The History of Indian Literature c7.9

c7.9

In the more ancient parts of the Ṛigveda-Saṃhitá, we find the Indian race settled on the north-western borders of India, in the Panjáb, and even beyond the Panjáb, on the Kubhá, or Κωφήν, in Kabul.⁴ The gradual spread of the race from these seats towards the east, beyond the Sarasvatí and over Hindustán as far as the Ganges, can be traced in the later portions of the Vedic writings almost step by step. The writings of the following period, that of the epic, consist of accounts of the internal conflicts among the conquerors of Hindustán themselves, as, for instance, the Mahá-Bhárata; or of the farther spread of Brahmanism towards the south, as, for instance, the Rámáyaṇa. If we connect with this the first fairly accurate information about India which we have from a Greek source, viz., from Megasthenes,∗ it becomes clear that at the time of this writer the Brahmanising of Hindustán was already completed, while at the time of the Periplus (see Lassen, *I. AK.*, ii. 150, n.; *I. St.*, ii. 192) the very southernmost point of the Dekhan had already become a seat of the worship of the wife of Śiva. What a series of years, of centuries, must necessarily have elapsed before this boundless tract of country, inhabited by wild and vigorous tribes, could have been brought over to Brahmanism!! It may perhaps here be objected that the races and tribes found by Alexander on the banks of the Indus appear to stand entirely on a Vedic, and not on a Brahmanical footing. As a matter of fact this is true; but we should not be justified in drawing from this any conclusion whatever with regard to India itself. For these peoples of the Panjáb never submitted to the Brahmanical order of things, but always retained their ancient Vedic standpoint, free and independent, without either priestly domination or system of caste. For this reason, too, they were the objects of a cordial hatred on the part of their kinsmen, who had wandered farther on, and on this account also Buddhism gained an easy entrance among them.