CHAPTER IV.
THE NATIONS AND PRINCES OF THE LAND OF THE INDUS.
The examination of the accounts of exploits said to have been performed by Cyrus (Kuru), the founder of the Persian kingdom, in the region of the Indus, showed us above (p. 16) that it was the Gandarians, the neighbours of the Arachoti, whom Cyrus subjugated. Hence the spies of Darius could travel from Caspapyrus, i. e. from the city of Cabul (Kabura) down the Cabul and the Indus; from the mouth of the latter they sailed round Arabia and returned home by the Arabian Gulf. Not quite thirty years after the death of the Enlightened, towards the year 515 B.C., Darius subjugated the tribes dwelling to the north of Cabul on the right bank of the Indus, the "northern Indians," as Herodotus calls them, as far as the upper course of the Indus. His inscriptions at Persepolis add the "Idhus" to the Gandarians and Arachoti, who are mentioned in previous inscriptions as subjugated.[506] The Gandarians were united with the Arachoti and Sattagydæ into a satrapy of the Persian kingdom; the Açvakas, who dwell on the left bank of the Cabul, formed with the tribes who dwell further north up the course of the Indus a separate satrapy, the satrapy of the Indians. By the successor of Darius the soldiers in both satrapies were summoned to take part in the campaign against Hellas. Herodotus, who wrote at the time when Kalaçoka sat on the throne of Magadha, tells us that the Gandarians, who were commanded by Artyphius, the son of Artabanes, were armed like the Bactrians; the Indians, led by Pharnazathres, were clothed in garments of cotton or bark, and armed with bows of reed, and arrows of reed tipped with iron points. The horsemen among the Indians were clothed and armed like the foot-soldiers, their chariots of war were equipped partly by horses and partly by wild asses.[507] They marched over the bridges of the Hellespont, and sixty years after the death of the Enlightened they trod the soil of Hellas. They saw the temple of Athens in flames; the infantry, horse, and chariots of the Indians wintered in Thessaly, and were then defeated on the Asopus.[508]
According to Herodotus the satrapy of the Indians paid the highest tribute in the whole Persian kingdom; each year it had to deliver 360 talents of gold to the king. The gold for this payment was obtained, as Herodotus tells us, from a great desert, which lay to the east beyond the Indus. Of that region no one could give any account. Where the desert began there were ants, smaller than dogs and larger than foxes, which dug up gold sand, when after the manner of ants they excavated their nests in the ground. This sand the Indians took, put in sacks, and carried it off as quickly as possible on the swiftest camels; for should the ants overtake them, neither man nor beast could escape; occasionally ants of the kind were captured and brought to the Persian king.[509] This marvellous story is repeated by Megasthenes with even more definite statements; the Indians who dwelt in the mountains of that region are called Derdæ; the mountain plain, in which the ants are found, is three thousand stades (about 400 miles) in circuit; the sand thrown up by these animals requires but little smelting; and Nearchus assures us that the skins of the ants are like those of panthers.[510] That the Greeks are not relating a fable of their own invention is proved by the Mahabharata, according to which the tribes which dwell in the mountains of the north bring "ant gold" to Yudhishthira as a tribute.[511] The Derdæ of Megasthenes must be the Daradas, whom the book of the law counts among the degenerate races of warriors.[512] Even at this day the Dardus dwell on the upper course of the Indus to the north of Cashmere, in the valley of the Nagar, which flows into the Indus from the north, to the east of the highest summits as far as Iskardu, on the Darda-Himalayas (so called after the tribe), and speak a dialect of Sanskrit.[513] Adjacent to this almost inaccessible mountain-land are table-lands, where the sandy soil contains gold-dust. Numerous marmot-like animals with spotted skins, of which the largest are about two feet long,[514] burrow in this soil. The traveller who first penetrated this region in our times informs us: "The red soil was pierced by these animals, which sat on their hind legs before their holes, and seemed to protect them."[515] We may assume that the Daradas carried away the loose sand which these animals threw up in making their winter holes, in order to extract the gold from it; and the Aryas on the lower Indus and the Ganges, who did not know the marmot, compared them with the ants, which, among them, built and dug holes in the earth, and assuming that they were a large species of ant, called the gold of the north after them (pipilika). What the Greeks tell us of the swiftness and dangerous nature of these animals is fabulous.
