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NOVEMBER, 1881.]
LASSEN ON THE INDIKA OF KTESIAS.
civilizing influence which they exercised upon them. Secured from subjugation in their inaccessible mountains, the latter must nevertheless have been glad to live in peace with the neighbouring kings, and to propitiate them by presents, and the former to make them feel the superiority of their power. On account of the need for the means of subsistence, and for the means for pursuing their occupations, which they procured from their civilized neighbours, the aborigines were obliged to accustom themselves to have intercourse with them, and to afford them also an opportunity, and to open a door for the admission of their doctrines and laws among them.
The Indian name of this people Sunamukha, dog-faced, has been discovered in a MS. which has not yet been published.58 This tribe, according to it, dwelt on the Indus. The Kalúorpio considered by Ktêsias to be synonymous with it cannot be satisfactorily explained from the Sanskrit; but it may have reached us in a corrupted form. To deny that the Aryan Indians may have given to a nation which they despised a name taken from the dog would be unreasonable, because the dog was a despised animal, and the name Svapâka or Srapaka, i. e., feeder of dogs, designates one of the lowest castes. Nor is there anything to object to the view that one of the aboriginal tribes was specially addicted to the rearing of dogs, which were needed for hunting, seeing that the wild dog is widely propagated throughout India and occurs in the Deccan, and probably also in Nepaul as well as in the south and in the north, where the Kynamolgoi dwelt. This tribe also has been transferred to Ethiopia and-Libya."55
The third of these tribes are the Pygmies, whose name is Greek, and means a fist long.' They are mentioned by Homer, and as fighting with the cranes.58 It hence appears that the name has been transferred to an Indian people. The Indian Pygmies are described as very small, the tallest of them being two ells in height, but most of them only one and a half. They dwelt in the interior of India, were black and deformed, had snub noses, long hair and extraordinarily large beards. They were excellent archers, and three thousand of them were in the retinue of the king. Their sheep, oxen, asses and mules were unusually small. They hunted hares and foxes, not with dogs, but with eagles, ravens, crows and vultures, like the Indians, followed the Indian laws, and were just. They agreed further with the Indians in using
53 Wilford, As. Res. vol. VIII, p. 331, from the Prabha sakhanda.
Vans Kennedy explained this by Kalavastra, clothed in black, but the meaning does not suit.
Herodot. IV, 191, and Agatharkhides, p. 44, ed. Hudson, who has drawn his account from Ktêsias.
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both sesame oil and nut oil, as already mentioned. This is all that is stated regarding them in the fragments of Ktêsias. To determine what Indian people is meant by this name, it must further be mentioned that Megasthenês ascribes the battle with the cranes to the Trispitha moi, i. e. men three spans long," a name by which he could only designate the Pygmies, and which he had probably selected because it was an old word. Ktêsias may therefore be considered as one of those writers who mentioned the battle of the Indian Pygmies with the cranes. Now the Indians ascribe to the Garuda, the bird of Vishnu, enmity towards the people of the Kir&ta, which for this reason is called Kir&tasin, i. e. the devourers of the Kir&ta, and the name of this people has also the meaning of a dwarf. It hence appears that the Kirâtas were small men in comparison with the Arian Indians, and may consequently have been easily confounded with the Pygmies. The form of the bird of Vishnu, as described by the poets, does not exactly correspond with a real bird; in the pictures the form of a bird almost entirely yields to that of a man. There is nevertheless some similarity to an eagle and to a vulture as well as to a crane. If in mythology a simple bird of this kind usually only occurs, it is to be remarked that it passes at the same time for the father and king of the divine birds, and there is nothing to hinder us from believing that, according to the ideas of the people a battle of this bird with the Kir&ta was thought to have occurred. If the remark that they lived in the interior of India does not agree with their actual position, which is assigned to the east of Bengal, in the Himalaya, and further to the north, it must be understood that foreigners had attributed a wider extension to the name so that it designated even a people in Orissa. From this further application of the names several characteristics attributed to the Pygmies explain themselves, which partly suit the true Kir&tas, who like the Bhuta people are beardless, but on the other hand wear long hair. Among them occur also the flat noses,59 but not the black complexion by which the Gonda and other Vindhya tribes are on the contrary distinguished, so that here also a commingling of characteristics must be assumed. Both these people, however, are distinguished by their shortness of stature. If the smallness of the Pygmies has been ascribed to their cattle also, it must simply be considered as an enlargement to the account made by foreigners.
se Ilind, III, 3ff.
Ind. Ant. vol. VI, p. 133, note t, and p. 135. Peripl. Mar. c. 62; Ind. Ant. vol. VIII, p. 150. 59 Wilford. u. 8., mentions the chipitanasika, 'anab
nosed.'
