A very different festivity this from that upon the banks of the Indus; and we can imagine the great leader coming back across the wide stream in his oared galley from the useless, unreal ceremonial, with bent head and arms crossed like Napoleon on his way to St Helena.
A picture that fittingly may end the story of Alexander in India; for the record of his retreat is a record of success without aim, beyond the discovery of the Great Sea which encircles the whole Earth.
There is something intensely pathetic in this story of his choice of the river Hydaspes as his means of retreat, of the infinite care for every unit in his force which he showed before that approach of the dawn in late October, when, without confusion, without disorder, he poured a libation out of a golden goblet from the prow of his vessel into the stream, in the name of his gods and the three great rivers, the Jhelum, the Chenâb, the Indus, to whom he trusted; then, doubtless, flinging the cup of gold far into the sliding water, ordered the signal for starting seawards to be given with the trumpet. So in slow, stately, orderly procession (the "noise of the rowing" mingling with "the cries of the captains, the shouts of the boatswains," and the choric "songs of farewell from the natives who ran along the banks, into a veritable battle cry"), he passed down to the Great Ocean. The voyage took a year, and he reached the sea coast not very far from where Kurrachee now stands. Practically, Alexander was in India proper but nineteen months, and the outward result of his flaming sword had passed almost before his premature death at Babylon, a year and a half after he left its shores. But, though India remained outwardly as ever "splendidly isolated," forgetful of the West, she had felt the Hellenic power; she feels it still. In every little village "Jullunder" (Alexander) is still a name wherewith to conjure, and the village doctor still claims, with pride, to follow the Yunâni (Ionian) system of medicine.
That the former should be the case is surely small wonder. India is ever the slave of vitality, and Alexander was vital to the finger-tips. What else could be said of the man who, finding himself checked in an assault on a stronghold, leapt from the bastion into the fort, and, supporting himself against the wall, kept the enemy at bay with his sword, till one by one his followers, maddened by the sight of their beloved leader's danger, followed him in time to rescue him, wounded, fainting?
But the deed which, of all others, Arrian extols as the most noble deed ever performed by Alexander, took place in this wise in the desert. His army, parched with thirst, were stumbling on blindly, led, as usual in times of distress, by Alexander on foot.
To him, weary and exhausted, returned scouts, bearing with them water collected in a helmet with great difficulty from some cleft in a distant rock.
He took it, thanking the bearers, but immediately poured it upon the ground in sight of all. "As a result of this," Arrian writes, "the entire army was reinvigorated to so great a degree that any one would have imagined that the water so lavished had furnished draught for every man."
Truly, though he left little of sovereignty behind him, Alexander left enough pictures imprinted on the soil of Hindustan to furnish forth many a gallery.
We come here to one of the landmarks of Indian History. There were seven kings of the Maurya dynasty; of these, two gained for themselves an abiding place in the category of Great World Rulers. Their names are Chandra-gûpta and Asôka. Grandfather and grandson, they made their mark in such curiously divergent ways that they stand to this day as examples of War and Peace.
Concerning Chandra-gûpta's usurpation of the throne of the Nine Nandas, something has already been said. It has also been mentioned that while still almost a lad, he met with Alexander during the latter's brief summer among the Punjâb Doâbs or Two-waters, so called because they are the fertile plains which lie between the rivers.
The identification, indeed, of the Sandracottus mentioned by Greek writers with Chandra-gûpta has been of incalculable value in enabling historians to fix other dates. It has been, as it were, a secure foundation for a superstructure which has grown, and still grows, year by year, and in which every new stone discovered is found to fit accurately in its place.
At the time of this meeting, Chandra-gûpta was a nameless adventurer, a political exile from Magadha. Who he really was seems doubtful. The illegitimate son, it is said, of one of the Nine Nandas by a beautiful low-caste woman (from whose name, Mura, the titular designation of the dynasty Maurya is taken), it is hard to see whence came the young man's undoubted claim to be of the Shesh-nâg, or Serpent race; for the Nandas were as undoubtedly of low-caste origin themselves. It is possible, therefore, that some further history of wrong may have existed to make Chandra-gûpta claim kinship with the Serpent-Kings whom the Nandas had ousted, and hold himself, like any young pretender, a rightful heir.
