The History of Indian Literature c7.6

c7.6

² Besides, these calculations are of a very vague character, and do not yield any such definite date as that given above, but only some epoch lying between 1820–860 B.C., see *I. St.*, x. 236; Whitney in *Journ. R. A. S.*, i. 317, ff. (1864). True, the circumstance that the oldest records begin the series of *nakshatras* with the sign *Kṛittiká*, carries us back to a considerably earlier period even than these dates, derived from the so-called Vedic Calendar, viz., to a period between 2780–1820 B.C., since the vernal equinox coincided with η Tauri (*Kṛittiká*), in round numbers, about the year 2300 B.C., see *I. St.*, x. 234 236. But, on the other hand, the opinion expressed in the first edition of this work (1852), to the effect that the Indians may either have brought the knowledge of these lunar mansions, headed by *Kṛittiká*, with them into India, or else have obtained it at a later period through the commercial relations of the Phœnicians with the Panjáb, has recently gained considerably in probability; and therewith the suggestion of Babylon as the mother country of the observations on which this date is established. See the second of my two treatises, *Die vedischen Nachrichten von den Nakshatra* (Berlin, 1862), pp. 362–400; my paper, *Ueber den Veda-kalender Namens Jyotisha* (1862), p. 15; *I. St.*, x. 429. ix. 241, ff.; Whitney, *Oriental and Linguistic Studies* (1874), ii. 418.—Indeed a direct reference to Babylon and its sea trade, in which the exportation of peacocks is mentioned, has lately come to light in an Indian text, the Báverujátaka, see Minayeff in the *Mélanges Asiatiques* (Imperial Russian Academy), vi. 577, ff. (1871), and *Monatsberichte* of the Berlin Academy, p. 622 (1871). As, however, this testimony belongs to a comparatively late period, no great importance can be attached to it.—Direct evidence of ancient commercial relations between India and the West has recently been found in hieroglyphic texts of the seventeenth century, at which time the Áryas would appear to have been already settled on the Indus. For the word *kapi*, ‘ape,’ which occurs in 1 Kings x. 22, in the form *qōf*, Gr. κῆπος, is found in these Egyptian texts in the form *kafu*, see Joh. Dümichen, *Die Flotte einer egypt. Königin aus dem 17. Jahrh.* (Leipzig, 1868), table ii. p. 17. Lastly, *tukhiím*, the Hebrew name for peacocks (1 Kings x. 22, 2 Chron. ix. 21) necessarily implies that already in Solomon's time the Phœnician ophir-merchants “ont eu affaire soit au pays même des Abhîra soit sur un autre point de la côte de l'Inde avec des peuplades dravidiennes,” Julien Vinson, *Revue de Linguistique*, vi. 120, ff. (1873). See also Burnell, *Elements of South Indian Palæography*, p. 5 (Mangalore, 1874).