A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c8.s3.82

c8.s3.82

Besides this we may gather from classical writers the following statements, bearing on Xandrames and Sandrocyptus: "When Alexander made inquiries about the interior of India, he was told that beyond the Indus there was a vast desert of 12 (or 11, according to Curtius,) days' journey, and that at the farthest borders thereof ran the Ganges. Beyond that river, he was told, the Prasii (Prâchyas) dwelt, and the Gangaridæ. Their king was named Xandrames, who could bring into the field 20,000 horse, 200,000 foot, 2,000 chariots, and 4,000 (or 3,000, Curtius,) elephants. Alexander who did not at first believe this, inquired from king Porus whether this account of the power of Xandrames was true; and he was told by Porus that it was true, but that the king was but of mean and obscure extraction, accounted to be a barber's son; that the queen, however, had fallen in love with the barber, had murdered her husband, and that the kingdom had thus devolved upon Xandrames.”¹ Quintus Curtius says², “that the father of Xandrames had murdered the king, and under pretence of acting as guardian to his sons, got them into his power and put them to death; that after their extermination he begot the son who was then king, and who, more worthy of his father's condition than his own, was odious and contemptible to his subjects.” Strabo adds³, “that the capital of the Prasii was called Palibothra, situated at the confluence of the Ganges and another river,” which Arrian⁴ specifies as the Erannoboas. Their king, besides his birth-name, had to take the name of the city, and was called the Palibothrian. This was the case with Sandracottus to whom Megasthenes was sent frequently. It was the same king with whom Seleucus Nicator contracted an alliance, ceding to him the country beyond the Indus, and receiving in its stead 500 elephants.⁵ Megasthenes visited his court several times⁶; and the same king, as Plutarch says⁷, “traversed India with an army of 600,000 men, and conquered the whole.”