Be that as it may, he was ambitious, capable, energetic, and seized the first opportunity given him of rising to power.
This came with the news of Alexander's death in B.C. 323. In the instant revolt of conquered India which followed, he took a prominent part, and found himself, in B.C. 321, with an army at his back which, having accomplished its purpose and given its leader paramount power in Punjâb, was eager to follow his fortune elsewhere.
He led it to Magadha, and taking advantage of the Nanda king's unpopularity, slew every male member of the family.
This was the Eastern etiquette on such occasions; the sparing of a brother or an uncle being considered a weakness sure to bring speedy repentance in its train.
Except in as far as the principals were concerned, this revolution appears to have been easy and bloodless. At least so we gather from the play called the "Signet of the Minister," which, though not written till nearly twelve hundred years after the event, seems fairly trustworthy in fact.
In itself it is so studiously realistic, so palpably free from all appeal to the imagination, as to form a marked contrast to all other dramas of the period. It is most likely the first purely political play that ever was written, for, excluding love passages and poetical diction, it deals entirely with the stir of plot and counterplot. Chânakya, the wily Brahman--whose advice had been Chandra-gûpta's best weapon in gaining the throne--realising the insecurity of that throne without the hearty support of the nobles and, above all, of the late King's Prime Minister, sets himself by sheer diplomacy to cut the ground from beneath the feet of his master's enemies, and, succeeding, yields up his signet of office to the appeased Rakahâsa, whose final aside when he accepts it--"Oh! vile Chânakya--say rather, Wise Chânakya, a mine of wisdom inexhaustible! Deep ocean stored with excellent rare gems"--shows that he feels himself overmastered by sheer wit.
But the whole play is well worth reading; some of it--notably the parts in prose-reminding one of Shakspeare.
The remainder of Chandra-gûpta's career, however, was anything but bloodless. It was scarcely possible that it should be so, considering that he began life as a nobody and ended it as undisputed Emperor of India from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. A man of iron nerve, born to conquer, born to rule, he went on his way undeviatingly, holding his own despite the constant threats of his enemies, despite the danger of constant plots; a danger which made perpetual precaution necessary. He never occupied the same bedroom two nights in succession; he never during the daytime slept at the same hour.
A story is told of Chânakya's wily vigilance for his master. He noticed one day a long caravan of ants on the wall of the king's room carrying crumbs. This was enough for Chânakya. Without an instant's hesitation, the royal pavilion was ordered to be set on fire and, as the plaint runs:--
"The brave men who were concealed
In the subterrene avenue that led
To Chandra-gûpta's sleeping chamber, so,
Were all destroyed."
So far as one can gather, Chandra-gûpta's character was not a lovable one; but there can be no question of his power to rule men wisely and well. Megasthenes' account of Pâlipûtra (which applies more to the reign of Chandra-gûpta, during whose lifetime the Grecian was ambassador to the court, than to that of any other monarch) gives us a marvellous picture of the grip which Government kept on the people; and kept for their good. Every department (especially the land revenue and irrigation, both of paramount importance in an Indian State) was legislated for with the utmost care, and though the whole system of government was based on the personal power of the king, it was far from being a mere arbitrary autocracy. His greatest contemporary was Seleukos Nikator, who in addition to ceding Kâbul, Herât, and Kandahâr to him, bestowed on him his daughter in marriage.
Chandra-gûpta died in B.C. 297, having reigned for twenty-four years. A short enough time in which to have accomplished so much; for at the day of his death, the only portion of the vast continent of India which did not acknowledge his rule was a strip of sea coast country about Cuttack, on the Bay of Bengal, and that part of the lessening peninsular which lay southward, beyond a line drawn through Mangalore and Madras.
His son Bindu-sâra reigned in his stead. Of him we know nothing; not even if he was born of the Grecian princess. Only this is on record, that he was extremely fond of figs, and, presumably, of learning; for a letter of his to Antiochus, the son of Seleukos Nikator, asks naïvely for the purchase and despatch of green figs and a professor! To which the dignified reply is still extant that the figs shall be procured and forwarded, but that by Grecian etiquette it was indecorous either to buy or sell a professor!
