he had a very numerous progeny of male gave the people the seeds of cultivated plants. children born to him in India (for, like his TheIt is also said that Dionusos first yoked ban namesake, he married many wives), but that oxen to the plough, and made many of the he had only one daughter. The name of this Indians husbandmen instead of nomads, and child was Pandaia, and the land in which furnished them with the implements of agri- she was born, and with the sovereignty of which culture; and that the Indians worship the other Hôrakles entrusted her, was called after her gods, and Dionusos himself in particular, with name, Pandaia, and she received from the cymbals and drums, because he so taught them; hands of her father 500 elephants, a force of and that he also taught them the Satyric dance, i cavalry 4000 strong, and another of infantry or, as the Greeks call it, the kordax, and that he consisting of about 180,000 men. Some Indian instructed the Indians to let their hair grow long writers say further of Hérakles that when he was in honour of the god, and to wear the turban; and going over the world and ridding land and sea that he taught them to anoint themselves with of whatever evil monsters infested them, he found unguents ; so that even up to the time of Alex. in the sen an ornament for women. which even ander the Indians were marshalled for battle to to this day the Indian traders who bring their the sound of cymbals and drums.
wares to our markets eagerly buy up as such and VIII. But when he was leaving India, after carry away, while it is even more greedily bought having established the new order of things, he up by the wealthy Romans of to-day, as it was appointed, it is said, Spartembas, Tone of his wont to be by the wealthy Greeks long ago. companionsand the most conversant with Bacchio This article is the sea-pearl, called in the Indian matters, to be the king of the country. Whentongue margarita.|But Herakles, it is said, apSpartembas died his son Boudy a s* succeeded preciating its beauty as a wearirg ornament, to the sovereignty, the father reigning over caused it to be brought from all the sea into the Indians fifty-two years, and the son twenty; India, that he might adorn with it the person the son of the latter, whose name was Kral of his daughter. deu ast duly inherited the kingdom, and Megasthenes informs us that the oyster which
FRAGM. L. B. Plin. Hist. Nat. IX. 55.
Of Pearls. Some writers allege that in swarms of oysters,
T It has been conjectured that this name very incorrectly transliterates the Sanskrit Svajambhwa. V.1. Spatembaa.
. No doubt Buddha.
+ Perhaps altered from Prareuss, which may represent the Sanskrit Pururavas.
I The Módoupa y ráy cay of Ptolemy, the Mathuri or Madhupuri of Sanskrit writers, and the modern Mathura;
as among bees, individuals distinguished for size and beauty act as leaders. These are of wonderful cunning in preventing themselves being caught, and are eagerly sought for by the divers. see Ind. Ant. vol. V. pp. 89, 384; and conf. Jour. As. Soc. Beng. vol. XLIII. pt. I. pp. 836, 351. Kleisobors, according to Pliny on the opposite side of the river, would thus be Mababan; see Growae's Mathura, pt. I. pp. 151, 152; Col. Yule places it lower down the river at Batokr.-ED.
Iobares is the Jamani. Represents the Persian word for a pearl-marvarfd.
