The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c8.15

c8.15

Mr. F. E. Pargiter in his valuable work, *The Dynasties of the Kali Age* (Clarendon Press, 1913), has succeeded in obtaining more definite results. He suggests that the *Bhavishya Purāṇa* in its early form was the original authority from which the *Matsya*, *Vāyu*, and *Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇas* derived their dynastic lists. The *Vāyu* and *Brahmāṇḍa* were originally one, and have become differentiated. The versions of the lists as now found in the *Matsya*, *Vāyu*, and *Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇas* 'grew out of one and the same original text.' But the *Matsya* version is in some respects the best of those three, notwithstanding that it includes additions of later date. The *Vishṇu* and *Bhāgavata Purāṇas* are later condensed redactions, and the *Bhavishya* in its existing form, which has been freely corrupted and interpolated, is worthless for historical purposes. Those purposes are served chiefly by the *Matsya*, *Vāyu*, and *Brahmāṇḍa*. There are clear indications that the Sanskrit account of the dynasties as it now stands in these three works is an adaptation of older Prākrit *ślokas*, or verses ; and there is some reason for suspecting that the most ancient text was originally written in the Kharoshṭhī script.