Bindu-sâra had this merit: he handed on the empire which he had received intact to his son, after a reign of five and twenty years.
So let us pass to Asôka, who, next to Akbar the Great Moghul, was the greatest of all Indian kings. Curiously enough, both these monarchs, Asôka and Akbar, ruled India through its imagination. Both claimed pre-eminence as apostles of a Faith in the Unknown; both appealed to the people on transcendental grounds.
At the time of his fathers death in B.C. 272, Asôka was Viceroy of the Western Province. He had previously ruled in a similar position in the Punjâb, where his headquarters had been Taxîla, the Serpent City. Chosen as Crown Prince from amongst numerous other sons on account of his ability, he had been given this semi-independent control, partly because of his ungovernable temper, which earned him the nickname of "The Furious." He thus seemed to take after his grandfather, Chandra-gûpta, who, with all his many virtues, was unquestionably cruel and arrogant. But Asôka was not to follow in his ancestor's footsteps. Forty years afterward, when his long and peaceful reign, marred by but one war, had come to an end, he had earned for himself the well-deserved title of "The Loving-minded One, Beloved of the Gods." A great change in any man's life; but nothing to the change which his life was to bring into his world.
In B.C. 260, when he came under the mingled influence of Buddhism and Jainism, those creeds were little more than sectarian beliefs confined to the India which had given them birth. When he died, Buddhism had spread through Asia, and had touched both Africa and Europe. Asôka has been called the Constantine of Buddhism, but he was more than that. The creed which brought him comfort was not, as Christianity was in Constantine's time, already a power to be reckoned with, it was simply the belief of a few enthusiasts, a few select souls who sought almost sorrowfully for some solution of the Great Secret.
What was the cause which led the Emperor of India, in his luxurious autocracy, to join himself to this Search? Undoubtedly it was remorse; remorse for the numberless lives needlessly sacrificed, the needless suffering entailed on humanity by the one war of his reign--the conquest of Kalînga, a maritime province on the sea-board of the Bay of Bengal. We have this remorse with us still (as we have so much of the innermost soul and thoughts and aspirations of Asôka) in the marvellous edicts engraven on rock and pillar, which, outlasting Time itself, tell to wild waste and deserted ruins their story of one man's struggle towards the light. One can almost hear the break, as of tears, in the voice that clamours still of "the regret which the Beloved-of-the-Gods felt at the murders and the deaths and the violence."
This regret, then, was the cosmic touch which drove Asôka to find comfort in preaching the doctrine of the sanctity of life. Was it Jainism (amongst the tenets of which this takes first place) which influenced Asôka most, or was it Buddhism? Doctors differ; only this we know, that it was through Asôka's exertions that the latter became the creed of one-third of the human race. For the energy of the man was incomparable. His missionaries were everywhere. "Let small and great exert themselves," is the cry still carven upon stone. "The teaching of religion is the most meritorious of acts.... There is no gift comparable to the gift of religion ... it is in the conquests of religion that the gods takes pleasure." So his yellow-robed monks went forth beyond the confines of his visible, tangible world, and found their way to Egypt, to Greece, to Syria. Their influence is still to be traced in other religions, though no record exists of their labours.
Thus for some thirty years of his life Asôka set himself to alter the faith of the world. Why? And how? Because he believed with a whole heart, not in ritual or dogma, but in something which--hard to be translated--is best rendered by the "Law of Piety." And this his edicts explain to be "mercy and charity, truth and purity, kindness and goodness."
A good creed even in these later days. Not to be improved upon by conformists or non-conformists!
As to how this gospel of good-will was to be preached we learn from these edicts also. It is by example, by tolerance, by "gentleness and moderation in speech."
"Government by religion, law by religion, progress by religion." This was Asôka's rule, and in it he stands alone as the only king who has subordinated all things to a faith which must only be preached in gentleness and moderation.
