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We may grant Queen Victoria's British pedigree as likely up to Owen Tudor, without condescending to reason upon it farther up to King Arthur, or to some remote Cadwaladr. Again, I cannot help -noticing, that this Vicramdditya, who is to pass for the Augustus of India, is not even mentioned in the Vishnu Purdna. What becomes, then, of his brilliant court, and of the antiquity of the Hindd drama? Tliis is not a light question. For in what language, or even with what alphabet, I beg to ask, were either the dramatic plays, or much more those portions of the literature, for which so far higher an antiquity is claimed, originally written ? The common alphabet is the Devan&gari. Some say this is developed out of old Pali alphabets. It seems to mc a debased Greek*. But it is confessedly modem. I should like to see copies of those which were before it, and to know on what principle they were deciphered. It is only the other day that the ingenious Prinscp deciphered certain inscrip- tions called ancient. They were as recent as Asoca's time, or two hundred and fifty-nine years before the Christian era. Who would answer for alphabets claiming to be fifteen centuries older. The first thing certain in the history of India, even if I grant the certainty of that, is the rise of Buddhism. What is the language of this religion and its most characteristic literature ? * The fact of Sanscrit letters opening toward* the Uft, though read towards the right, suggests the question of a possibly Semitic origin. HISTORICAL SCEPTICISM. 261 Not Sanscrit, such as is called pure, but Pali ; and Pali calls itself the root [mula), or the oldest Hindd tongue. I have yet to see evidence proving that it is not so. All the earlier Brah- manic period and literature may be either imagination or im- posture. What external history attests any Brahmans earlier than the sixth century before Christ? Even if Megasthenes, from whom our best Greek accoimts flow, were as early, his descriptions of certain philosophers* appear to comprehend rival ascetics, some Brahmanical, and some Jains or Bauddhas, whom he calls by almost the Hindd word Hramanas ; but this does not imply organised caste on the one side ; and therefore it need not on the other. Was caste even in the time of Alexander known? Arrian says that all Indians were free. Diodorus oi Sicily thought tlie same. These are unbribed witnesses, living, one in the first, the other in the second century of our era. Could they have heard of Sudras and Chdnddlas ? Or, if I grant that the division of classes, /i/pi;, mentioned by Strabot, (pp. 703 — 708 C,) means castes, and not mere occupations, how little will this go towards building up the vast antiquity of the Brahma- nical system! If I maintain, as a probable hypothesis, that Buddhism is the oldest religion, and that its books contain the oldest religion of India, who can prove the contrary ? The Pali language would be in my favour. For certainly it is ruder, and more likely to have grown into the Sanscrit, than out of it. Then what is the hair, or complexion, with which Buddha is represented in his images? Clearly dark, or negro ; and this is more nearly the characteristic of the older races of India, than of the immigrant Aryas. We know that afterwards, say about A. D. 700, the poor Bauddhas were expelled. Nothing could be easier than for Cum^la Bhatta and his associates then to get up a representation of an earlier prse-Buddhist period. A large part of Sanscrit literature falls in very well with such a supposi- tion. Its advocates boast of its many stages and periods, which * Frag, 41, 41, 43, ed. Schw. t Strabo, Lib. xv. pp. 703 — 708, o. Schwanbeck's Megatthenes, p. 41. 262 FOREIGN INFLUENCES. they say require a development of centuries. But here are a thousand years and upwards from the eighth century to our own time. Considering the fervor of the Indian imagination, and the rapid transitions which religions and politics have run through, how many stages of letters does not this admit of? Many of the Purdnas are undoubtedly very modem. They mention not only Mahometans, but other events or names within six or eight cen- turies from our own date. Even the Jesuit Missionary Robertus de Nobilibus*, in the sixteenth century, invented one which passed current for a time. This shews the vagueness of tests of Sanscrit antiquity. You have yourself shewn how variously the date of Vicramkditya may be placed. Why should he not have preceded Mahmud of Ghazni by a hundred years, instead of by a thousand? If, again, we turn from literature, which may be modem, to the more fixed testimonies of inscriptions and temples, where is anything of this kind belonging to that supposed period of early Brahmanism ? All the earliest instances I am aware of are Buddhist f. Such a hard fact is worth a thousand theories, not to say frauds. For if the literature and creed of the Brah- mans had been as old as is pretended, we should have had ancient inscriptions and temples belonging to them. Just as very ignorant Europeans fancy the TdJ Mahal at Agra is charac- teristic of the Hindtl architecture, whereas it was built for the Emperor Shah Jehan, by a Frenchman, about 1650, so may others in a somewhat obscurer region trace to early Brahmans what may really come of Greek or Roman influence. You must, at least, allow it to be remarkable, that the Hindd drama, and the supposed brilliancy of the court of Malwa, come out, on your own shewing, almost contemporary with the Augustan age at Rome, and considerably posterior to contact with the Greeks under Alexander. The age of the Ptolemies was the most likely • Asiatic Betearchea, Vol. xiv. Calcutta Heview, Oct. 1844. Grant's Bampion Leduret, Maurice's PrefiMe to Led, Ep, ffefyrews, Dr Mill, Chritfa Sangita. t Colonel Sykes, Journal RAs,& No. XII. London, 1841. Foe Koue Ki, par M. A. B^musat, Paris, 1836. Fei^gpson on Indian Temples, in Journal B,A,S, BKAHMANISM WHETHER ANCIENT. 263 ever known to "be a hot-bed of foreign influences, and rapid lite- rary growth, with possibly spurious pretensions. How late even may have been the immigration of the Aryan race into India, it is difficult to say. We may admit them to have hovered about the Punjaub for some generations before the time of Buddha, and still contend that their Brahmanical religion did not de- velope itself until after the Christian era. But it is significant that Herodotus* makes the Indians all black. The negro re- presentations of S4kya may therefore be true. The reigns of the Achsemenian princes, or from Cyrus to Darius Hystaspes, supply as probable a date as any for an unfixed immigration £pom the Persian provinces. Such names as Yadu^ Puru, Madhu^ in the Vishnu Purdna may denote a Medo-Persian connexion, and might fall, as I rather fancy, not far from the time of Darius Hystaspes. Again, India is called the land of Bharata, and the genealogies make Bharata descend from Puru. Those who say the Persian descent thus implied was prior to any aggrandise- ment of the Persian empire, or even to its existence, should shew ground for their belief. But you see we have found nothing Brahmanical which can be called clearly older than Buddha. Buildings are against a higher antiquity; language and the features of races are not for it ; literature is doubtful ; and who- ever considers how vague dates are, both in Sanscrit matters, and in the kindred traditions of Persia, for which so high an antiquity has been claimed, but which can be traced no higher than Firdusit, the poet of Mahmud, A. D. 1000, will probably agree with me in saying, that you have allowed Hindtl chro- nology far too ample a range. If I had been arguing for you, indeed, I should rather have asked whether Buddhism itself be not a degenerate offshoot of a Nestorian form of Christianity. Nor would Chinese travellers, such as Fa Hian, deter me from this, because they say, as late as 412 A. d. that they found • B. III. c. loi. t That Firdusi gives traditions of Vedic deities, transformed into fanciful history, is shewn by Mohl. See M. MilUer's 'Results of the Perdiui Researches/ in Bonsen, PM, Un. HiM, Vol. i. 264 REPLY TO EXTREME SCEPTICISM. Buddhism prevalent in India. Tlie testimony, however, of Fa Hian, when he finds Buddhism everywhere, and calls the Brah- mans strangers in India, becomes of w^eight against the claims of the Bralimanical system to a remote antiquity.