Note U.—Patala
The situation of Patala has been a fertile theme of controversy. Arrian seems, no doubt, to give here a clear indication of its position in saying that it stood near where the Indus bifurcates; but as this point has from time to time shifted, the controversy has turned mainly on the question where this point is to be fixed. The river bifurcates at present at Mottâri, which lies twelve miles above Haidarâbâd, and it has been known to bifurcate a little above, and also a little below Thatha, at Bauna also, and at Trikul. As a matter of fact, these bifurcations no longer exist, except perhaps for a part of the year when the river is in flood and recurs to some of its old channels. It is not then surprising that various identifications have been proposed for Patala. It was placed at Brâhmanâbâd by M’Murdo, Wilson, and Lassen; at Thatha by Rennell, Vincent, Ritter, and the two brothers, James and Sir Alexander Burnes; and at Haidarâbâd, the Nirankot of Arab writers, by Droysen, Benfey, Burton, Saint-Martin, Cunningham, and Bunbury. The arguments in favour of Haidarâbâd seem to be quite conclusive. They will be found stated at length in Saint-Martin’s Étude (pp. 168-191), and Cunningham’s Geography (pp. 279-287). One of the most cogent is that the dimensions of the Delta, as given by the Greek writers, are only justified if the apex of the Delta is taken to have been in Alexander’s time at or near Haidarâbâd. If the apex had then been as high up as Brâhmanâbâd, or as far down as Thatha, the size of the Delta would be as grossly exaggerated in the one case as it would be underrated in the other. The same conclusion is indicated in the information supplied to the late Dr. Wilson of Bombay by the Brahmans of Sehwân, that, according to their local legends, as recorded in their Sanskrit books, Thatha was Déval, and Haidarâbâd Néran, and more anciently Patolpuri. Patala was thought at one time to have been a transcription of the Sanskrit Pâtâla, the nether world, into which the sun descends at the end of his day’s journey, and hence the West; but a better etymology is the Sanskrit potala, “a station for ships,” from pôta, “a vessel.” The name of the Indian Delta was Patalênê. Haidarâbâd stands on a long flat-topped hill, and Patala, if this was its site, must have occupied a commanding position, the advantages of which, alike for strategy and commerce, Alexander would perceive at a glance. The main stream of the Indus now flows to the west of this position. In the second chapter of his Indika Arrian repeats the statement that the Indus enters the ocean by two mouths. Aristoboulos estimated the interval between them at 1000 stadia, but Nearchos at 1800. The interval from the west to the east arm measures at present 125 British miles. The sea-front of the Egyptian Delta with which the Greeks compared that of the Indus Delta is not less than 160 miles. The Prince of Patala was called Moeris.
Note V.—Alexander’s March through Gedrôsia-Pura
“No traveller,” says Bunbury, referring to the interior of Mekran, “has as yet traversed its length from one end to the other in the direction followed by Alexander. So far as we can judge, he appears to have kept along a kind of plain or valley, which is found to run nearly parallel to the coast between the interior range of the Mushti (or Washati) hills and the lower ragged hills that bound the immediate neighbourhood of the sea-coast. This line of route has been followed in very recent times by Major Ross from Kedj to Bela, and seems to form a natural line of communication, keeping throughout about the required distance (60 or 70 miles) from the coast [the distance required for maintaining communication with the fleet].... This line of march so far as is yet known does not appear to traverse any such frightful deserts of sand as those described by the historians of Alexander. Nor can the site of Pura ... be determined with accuracy. It has been generally identified with Bunpoor (Banpûr), the most important place in Western Beloochistan, or with Pahra, a village in the same neighbourhood; but the resemblance of name is in this case of little value—poor signifying merely a town—while the remoteness of Bunpoor from the sea, and its position to the north of the central chain of mountains, which Alexander must therefore have traversed in order to reach it, present considerable difficulties in the way of this view” (Hist. of Anc. Geog. pp. 519-520). Strabo, in his chapter on Ariana, narrates in graphic detail, like Arrian, the sufferings experienced by the Macedonians in passing through Gedrôsia. The summer, he says, was purposely chosen for leaving India, since rains then fall in Gedrôsia, filling the rivers and wells which fail in winter. Alexander kept at the utmost from the sea not more than 500 stadia in order to secure the coast for his fleet. The army was saved by eating dates and the marrow of the palm-tree, but many persons were suffocated by eating unripe dates.