The first series of fourteen edicts were cut on rocks in various parts of his kingdom, from Attock on the Indus to Cuttack on the Eastern Sea, during the twelfth and thirteenth year of Asôka's reign. They are, therefore, the first-fruits of his conversion. They range over a vast number of subjects, but in each of them there is a personal note which justifies the belief that they are verily the words of the king, and not the mere drafts of some secretary.
On the other hand, the Minor Rock edicts were carven in the last year of Asôka's reign, and thus gain an additional interest from being the farewell of a king to the people whom he had striven so hard to lead into the Way of Peace. In one of them he says that the truest enjoyment for himself has been making men happy by leading them to follow the path of religion, that "with this object he has regulated his life"; yet, though he has "promulgated positive rules, it is solely by a change in the sentiments of the heart that religion makes true progress." The edict ends thus: "So spake Piyadâsi, Beloved-of-the-Gods. Wherever this edict exists on pillars of stone let it endure to remote ages."
It has endured. The Prakrit language in which it was engraven--the spoken language of those times--has passed; but Asôka's words are not of Time, they are of Eternity.
He was a great builder, but few of his buildings remain to this day. What their magnificence must have been we may judge by the topes at Sanchi, where the eye wearies in following the intricacy of ornament, the brain is bewildered in attempting to re-fashion in imagination the whole stupendous structure as it must have been. But here and there some monolithic sandstone pillar still remains, slender, perfect in proportion and execution, still bearing in close-carven character Asôka's message to his people, to the world.
Strange, indeed, that the West knows so little of him! Strangest of all that the twentieth century, with its Peace Party and its Anti-Vivesectionists, should not put Asôka's name as President in perpetuity of their organisations. Asôka, who more than a thousand years upheld the equal rights of animals with men to the King's care, and openly adjured his successors to follow in his steps, and not "to think that a conquest by the sword deserves the name of conquest."
What manner of man Asôka was outwardly, we have no means of knowing; but those who know of his life can picture him in his yellow monk's robe, wearied yet unwearied, pondering over his lifelong problem. "By what means can I lead my people into the path of peace?"
Unwearied because of the spirit which inspires the words, "Work I must for the public benefit"; wearied because, "Though I am ready at any hour and any place to receive petitions, I am never fully satisfied with my despatch of business."
He died in B.C. 231, leaving his empire intact, and was apparently succeeded by a grandson. After him came five kings, all mere names. The duration of the dynasty was 137 years, and as 89 of these belonged to the combined reigns of Chandra-gûpta, Bindu-sâra, and Asôka, the remaining six kings have but eight years apiece. Long enough, however, to disintegrate, to dissipate the vast empire of Asôka. So much so, that before continuing the story of what may be called the central kings of India, it is necessary to give a side-glance at the outlying provinces where, on the removal of Asôka's firm grip on Government, various minor dynasties began to rise into a power superior to that of Magâdha.
A growing tide as it nears the springs claims more and more of the shore at each rise and fall. So it was with the tide which on Asôka's death set in around his throne.
On the north-western frontier, that battle-ground of India, there had been peace since Chandra-gûpta wrested half Ariana from the grip of Seleukos Nikator. But the country itself had remained more or less under Hellenist influence. Antiochus, Demetrios Eukratides, such are the names of the passing rulers of whose existence we know by the multitude of coins which form almost their only history.
Indeed, as in some museum we gaze with keen yet clouded interest at some case of coins labelled "Indo-Greek, Indo-Parthian civ: B.C. 250, A.D. 50," we are really gaining at a glance an impressionist picture of the strange welter of principalities and powers, of sudden diminutions and almost causeless exacerbations of influence, which marked the passage of these few centuries upon the borderland of India. Here a big gold plaque arrests our eye, just as the name of Arsakes or Menander heaves into sight out of the confused medley of their more insignificant surroundings; or some quaint half-Aryan, half-Parthian inscription leaves us wondering of the why and the wherefore, just as some trivial incident which has survived Time in the pages of obscure Greek writers makes us pause to wish for more. Strange, ghost-like personalities are those which live rudely hammered out on a rough ingot of bronze, or silver, or gold, telling their tale truly,--succinctly at times however, as when the name and portrait of one prince forms at first the obverse of another, then the name alone remains, and finally Hermaios disappears, and Kadphîses rules supreme.
