[216] Here Curtius makes a mistake, for not only is the rhinoceros bred in India, but the Indian species is the largest known, and its flesh was, by the Brahmans, allowed to be eaten, though most other kinds of animal food were interdicted. Ktêsias describes it, but very incorrectly, under the name of the one-horned ass. It is described also in Aelian’s History of Animals (xvi. 20) in a passage supposed to have been copied from the lost Indika of Megasthenes. It is there called the Kartazôn. The fables about the unicorn had their source most probably in the fanciful account Ktêsias has given of the Indian wild ass. Aristotle, referring to it, says briefly: “We have never seen a solid-hoofed animal with two horns, and there are only a few of them that have one horn, as the Indian ass and the oryx.” Kosmas Indikopleustes, who, as his surname shows, had visited India, gives in the eleventh book of his Christian Topography a description of the rhinoceros, illustrated with a picture of the animal which represents it as somewhat like a horse, with its nose surmounted by a pair of horns slightly curved. We know that the picture is meant to be that of the rhinoceros from the name being attached. Kosmas says that he had only seen the animal from a distance. He has also given a description and picture of the unicorn, an animal which he had never seen, but had delineated from four brazen statues of it which adorned a palace in Aethiopia. A single straight horn of great length is represented as springing up from the top of its head.
[217] Pliny (Nat. Hist. viii. 11) notes, like Curtius here, that India produced the largest elephants. He had, however, stated previously (vi. 22) that, according to Onesikritos, the elephants of Taprobane (Ceylon) were larger and more warlike than those of India. Many references to the Indian elephants occur in the classics. Arrian, in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of his Indika, describes the mode in which they were hunted, and other particulars regarding them. Polybios (v. 84) says that the African elephants could neither endure the smell nor the trumpeting of their Indian congeners.
[218] Herodotos (iii. 106) says that gold was produced in great abundance in India, some of it washed down by the streams, and some dug out of the earth, but the greater part of it being the ant-gold surreptitiously procured. The heavy tribute levied by Darius on the Indian provinces (chiefly west of the Indus) was paid in gold-dust. We learn, notwithstanding, from Arrian that the companions of Alexander found that the Indian tribes they met with, which were numerous, were destitute of gold. The ant-gold produced in Dardistan seems therefore to have found its way rather to the provinces west of the Indus than to the Panjâb. Strabo (XV. i. 57), quoting Megasthenes, says that the rivers in India bring down gold-dust, a part of which is paid as a tax to the king. By the king is here meant Chandragupta (Sandrokottos), at whose court Megasthenes for some years resided. As the river Sôn, which in his time entered the Ganges at Palibothra (now Patna), was called poetically the Hiranyavâha—i.e. “bearing gold,”—we may assume that gold was found in the sands of that river. The grandson of Chandragupta, Aśôka, as is stated in the Mahavansâ, sent missionaries to preach Buddhism into the gold district of Suvarnabhûmi, a region which Turnour identified with Burma, but which Lassen took to be a maritime district situated somewhere in the west (v. his Ind. Alt. ii. pp. 236, 237; also i. 237, 238). Strabo (XV. i. 30) says that in the country of Sopeithês there were valuable mines both of gold and silver among the mountains.
[219] Pliny, in the latter part of his 37th book, treats of the various kinds of precious stones found in India, and of the uses to which they are there applied. In some of the other books incidental notices of them are also to be met with, while his 9th book is full of details about the pearl. From Strabo (II. iii. 4) we learn that an adventurer, Eudoxos of Kyzikos, who had been sent by Ptolemy Physkôn, king of Egypt, to India, returned thence, bringing back with him precious stones, some of which the Indians collect from among the pebbles of the river, and others of which they dig out of the earth. In his 15th book he states that India produces precious stones, as crystals, carbuncles of all kinds, and pearls. In Ptolemy’s Geography of India, and in the Periplûs of the Erythraean Sea mention is made of the diamond, beryl, onyx, carnelian, hyacinth, and sapphire as precious stones of India. They mention also various pearl fisheries existing in and near India. Arrian states in his Indika (c. 8) that the pearl in India is worth thrice its weight in refined gold, and that it was called in the Indian tongue Margarita. This, which is also its classical name, may represent either the Sanskrit manjari, or the Persian marwarîd.
[220] Arrian, on the authority of Nearchos, states in his Indika (c. 16) that the Indians wear shoes of white leather elaborately trimmed, and having thick soles (or heels) to make them look taller.
[221] Strabo notes from Kleitarchos similar statements regarding the treatment of their hair by the Indians (XV. i. 71), and Arrian has noted the Indian practice (which is still in vogue) of dying the beard of a variety of colours.
[222] “In the processions at Indian festivals (says Strabo, XV. i. 69) are to be seen wild beasts, as buffaloes, panthers, tame lions, and a multitude of birds of variegated plumage and of fine song.” Aelian, in a passage copied most probably from Megasthenes, says that the favourite bird of the king of the Indians (Chandragupta no doubt) was the hoopoe. He carried it on his wrist, and amused himself with it, and never tired gazing with admiration on its exquisite beauty, and the splendour of its plumage. The luxurious mode of life in which the Indian king (Chandragupta) indulged is described by Strabo (XV. i. 55) much in the same terms as by Curtius here. The native writings called sutras describe in like manner how the kings at festivals march out on elephants to the sound of all kinds of instruments, amid the scent of perfumes and clouds of frankincense.
[223] Strabo adds the significant statement that the king at night is obliged from time to time to change his couch from dread of treachery. The frequency of changes in the succession shows that such a precaution was not unnecessary. If a woman put to death a king when he was drunk, she was rewarded by becoming the wife of his successor. From Athênaios we learn that among the Indians the king might not get drunk. The assertion made by Curtius that the Indians all use much wine is contrary to the testimony of Megasthenes, who said that they use it only on sacrificial occasions. Wine was no doubt imported into the marts of the Malabar coast, but the quantity must have been limited, and could only have been purchased by the rich. The Brahmans of the Ganges, from whom Megasthenes obtained much information, punished indulgence in intoxicating drinks with great severity. The Aryans of the Panjâb were less abstemious, and this led to dissensions, and a final rupture between them and their brethren of Iran. The wine used at sacrifices was the fermented juice of the plant called soma. When required for drinking it was mixed with milk.
[224] The diversity of views which prevailed in India regarding suicide was noticed by Megasthenes. The book of the law, in case of incapacity, regards it as meritorious, but the Buddhists altogether condemned it. Pliny (vi. 19) says that the Indian sages always ended their life by a voluntary death on the funeral pile.
[225] This is a very vague and meagre account of the opinions and practices of the Indian philosophers and ascetics. Other writers are more copious on the subject, as Strabo (XV.), Arrian (Anab. vii. 2, 3; Indika, 11), Diodôros (ii. 40), Plutarch (Life of Alexander, 64, 65). References are made to it by Mela, Suidas, Orosius, Philo, Ambrosius, Aelian, Porphyrius, and others (v. [Notes W] and [Hh]).