•will deny: but the hallucinations about early Brahmanical science in Astronomy, when
their Zodiacs are Greek, their Eclipses calculated backwards, and their fabulous chronology
is built upon Chaldean magianism, leave the historical antiquity of India prostrate beneath
thé axe of the sAortf-chronologist. ‘Un astronomo può, se vuole, far4e tavole dell’ecclissi
che avranno luogo di qui a cento-mila anni, se il mondo esisterà ; e può ugualmente determinare
lo stato, nel quale sarebbesi trovato il cielo centomil’anni fa, se il mondo esisteva : ’
(Testa, ‘ Dissertazione sopra due Zodiaci,’ &o. ; Borna, 1803, p. 23.) The Hindoos, in concocting
their primeval chronology, merely added a naught to Babylonish cyclic reckonings;—
4,320,000 years, instead of 432,000! (De Brotonne, ‘ Filiations des Peuples,’ 1837;
vol. i., pages 234 to 251, and 414.) See ample confirmations of the above view in the
critical work of Wilson (‘ Ariana Antiqua,’ 1841 ; pages 17, 21, 24, 419 ; 44, 45 ; and particularly
page 439, wherein it is shown, that numismatic studies cease to throw light on
Indian antiquities about the middle of the third century b. c.”).
“ When, therefore, the contenders for the ante-diluvian remoteness of the forty-eight-
lettered Sanscrit Alphabet can produce any stone, or other record older than the ‘ column
of Allahabad in honor of Tchandra-Gotjpta, Sandracottus,i cotemporary with Seleuous
Nicator, b. c. 315, it will be time enough for Hierologists, Sinologists, Hellenists and Hebraists,
to take into account the pseudo-antiquity of Sanscrit Alphabetical literature.” (231)
Our profession of faith in these matters, identical with the doctrines we hold at this day,
shocked some, literary prejudices. Nevertheless, it was based upon tolerably extensive
perusal of works on Hindoo antiquities ; and it is supported by the cuts and thrusts of a
swordsman, whose trenchant blade, notched on the battle-fields of Hindostan, still preserves
its keenness amid the bloodless strifes of archaeological polemics -— Lieut. Col. Sykes. (232)
From his matchless overthrow of European superstitions, in regard to Indian antiquity,
we have already extracted two paragraphs containing the decisions of Wilson and Tur-
nour. We now condense his own applications of cold steel to some of the vitalities of Hin-
dostanic pretension.
There exists but one Sanscrit composition tìhat can be called “ history;” viz. the Rqja
Taringini, compiled a. d. 1148. It contains anachronisms of 796, and of 1048 years ! Prior
to the fifth century after C.; “ inscriptions in pure Sanscrit are entirely wanting”— the
earliest Sanscrit inscription ascends to the fourth century, but it is impure in language and
not orthographic. Between the tenth and seventeenth centuries of our era, Sanscrit
inscriptions “ roll in thousands!” The very Sanscrit language, in the polished form in
which .its literature reaches us, can no more be foxmd ,monumentally in. India, before the
fifth century after C., than the English of Byron could appear in the days of Gower or
Chaucer. In consequence, those Germanic writers who, in their assimilations (which are
positive enough) of Greek, Latin, German, pr other Indo-European idiom, forget that
Sanscrit has undergone even greater transmutations than our Saxon vernacular has since
the reign of Alfred, often commit philological oversights of sublime magnitude !
“ Why are there not,” asks Sykes, “ the same tangible and irrefragable proofs extant of
the Sanscrit as of the Pali language : the more particularly so as Brahmanism and Sanscrit
have hitherto been believed to emanate from the fabled ages 7 ”
Commencing his deep researches with the more recent Sanscrit inscriptions, and tracing
them backwards as far as they recede, Prinsep (233) resolved the modern forty-eightDeva-
Nagari characters absolutely into the primitive letters of the old inscriptions written in the
“ L at” character and Pali language — the rencontre of graphical forms that approximated
to the ancient Pali type increasing exactly in the ratio of the antiquity of each Sanscrit
inscription. Of these last, the most ancient known dates a. d. 309 ; being just 624 years
posterior to the oldest Pali inscription discovered throughout the Hindostanic peninsula !
Now, this oldest Pali inscription is found on the “ column of Allahabad,” whereupon it
(231) Otia 2Eg.; p. 110, and note.
(232) “ Notes on th e Religions, Moral, and Political State of Ancient India before the Mohammedan In v a sion ”
—Jour. JR. Asiatic Soc.; London, 1841; vol. vi. pp. 248-484.