To account for the surprising length of time (60 days) occupied on this march, which could not have exceeded 400 English miles, we must suppose that the troops were obliged to make frequent halts at places where water was procurable. Strabo says that it was found necessary on account of the watering-places to make marches of two, four, and even sometimes of six hundred stadia generally during the night. The land distances, like the sea distances of Nearchos, seem to have been grossly exaggerated. The march of Semiramis through this desert and that of Cyrus seem to be mythical. Alexander’s loss in men during the march must have been exaggerated by the historians, as he brought the bulk of his army with him to Pura.
Note W.—Indian Sages
According to Megasthenes the Indian sages were divided into two sects, Brahmans and Sarmans. There was besides a third sect, described as quarrelsome, fond of wrangling, foolish and boastful. The Brahmans, he says, were held in higher esteem than the Sarmans because there was more agreement in their doctrines. Among the Sarmans the Hylobioi (living in woods) were held in most honour, and next to them the physicians, who are mendicants and also ascetics, like the class above them and the class below them, which consisted of sorcerers and fortune-tellers. Megasthenes has related at some length the nature of the opinions and practices of all these sects, and Duncker considers that in all essential points his accounts agree with the native authorities, though the view taken may be here and there too favourable, in some points too advanced, in others not sufficiently discriminating. “It is true,” he says, “that the Brahmans and the initiated of the Enlightened (Buddhists), the Śramanas, are confounded in the order of the sages; this is shown by the statement that any one could enter into this order.... In the description of the life of the ascetics and wandering sages, the Brahmans and Bhikshus (mendicants) are again confounded, and if the Greeks tell us that the severe sages of the forest were too proud to go to the court at the request of the king, the statement holds good according to the evidence of the Epos of the Brahmanic saints, and the Sutras of the great teachers among the Buddhists. In the examination of the doctrines of the Indian sages, Megasthenes distinguished the Brahmans and the Buddhists, inasmuch as he opposes the less-honoured sects to the first, and declares the Brahmans to be the most important. From his whole account it is clear that at his date, i.e. about the year 300 B.C., the Brahmans had distinctly the upper hand. But, according to him, the Śramanas took the next place to the Brahmans among the less-honoured sects. Among the Buddhists Śramana is the ordinary name for their clergy” (Hist. of Antiq. pp. 422-424).
Note X.—The Indian Month
Curtius apparently means that the Indians mark time, not by taking a month to be the period from full moon to next full moon, but from new moon to full moon. “The year of the Indians (says Duncker) was divided into 12 months of 30 days; the month was divided into two halves of 15 days each, and the day into 30 hours (muhurta). In order to bring this year of 360 days into harmony with the natural time, the Brahmans established a quinquennial cycle of 1860 lunar days. Three years had 12 months of 30 lunar days; the third and fifth year of the cycle had 13 months of the same number of days. The Brahmans do not seem to have perceived that by this arrangement the cycle contained almost four days in excess of the astronomical time, and indeed they were not very skilful astronomers” (v. his History of Antiquity, iv. 283, 284). According to Weber this system of calculating time was borrowed from the Babylonians, but Max Müller and learned Hindus hold it to be indigenous. The Indian name for the half of a lunar month is paksha. The half from new moon to full moon was called at first pûrva (fore), and afterwards śukla (bright); the other half was called apara (posterior), and afterwards krishna (dark). Le Clerc concludes his criticism of this passage thus: “Matthaeus Raderus endeavours to explain Curtius as if he designed to demonstrate that one month began and was understood to commence a little after the change to the full moon, and the next, from the time when she began to decrease to the next change. This, indeed, ought to be his meaning; but it is strangely expressed, when he tells us that the moon begins to show herself horned on the sixteenth day, when ’tis evident she does not appear so till about seven days after full moon. But before Raderus, Thomas Lydiat had tried to solve the matter otherways. However, Scaliger, in his Prolegomena to his Canones Isagogicae, p. 11, has plainly showed that Lydiat neither understood Curtius nor Curtius the author which he copied from. The ancient Persians counted 15 days to each of their months, and 24 of these months to the solar year, before the introduction of Mohammedism, as John Chardin evidently demonstrates in his Itinerarium Persicum, tome xi. p. 14, quarto” (v. Rooke’s Arrian, p. 12).