What effect the subjugation of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus, and their dependence on the Persian kingdom, exercised upon them, we cannot ascertain. That they were not greatly alienated from the community of their own nation may be concluded from the fact that in the Aitareya-Brahmana and in the Mahabharata, a king of the Gandharas is mentioned, Nagnajit by name;[516] that in the Epos the daughter of the king of the Gandharas is married to the king of the Bharatas, and Krishna relates that he has overcome all the sons of Nagnajit,[517] the king of the Gandharas. A Rishi and Brahmans of the Gandharas are also mentioned, the latter with the addition that they are the lowest of all the Brahmans.[518] Of the tribes to the north of the Cabul, the Açvakas, the Assacanes of the Greeks, are merely alluded to by name. Whether the Persian kings maintained their dominion on the western bank of the Indus down to the fall of the kingdom, is not certain. The products and animals of India which Ctesias saw at the Persian court are described as gifts of the king of the Indians. According to Arrian, the Indians "from this side of the Indus" fought with some fifteen elephants in the army of the last Persian king at Arbela; according to Megasthenes these were the Oxydrakes (Kshudrakas), soldiers raised on the other side of the stream.[519]
From the time that the hymns of the Veda were sung in the land of the Panjab we are without any information about the life in these regions. From the Brahmans of the land of the Ganges and the writings of the Buddhists we hardly learn more about the nations of the Panjab and their fortunes than about the Aryas of the right bank of the Indus. The Çatapatha-Brahmana and the Ramayana mention the nation of the Kaikeyas, whose abodes are to be sought on the upper course of the Iravati and the Vipaça. Both authorities denote the king of the Kaikeyas by the title Açvapati, i. e. lord of horses.[520] The horses of the land of the Indus were considered the best in India (p. 318). The metropolis of the Kaikeyas is called in the Ramayana Girivraja, and the daughter of Açvapati is given to wife to king Daçaratha of Ayodhya. The distance from Girivraja to Ayodhya is fixed in the poem at seven days' journey in a chariot on a paved road.[521] The sutras of the Buddhists mention a region lying still further to the west. Not very far from the left bank of the Indus was the city of Takshaçila. In this, according to the sutras, the law of the Brahmans was current; Chandalas are said to have performed the duties of executioners and buriers of the dead. According to the Mahavança, Brahmans march in the fourth century B.C. from Palibothra to Takshaçila, and from thence to Palibothra.[522] The chronicle in this work, which it is true was not completed till the twelfth century A.D., tells us that king Gopaditya, who must be placed in the fourth century B.C., presented Brahmans from Aryadeça with lands, that he observed the castes, and introduced the worship of Çiva.[523]
The Brahmans of the Ganges looked down with scorn on the ancient home, and the region of the seven streams, where the arrangement of the castes and the Brahmanic law had not been brought into full recognition and currency, where there were tribes and even whole nations, who lived not only without Brahmans, but even without kings. We know the views of the Brahmans concerning the necessity of the power of punishment, the royal power, "since it is only from fear that all creatures fulfil their duties." In regard to the fact that the Brahmanic arrangement, which with them is the original arrangement given by God, was not entirely observed in the Panjab, the inhabitants of the land are for the most part called Vratyas, i. e. heretics; Bahikas, i. e. excluded; and the tribes without kings Arattas, i. e. kingless. Of the Vratyas the Tandya-Brahmana tells us: "They come on in uncovered chariots of war, armed with bows and lances; they wear turbans and garments with a red hem, fluttering points, and double sheepskins. Their leaders are distinguished by a brown robe and silver ornaments for the neck. They neither till the field nor carry on trade. In regard to law, they live in perpetual confusion; they do indeed speak the same language with the Brahmanic initiated; but what is easily spoken they call hard to be spoken."[524] According to the evidence of Panini, the Bahikas dwelt in villages, were without kings and Brahmans, and lived by war; the Kshudrakas and Malavas were the mightiest among those who had no king.