(233) Journal Asiatic Soc. o f Bengal; 1834-’41. Conf. Jour. JR. Asiatic Soc., 1853; x v . part i. p. x x v ; for
“ Nassik Inscriptions,” the date of th e cave being only a . d . 338! Also, concerning Arian superpositions upon
a dark autocthonous population of Hindostan, Gen. B r ig g s ’s Lecture “ On the Aboriginal Race of I n d ia ; ”
reported in London I/iterary Gazette, Ju ly 17, 1852.
was chiselled in the reign of Tchandra-Gupta, who is the Sandracottus of Greek history,
coetaneous with Seleucus Nicator in the year b. a. 315. All India affords nothing, written
alphabetically, more ancient ; and this age is 220 years later than the alphabetic cuneiform
of Persepolis; or above 300 years after the Greeks had already adopted the Aleph (alpha),
Beth (beta), Gimel (gamma), Daleth (delta), of the anterior Phoenician alphabet! The
identification of “ Sandracottus ” is moreover proved by the next early inscriptions known
in the Pali tongue ; viz. : two edicts of PisADASi-Asoia, a king of India in the year b. o.
217; who refers to his contemporary Antiochus the Great; just 62 years after the oldest
inscription, whose epoch stands parallel with Seleucus. Thus, palæographically, the antiquity
of India has fallen, never to rise again : and, inasmuch as the Brahmans certainly
stole their Zodiac from the post-Macedonian Greeks ; and probably some Levitical ceremonials
of Manou from Jewish exiles ; there is no reason whatever, yet published, against our
theory, that alphabetic writing also reached Hindostan, through Arian channels, from those
Semitio streams the source of which is now irrevocably traced back to Hamitic origines in
Egypt.
“ AH those ancient systems of Persic writing with which we are acquainted, although
applied to Arian dialects, are obviously formed on a Semitic model. I may notice in chronological
succession, the writing on the Cilician Darics ; the Arianian alphabet /of which
the earliest certain specimen is the transcript of the Edicts of As'oka), with its derivatives
the numismatic Bactrian. and the character of the Buddhist topes; the Zend- the Parthian
; exhibiting in the inscriptions o# Persia at least three varieties ; and thé Pehlevi
lapidary, numismatic and cursive. These several branches of Palæography are all more
or less connected. (23.4) o v a
Thus much to justify our table. But, “ Titius or- Sempronius” exclaims, have we not
the Sanscrit Vedas, the Epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, the “ Laws of Manou,” and the
Puranas? Did not Sir William Jones fix the age of the Vedas in the fifteenth century b. c.;
that of the “ Institutes of Menu” in the twelfth ? (235) Were not similar opinions held
by Cglebrooke and Schlegel ; and are they not supported by great Indianists of our own
time ? Conceded, gentlemen. Knowing nothing of Sanscrit ourselves, we are as little able to
speak decisively as those littérateurs who will be most startled at our audacities. Linguistically,
there are not twenty-five men in the world whose judgment, matured by comparative
archseology, is really authoritative in this discussion. In the meanwhile, pàlæographical
I facts speak intelligibly to all educated minds. We might add that Professor Wilson thinks
r the Vedas may, in part, ascend almost to the sixth century b. c.: but Sykes’s sabre is not
wanting in onr defence ; so let us continue.
In the first place, it is historical, that the Brahmans, in their efforts to destroy Buddhism,
dealt, by the ancient texts of Hindoo treatises on religion or traditions, precisely as the
Inquisition did with Hebrew Scriptures that existed before the tenth century of our era—
«. a, destroyed them. In the second, two Chinese travellers in India—Fa-hian, in the fourth
century, and Hiuan-thsang, in the seventh after Christ— have (unfortunately for Brahmanical
respectability) chronicled how, in this interval of three hundred years, the disciples
of Brahma had expanded, from an incipient bud, into that detestable flower in which Sanscrit
literature portrays them—ever noxious as Upas blossoms. (236) Their accounts are confirmed
ny the Chinese encyelopædist, Ma-touan-lin ; (237) who registers that, bout 502 a. d., the
Brahmans were but a small sept among the Buddhists — “ first among the tribes of bar-
toiatis.” It may also be mentioned that, in the time of Buddha, sixth century b. c., the
Hindoo, population was classed already into those four grand divisions which attest, as
(234) R a w iin s o n : BeMstun; p a r t i. p p . 4 3 -4 4 .
i f f hOT6 reCra% re_read m0Bt Papi>rs w i t h in c r e a s e d r e v e r e n c e : fo r h i s im m e n s e
I H H *iu a Iifie s a h d o gm a t ic o p in io n s a t t r ib u t e d t o h im w i t h “ifs” o f h i s o w n . B e fo r e u s l i e P a u t h i e e ’s
t e e , “ r S S O p 0 n C n i’- 1 S 4 3 : l b “1 M o iiK i ^éjleæions SOT- le Culte des A n c ie n s g ê tâ m e ; 1 8 3 8 ; w h e r e in t h e f if th
esset » 7 ? iS comparetl w i t h Lemticm;—a n d o th e r S a n s c r it c om m e n ta to r s “ q u o s r e c e n s e r a su p e r v a c a n e u m
o u r v ie r e a d BcMTOOT: Bmdhisme> - Tdfna; a n d n o t h in g t h e r e in o p p o s e s , w h i l e m u c h ju s t if ie s ,
(280) R em u sa t ; Mélanges Asiatiques.
(237) P authier : Chine; p . 381.