Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s1: Section I. Foreword
Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s1
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- English
Section I. Foreword
c9.s1.1
No Thucydides or Tacitus has left for posterity a genuine history of Ancient India. But the patient investigations of numerous scholars and archæologists have opened up rich stores of material for the reconstruction of the ancient history of our country. The first notable attempt to "sort and arrange the accumulated and ever-growing stores of knowledge" was made by Dr. Vincent Smith. But the excellent historian, failing to find sober history in bardic tales, ignored the period immediately succeeding "the famous war waged on the banks of the Jumna, between the sons of Kuru and the sons of Pāṇḍu," and took as his starting point the middle of the seventh century B.C. The aim of the present writer has been to sketch in outline the dynastic history of Ancient India including the neglected period. He takes as his starting point the accession of Parikshit which, according to Epic and Purāṇic tradition, took place shortly after the Bhārata War.
c9.s1.2
Valuable information regarding the Pārikshita and the post-Pārikshita periods has been given by eminent scholars like Weber, Lassen, Eggeling, Caland, Oldenberg, Jacobi, Hopkins, Macdonell, Keith, Rhys Davids, Fick, Pargiter, Bhandarkar and others. But the attempt to frame an outline of political history from Parikshit to Bimbisāra out of materials supplied by Brāhmaṇic as well as non-Brāhmaṇic literature is, I believe, made for the first time in the following pages.