[525] In the Mahabharata we are told that they are excluded from the Himavat, the Yamuna and the Sarasvati; impure in manners and character, they must be avoided. Their sacred fig-tree is called cow-slaughter, and their market-place is full of drinking-vessels. The wicked drink the intoxicating liquor of rice and sugar; they eat the flesh of oxen with garlic, and other flesh with forbidden herbs. The women wander through the streets and fields adorned with garlands, intoxicated and without garments. With cries like the noise of horses and asses they run to the bathing-places. They shout and curse, intoxicated with wine. What is taught by those acquainted with the sacred books passes elsewhere for law, but here, he who is born a Brahman passes into the rank of the Kshatriya or Vaiçya and Çudra, and the priest may become a barber, the barber a Kshatriya. Nowhere can the priest live according to his pleasure; only among the Gandharas, Kshudrakas and Bahikas is this reversal of everything a custom.[526]
The path of their development had carried the Brahmans on the Ganges so far from the original basis and motives of the old Arian life, that now they hardly could or would find any common link between themselves and these tribes. But even from their own point of view their attacks are exaggerated. The accounts of western writers from the last third of the fourth century B.C. show us that in the larger states and monarchies on the Indus and in the Panjab the doctrines of the Brahmans were known and practised. They were honoured and influential, though their rules were not entirely observed, least of all, it would seem, in the arrangement and closeness of the castes. From the same accounts we perceive what form of life and civilisation had been attained in the region of the Panjab since the time when the hymns of the Veda were sung there. A considerable number of smaller and larger principalities had arisen on the upper and lower Indus, and on the heights in the Panjab. Between these, on the spurs of the Himalayas, on the middle and lower course of the five streams, lay nations governed by overseers of cantons, chiefs of cities and districts, among which, with the exception of some pastoral tribes, the noble families were numerous and warlike. The territory of the princes no less than that of the free nations was thickly inhabited; even the latter possessed a considerable number of fortified towns. Not only the great principalities but even the free nations could put in the field armies of 50,000 men; and there were cities among them where 70,000 men could be made captive. In the monarchies between the Indus and the Vitasta Brahmans are found busied with penitential exercises, and they are of influence in the councils of the princes on the lower Indus. But even in one of the free nations a city of Brahmans is mentioned. The princes kept without exception a number of elephants for use in war; the ancient chariots were employed in their armies. The free nations were without elephants, but had hundreds and even thousands of chariots, in which, we cannot doubt, the noble families went to battle. There was no lack of martial vigour and spirit in the region of the Indus. With the exception of some minor princes and tribes and one or two larger states who asked for favour and help, the nations knew how to defend themselves with the utmost stubbornness. When defeated in the field, they maintained their cities, which were surrounded by walls and towers, chiefly, it appears, built of bricks, but also of masonry, and containing no doubt a citadel within them. Yet the walls of the cities cannot have been very strong, nor the citadels very high; if they forced the enemy to a regular siege, the walls did not long withstand the missiles and powerful besieging engines, and when the walls were surmounted it was possible to leap down without injury from the rampart to the ground.
The dominion of the Persians cannot have exercised any deep influence on the life of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus, and still less on the nations beyond the river. A new enemy, a dangerous neighbour, came upon the Indians from the distant west, who brought upon their states the first serious disaster from without. The extensive Persian kingdom was broken before the mighty arm of Alexander of Macedon. His expedition came from a greater distance than the armies of the kings of Asshur, of Cyrus, and Darius; it penetrated further to the east than the Assyrians and Persians had ever done, and brought with it important consequences, which extended over the whole land of the Indus.