[139] In the Mahâbhârata and elsewhere the Kînas are mentioned among the Dasyus or non-Aryan races in the north and in the east of India. King Bhagadatta is said to have had an army of Kînas and Kirâtas,(B1) and the Pândavas are said to reach the town of the King of the Kulindas, after having passed through the countries of Kînas, Tukhâras, and Daradas. All this is as vague as ethnological indications generally are in the late epic poetry of India. The only possibly real element is that Kirâta and Kîna soldiers are called kâñkana, gold or yellow colored,(B2) and compared to a forest of Karnikâras, which were trees with yellow flowers.(B3) In Mahâbh. VI. 9, v. 373, vol. ii., p. 344, the Kînas occur in company with Kambogas and Yavanas, which again conveys nothing definite.
B1: Lassen, i. p. 1029; Mahâbh. III. 117, v. 12,350; vol. i. p. 619.
B2: Mahâbh. V. 18, v. 584; vol. ii. p. 106.
B3: See Vâkaspatya s. v.; Kaskit Karnikâragaurah.
Chinese scholars tell us that the name of China is of modern origin, and only dates from the Thsin dynasty or from the famous Emperor Shi hoang-ti, 247 b.c. But the name itself, though in a more restricted sense, occurs in earlier documents, and may, as Lassen thinks,(B4) have become known to the Western neighbors of China. It is certainly strange that the Sinim too, mentioned in Isaiah xlix. 12, have been taken by the old commentators for people of China, visiting Babylon as merchants and travellers.
B4: Lassen, vol. i. p. 1029, n. 2.
[140] I prefer now the reading of the Kânva-sâkhâ, abhidudrâva, instead of atidudrâva or adhidudrâva of the other MSS. See Weber, Ind. Streifen, i. p. 11.
[141] It is not necessary to establish literary borrowing; for on the theory of Bible inspiration and trustworthiness we must assume that the Aryans as well as the Semites were saved in the ark. The story of a flood supports the story of the flood to a certain extent.—Am. Pubs.
[142] VII. 1, 5, 1 seq.; Muir, i. p. 52; Colebrooke, Essays, i. 75.
[143] VII. 5, 1, 5; Muir, "Original Sanskrit Texts," i. p. 54.