Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India c8.1

c8.1

The natural boundaries of India are the Himâlaya mountains, the river Indus and the sea. But on the west, these limits have been so frequently overstepped by powerful kings that most authors, from the time of Alexander down to a very late period, have considered Eastern Ariana, or the greater part of Afghanistan, as forming a portion of the Indian continent. Thus Pliny† says that "most writers do not fix the Indus as the western boundary (of India), but add to it the four satrapies of the Gedrosi, Arachotæ, Arii, and Paropamisadæ,—thus making the river Cophes its extreme boundary." Strabo* also says that "the Indians occupy (in part) some of the countries situated along the Indus, which formerly belonged to the Persians. Alexander deprived the Ariani of them, and established there settlements of his own. But Seleukus Nikator gave them to Sandrokottus, in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants." The prince here mentioned is the well-known Chandra Gupta Maurya, whose grandson Asoka dispatched missionaries to the most distant parts of his empire for the propagation of Buddhism. *Alasadda*, or Alexandria ad Caucasum, the capital of the *Yona*, or Greek country, is recorded as one of these distant places; and as the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsang notices several *stupas* in that neighbourhood as the work of Asoka, we have the most satisfactory proofs of the Indian occupation of the Kabul valley in the third and fourth centuries before Christ. The completeness of this occupation is well shown by the use of the Indian language on the coins of the Bactrian Greeks and Indo-Scythians, down to The *fraternities* of the Middle Ages, which were so numerous and so varied in their objects, were not all of the same origin. Some were religious, some social, some charitable, and some industrial. The religious guilds, or *gilds*, as they were often called, were associations of laymen for the purpose of performing religious duties, such as the maintenance of a chaplain, the celebration of masses, or the support of a hospital. The social guilds were formed for the purpose of mutual aid and good fellowship, and often included in their objects the relief of the poor, the sick, and the aged. The charitable guilds were established for the purpose of supporting hospitals, almshouses, and other institutions of mercy. The industrial guilds, or *craft guilds*, were associations of men engaged in the same trade or industry, and were formed for the purpose of regulating the trade, protecting the interests of the members, and maintaining the quality of their work.