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SchwMibeck. Bonn, 1846. ASOCA — yicramXditta. 245 and forty-two before the Saca era commences. So that Asoca thus becomes contemporary of Antiochus in Syria, and Ptolemy Philadelphus in Egypt. Upon this firm basis, therefore, we can proceed to argue. For the triple coincidence of the Greek ac- counts, which are both numerous and reputable, of the Cingalese Bauddha books, and again, of the Bock inscriptions, which, although also Bauddha, yet having been but recently decy- phered, came up with all the freshness of an independent witness, is far too remarkable to haye arisen, except upon the supposition of the statements being, so far as they agree, correct. " Now let us go back to the Vishnu Purdna. When would you, my friend" — ^here Blancombe turned to the Achdrya — '^ place the last king of Magadha who is eminent enough to be clearly traced ?" " We place him," answered the other, " three hundred and ninety-six years before Vicram&dilya, the great king of Malwa." " And Vicramdditya's era begins, I think," resumed Blancombe, "one hundred and thirty-four years before the Saca era, or fifty-six before the Christian ?" "Exactly so," replied the other. "Then here," said Blancombe, " we hare standing-ground again. You have several dynasties, I think, between the Maurya and this last, which you call the Andhra, and the space of time required for them is probably considerable? Is it not so?" " Certainly," answered the other ; "for there are ten of the Mori family, who extend over one hundred and thirty-seven years, ten of the Sunga dynasty, who reigned for one hundred and twelve years, and four Kanwa kings, whom we affirm, if you have no objection, to have reigned between them three hundred and forty-five years. Then begins the Andhra dynasty, which ends with its twenty-first king, Chandrabija, four hundred and fifty- six years from its commencement." " And after him you make three himdred and ninety-six years to Vicramdditya?" asked Blancombe. "Exactly so," replied the other. "Well," said Blancombe, " I have no objection to the kings being described as reigning, whatever number of years may really have been the fact; but these things cannot be altered at our pleasure; and 246 yicrama'ditya's era. now we are landed in an inextricable difficulty. For, not to mention that the Kanwa kings appear unusually long-lived, you have given me as the entire interval between Chandragupta and Yicrama one thousand four hundred and forty-six years ; or, in other words, you make the first Maurya king one thousand five hundred and two years before the Christian era, whereas we have already seen, from the irrefragable coincidence between thoroughly independent accounts, that he really lived only three hundred and ten years before it. Here then is an error in a comparatively narrow portion of your annals, amounting to about twelve centuries. How much greater then may be the errors in those vast and indefinite periods which have been spoken of above, if we only had similar means of testing them ! How do you answer this, my friend?" "I don't deny," answered the A'ch^a, " that you understand these things better than I do ; but we have received it as I stated it." '' I say not a word against receiving ancient accounts, either upon sufficient authority, or when they are consistent with them- selves," said Blancombe ; " but when chronological errors of so large a range can be demonstrated in a system received as historical, it becomes no longer what accurate people understand by history. Moreover this difference of twelve centuries may lead to some important questions. For either the number given may be arbitrary, and possibly wrong, or else the last Andhra king may have been long after VicramSditya ; or again, he may really have been before Vicrama, and still the numbers be right ; only in this latter case we must bring down the famous era of Vicramdditya some centuries later than you have supposed. Nor should I wonder, myself, if in reality we ought to do so. But now, just observe, what important consequences would follow. For Vicrama is your great king, under the protection of whose court at Malwa* Hindti literature attained its brightest acme, and many famous scholars flourished. Supposing then it should happen that they had appeared to invent any £smious saying, * With Malwa QeBeniuB oonneots /UXvpios, the Greek for lead. NANDAS. 247 such as Christians may, perhaps, claim for the Fomider of their religion, it makes a great difference whether these famous HindtLs lived some half century before Christ, or an indefinite number of centuries after him. Suppose even that he lived only a century and a half later than you imagine, that difference alone opens up a vista of many possibilities. Then again, so great an error in so small a tract of time suggests the likelihood of general error on a large scale, and, in fact, throws doubt over the whole system. More particularly it should be observed, that pretensions to anything like prophecy hence suffer exceedingly. You have quoted a prophecy from the V. Purdna that Nanda should * bring all the earth under one umbrella.' But MegaS- thenes, the Yavana writer I have already quoted, relates that India contained one hundred and eighteen nations, without at all mentioning that Asoca was lord over them all ; yet Asoca was probably more powerful than Nanda. Or, if we looked upward, instead of downward, the Greeks who describe Alexander's empire or that of his successors, represent the Prasii and their king as eminent, but do not at all ascribe to them an imiversal dominion. Hence it would seem that Nanda did not exactly bring all the earth imder one umbrella; and if the passage saying so in the Pur4na be a prophecy, it had the misfortune not to be fulfilled ; or if it be a description, in case the Pur4na should turn out to be of a later date, then it is not historically accurate, but sins by exaggeration. Yet, if there were nothing in Indian history more hyperbolical than this, it might be com- paratively trustworthy. " Since, however, you have mentioned the Andhra dynasty, let us attempt a kind of conjecture. We will assume that Chanr dragupta must have lived until B.C. 305, and may have reigned previously perhaps thirty years. We will then take all your dynasties, only we must shorten hypothetically the reigns of the four Kanwa princes." " I should have told you," Vidy&ch&ya here interposed, " that in the Vishnu Purdna the time assigned to these is only forty-five years, though in other books of ours it 248 ANDHRAS. appears from a variety in the figures to be three hundred and forty-five." " That will help us materially," said Blancombe, " and with this deduction if we sum up the dates of your dynas- ties, and bring the Andhra kings forward accordingly, we shall find their epoch extend down to four hundred and ten, or possibly four hundred and forty, of the Christian era. This argument is perhaps rather more plausible, since it makes their dynasty comprehend the time during which the Eoman naturalist PUny the elder lived*, for he tells us, about A. d. 60, that in the neighbourhood of the Ganges — and it seems to be implied not £Eur in order from Palibothra — there was a powerful tribe called the Andar ; and, without disputing that there was an Andhra kingdom farther South on the Grodaveri, I agree with those learned men who think there is some reference here to the Andhra kings of Magadhd. But perhaps their capital may not have been Palibothra itself, but some city in its neighbourhood, and somewhat to the South. Still they would probably be rulers of Magadhi. Here then we seem to have something that looks like corroborative testimony. Again, Chinese authors have been reported to me as saying, that in the year A. D. 408, ambas- sadors arrived in their country from the Indian king Yuegnai. K that name means Yajna, which seems likely enough, then it will exactly correspond with the last but two of the Andhra kings, whose dynasty we have been supposing to end somewhere before A. D. 440. As this coincidence is not my own discovery f, I may venture to praise and rejoice in it. Now, you see, we are on tolerably steady ground." " Then ought not you, even at the worst, to allow that at this point our annals are strictly historical?" asked the Ach&rya. " Why, my fiiend, it is very awkward," answered Blancombe, • Validior deinde geiu, Andarce, Plin. Nat. HiH. vi. § ii, ed. Franaius.