[5] ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. i.
[6] Almost the only person who has of late done anything in this direction is Sir Walter Elliot. His papers in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’ and the ‘Madras Journal’ throw immense light on the subject, but to complete the task we want many workers instead of only one.
[7] All this has been so fully gone into by me in my work on ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pp. 63, et seqq., that it will not be necessary to repeat it here.
[8] Dr. Caldwell, the author of the ‘Dravidian Grammar,’ is the greatest and most trustworthy advocate of this view.
[9] ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pp. 244-247.
[10] In Arrian there is a curious passage which seems certainly to refer to this people. “During the space,” he says, “of 6042 years in which the 153 monarchs reigned, the Indians had the liberty of being governed by their own laws only twice, once for about 200 years, and after that for about 120 years.”—‘Indica,’ ch. ix. The Puranas, as may be supposed, do not help us to identify these two periods.
[11] I cannot help fancying that they occupied some part of southern India, and even Ceylon, before the arrival of the Dravidians. It seems difficult otherwise to account for the connection between Behar and Ceylon in early ages, and the spread of Buddhism in that island leaping over the countries which had been Dravidianised.
[12] I cannot help suspecting that the Gonds also belong to this northern race. It is true they speak a language closely allied to the Tamil; but language, though invaluable as a guide, is nearly useless as a test of affinity. The Romans imposed their language on all the diverse nationalities of Italy, France, and Spain. We have imposed ours on the Cornish, and are fast teaching the Irish, Welsh, and Highlanders of Scotland to abandon their tongue for ours, and the process is rapidly going on elsewhere. The manners and customs of the Gonds are all similar to those of the Coles or Khonds, though, it is true, they speak a Dravidian tongue.
[13] The most pleasing of the histories of Buddha, written wholly from a European point of view, is that of Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Paris. Of those partially native, partly European, are those of Bishop Bigandet, from the Burmese legends, and the ‘Romantic History of Buddha,’ translated from the Chinese by the Rev. S. Beal. The ‘Lalita Vistara,’ translated by Foucaud, is more modern than these, and consequently more fabulous and absurd.
[14] There may possibly be an error of forty to sixty years in this date; but, on the whole, that here given is supported by the greatest amount of concurrent testimony, and may, after all, prove to be minutely correct.