[20] See H. Raychaudhuri, Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect, p. 27.
[21] It must be admitted that ancient writers give different etymologies of the name: thus, a poet in the Mahābhārata (III. clxxxix. 3) derives it from nārāḥ, "waters," and ayanam, "going," understanding it to mean "one who has the waters for his resting-place"; Manu (I. 10, with Mēdhātithi's commentary), accepting the same etymology, interprets it as "the dwelling-place of all the Naras"; and in the Mahābhārata XII. cccxli. 39, it is also explained as "the dwelling-place of mankind." But these interpretations are plainly artificial concoctions.
[22] RV. X. cxxix. 5, ŚB. VI. i. 1, 1-5. Cf. Charpentier, Suparṇasage, p. 387.
[23] It is obvious that this island lies in a latitude somewhere between that of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, and that the professors who have endeavoured to locate it on the map of Asia have wasted their time.
[24] See Rapson, Ancient India, p. 156 ff., Cambridge Hist. India, i, pp. 521, 558, 625, H. Ray Chaudhuri, Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect, p. 59, and Ramaprasad Chanda, Archæology and Vaishnava Tradition in Memoirs of the Archæological Survey of India, No. 5, p. 151 ff., etc.
[25] See R. Chanda, ut supra, p. 152 f.
[26] It is noteworthy that Saṃkarshaṇa is here mentioned first, as is also the case in the Nanaghat inscription of about 100 b.c., which mentions them as descendants of the Moon in a list of various deities. This order may possibly be due to the fact that in ancient legend Saṃkarshaṇa, or Bala-bhadra, is the elder brother of Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, and it does not entitle us to draw the inference that he ever received equal honour with Vāsudēva. Special devotees of Saṃkarshaṇa are mentioned in the Kauṭilīya, the famous treatise on polity ascribed to Chāṇakya, the minister of Chandra-gupta Maurya, who came to the throne about 320 b.c. (Engl. transl. 1st edn., p. 485). I suspect that in its present form the Kauṭilīya is considerably later than 320 b.c.; but in any case the existence of special votaries of Saṃkarshaṇa is no proof that he ever ranked as equal to Vāsudēva, just as the presence of special worshippers of Arjuna is no proof that Arjuna was ever considered a peer of Vāsudēva. On the Ghasundi inscription see R. Chanda, ut supra, p. 163 ff., etc.; for the Nanaghat inscription, ibidem and Memoirs of the Arch. Survey of India, No. 1, with H. Raychaudhuri's Materials, etc., p. 68 ff.
[27] R. Chanda, ut supra, p. 169 f.
[28] R. Chandra, ut supra, p. 165 f.
[29] Rapson, Catal. of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty, etc., pp. xliv, lxii, lxix, cxxxiii-cxxxvi, clxii; Indian Antiq., xlvii, p. 85, etc.