The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c7.s1.64

c7.s1.64

The obstacles which prevented for so many years the construction of a continuous narrative of Early Indian History are due not so much to the deficiency of material as to the lack of definite chronology referred to by Elphinstone and Cowell. The rough material is not so scanty as has been supposed. The data for the reconstruction of the early history of all nations are necessarily meagre, largely consisting of bare lists of names supplemented by vague and often contradictory traditions which pass insensibly into popular mythology. The historian of ancient India is fairly well provided with a supply of such lists, traditions, and mythology; which, of course, require to be treated on the strict critical principles applied by modern students to the early histories of both western and eastern nations. The application of those principles in the case of India is not more difficult than it is in Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, or Rome. The real difficulty is the determination of fixed chronological points. A body of history must be supported upon a skeleton of chronology, and without chronology history is impossible.