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We shall then have between twenty- nine and thirty years for a generation, which is a sufficiently common duration of life elsewhere, and quite as long, I think, as the average of a generation at the present day in India. By the aid of some such expedient your genealogical table might hold its ground among possibilities; otherwise, I fear, it would be very difficult for either of us to persuade the nations of the world in general, that your history is reconcil- able with what is believed of the progress of mankind from the most authentic annals elsewhere." '^ But it seems to us only natural,'' answered Vidydchdrya, "that our history should in the holy land go back farther than that of profane nations ; and the earlier fathers of mankind may well have lived longer than their degenerate descendants. You have, I think, in the books which Christians acknowledge as sacred, the latter principle fully admitted. But why should our accounts be tried by those of other nations, and not rather theirs be tested by ours?" "Well," resumed Blancombe, "if you will not bring your Sdstras to the test of comparative history in general, at least you will admit that they ought to be consistent with themselves. After, therefore, that very long interval between Edma and the heroes of the great war, such as Arjuna and Yudhishthira, I suppose these latter ought to be many generations lower down in your lists of the Lunar dynasty, than E4ma is in those of the Solar kings. But pray, is it so?" "Not exactly," answered the A'chdrya; " for it is believed that some of the Vit6ra kings in the Chdndra-Vansa (Moon-dynasty) had their lives super- naturally prolonged." " Then your lists do, as I had been told," asked Blancombe, " make Bdma full sixty generations from Manu in the Oude dynasty, while those heroes who lived so many thousand years after him, according to your reckoning, are placed even earlier, or barely fifty generations from Manu, in the list of the kings of Vitdra?" "What you have been M. p. 16 242 ANCIENT DYNASTIES. told of the lists is true," answered the A'chdrya. " Well, you see," resumed Blancombe, '^ the more improbable a statement is in itself, the more one is apt to cross-examine the witnesses ; and if their story goes on becoming less probable, or less con- sistent apparently with itself, at each step, you know what con- clusion the lawyers draw. So, I confess, it appears to me the mildest course we can take here is to conceive either that names haye dropt out of some of your lists, or else years been inserted without sufficient warrant; and in either case the chronology becomes so doubtful, that it can hardly stand alone, unless we haye some confirmatory accounts from other countries on which it may lean. In fact, it is difficult to say, which out of incon- sistent accounts ought to be preferred ; only, if all men, as you seem to say, sprang from Vaiyaswata Manu, or from Adam, it is probable that their history in one country would not go inde- finitely farther back than in countries of the world generally ; and hence, if your chronology for the earliest period should be brought, by leaving out the thousands, or by subdivision of midtiples, into a range of parallel with that of other nations, it might be easier to believe. Or perhaps at a later date, we might be able to fix some point of coincidence, on which we might take our stand, and look about us. Have you not, for example, in your lists, a king called Chandraguptaf'^ "Certainly,*' answered the A'ch^a, " there was among the kings of Magadhi, one of that name. He was first of the Maurya dynasty, which succeeded to that of the Nandas." " Before we go farther," said Blancombe, " let it be made clear what places or lists of kings we are taking into consideration. You have mentioned the Sun-dynasty of Oude and Canouj, with its sixty generations down to B4ma, and about thirty more down to the Great War. Then there is the Moon-dynasty of Vitdra with barely fifty generations, supposed to extend over the same time as the other column of ninety. But who are these kings of Magadhd?" ** They are the descendants," answered the other, " of Sahadeva^ who lived in the time of the Great War, and, going into the ANCIENT DYNASTIES. 243 cotintiy now called Behar, founded there the city of Magadhi He was himself tenth from Knni in the Moon-dynasty. From him down to Bipunjaya, there reigned in Magadhd about twenty kings for a thousand years; then, after Kipunjaya, came fire of the Pradyota-dynasty ; and then Sisun4ga, the first of a dynasty of ten, who, I suppose, is the king you alluded to as having a fabulous account given of his name in the Bauddha chronicles. At least the fifth of his dynasty is Bimbisara, in whose reign the great deluder, Gautama, or S4kya, was bom." " But Sdkya was not of Magadhd, I think, was he?" asked Blancombe. " No," replied the other, ** he was son of 8uddh6dana, whom I, following the Vishnu Purdna, call king of Ayodhya, or of whatever city may then have been the capital of that region, but whom the Bauddhas call king of Capila- vastu." " This interests me exceedingly," said Blancombe, " for now, by putting things together, I think I see a glimpse of light. But first, please to finish with your list of kings." " It is prophesied in the Vishnu Purtoa," proceeded the other, ** that ' after the Saisunagas will come Nanda, the son of a Sudra mother ; he will bring all the earth under one umbrella.' Accordingly, the event happened so ; and then aft^r nine Nandas came the new dynasty of the Mori tribe, which the Brahman Kautilya brought about, and of which Chandragupta was the first king. His son was Vindusara, and his grandson, as pro- bably you are aware, was Asoca." " I am much obliged to you for all this information," said Blancombe ; " and I suppose this Asoca is the king whose Bauddha inscriptions were so confidently appealed to by our friend the Saugata Muni, who has now been silent so long?" " He is so," answered the other. "And pray, my firiend," said Blancombe, now turning to the Saugata, " when should you, according to the most moderate chronology in any of your books, such as the Mah^wansa, place either your first Council, or the death of S4kya? In what year, that is, of the Saca era?" " Why," answered the other, " it was six hundred and twenty-one years before the Saca era begins, or two 16—2 244 CHANDRAQUPTA. thonsand three hnndred and ninety-seTen years before the one now current; (therefore it would be 643 b. c). You agree also in making the age of Chandragupta about fiye generations lower." "Yes," answered the Saugata, we make him reign from four hundred and fiftj-nine to four hundred and twenty- fire years before the Saca era begins/' "That is not exactly what I hoped to hear," remarked Blancombe, "but it comes within a very few years, at least within few, as compared to the yast periods we have been discussing. For I no longer doubt that this Chandragupta is the same as Sandracottus, who is mentioned by more than one Greek writer as having made a treaty with Seleucus Nicator. You have often heard of Alex- ander, the great Yavana conqueror, who established a king- dom in Bactria, of which we have still the coins remaining, and did battle with the Indians of the Punjaub. You can readily understand how in his age history had been weU fixed among the Greeks, by an inquisitive people, who learnt accuracy in the course of political rivalries, and were obliged to study it in their narratives. So we are able to fix precisely the date of Alex- ander's dying at Babylon as b.c. 322, and the reign of Seleucus, one of the kings among whom his empire was divided, as com- ing down to B. c. 310 ; that is, three hundred and eighty-eight years before the Saca era commences, or within thirty-seven years of the date at which you fix Chandragupta. Again, Megasthenes*, an ambassador and writer among the Yavanas, actually visited the court of Asoca, Chandragupta's grandson, and from him very many of the notions entertained in India by the later Greeks were derived. His time also corresponds suf- ficiently with what, from the clue you have already given me, you would naturally make the date of Asoca. This date, indeed, is partly fixed even by the inscriptions already spoken of; for they have the name of Ptolemy, and since they have also the word Magas^ it is probable they mean Ptolemy Philadelphus, whose brother was so called, and his date is about three hundred * Mtgattkmu Indiett, ed.