Map: India to B.C. 231
Who are they all? Historians peer and ponder; they add date to date, and divide the total by their own desires--for in no branch of knowledge is the personal equation more powerful than in history--yet still that glance at the case of coins gives to the uninitiated the best impression of the period.
One thing which militates against a concise pigeon-holing of such information as we can gather into this brief review of Indian history, is the fact that much of it has really nothing to do with India at all. The Hindoo Kush range of mountains may be taken as the western boundary of Asôka's empire, and the powers which encroached on that empire matured their plans, conquered and governed such provinces as they gained from beyond that boundary. The Bactrians, for instance, who appeared on the banks of the Indus, came from the valleys and fertile plains about the Oxus. They were a semi-civilised, semi-Hellenised race, who boasted the possession of a thousand cities. The Parthians, on the other hand, hailed from the wide steppes about the Caspian Sea, and were barbarian utterly in the sense of not caring for either luxury or culture. Mounted shepherds, mere moss-troopers, they were a hardy race, and under the leadership of Arsakes, gripped at the crown of Central Asia, and so, inevitably, after a time reached out to the fat lands about the Indus; for the most part leaving the princelings who parcelled out the land in possession, as feudatories to the foreign power.
It will be remembered that Seleukos Nikator's attempt to recover India for Greece in Chandra-gûpta's time failed. Thenceforward for a hundred years no other attempt was made. In B.C. 206, however, Antiochus the Bactrian made a sweep on Kandahâr, and Demetrios, his son, in B.C. 190, following his example, captured both the Punjâb and Sinde. To his own cost, however; for, weakened by these distant wars, he had to yield his throne to one Eukratides, and be content for a time with the title of "King of the Indians." Not for long, however, for Eukratides, being bad to beat, eventually got a grip even on these eastern provinces.
Justin the historian gives a few personal details of this Eukratides. How he and three hundred held a fort for five months against Demetrios and sixty thousand; and how he was killed in cold blood by his son and colleague, who drove his chariot wheels over his father's dead body and refused it burial. A poor return for trust, and honour, and devoted love! It is satisfactory to know that the monstrous crime brought its own punishment The dead hero's hold once gone, the successes he had gained drifted from the murderer's hands, and thereinafter ensued one of those confused welters of conflicting names, powers, principalities, which send us back to our outlook on the case of coins. Menander's name rises out of the obscure in B.C. 155, when he attempted to follow Alexander's footsteps. With a large army he marched on India, and crossing the Beâs, which had defied his predecessor, actually threatened the capital of Pâlipûtra itself. At that time, however, the sovereignty of Magadha lay with a strong man; the man who, ousting the degenerate Mauryas, had shown himself to have the qualities of both a soldier and general. So the Greek king had to beat a hasty retreat, thus ending the last attempt of Europe upon India until Vasco de Gama's, in A.D. 1502.
About this time two nomad tribes from the wide Roof-of-the-World began a march southward, which, like a flood, was eventually to sweep everything before it. The first were the Sâkas, who, driven from behind by the following tribe, the Yuehchi, overwhelmed Bactria, forced their way into the Punjâb, and penetrated as far south as Mathura, while another section founded a Sika dynasty at Kathiawâr. They seem to have owned allegiance to the Arsakian or Parthian kings of Persia, and bore the Persian title of satrap.
Thus, from the pell-mell of petty princelings and wild, nomadic chieftains another name springs to notice. On the coins it runs: "Maues basileus basileon."
This king of kings, as he proudly calls himself, was Maues, the first, or nearly the first, of an Indo-Parthian dynasty replacing the Indo-Greek and Indo-Bactrian ones. As our eye runs over the coins--the only relics of dead kings--it is arrested by the name of Gondophares.
Now who was Gondophares? The question clamours vainly for answer, until a faint recollection of the early fathers brings Origen and the Acts of St Thomas back to memory. Yes! Gondophares was the King of India in the days when
"the twelve Apostles, having divided the countries of the world amongst themselves by lot, India fell to the share of Judas, surnamed Thomas or the Twin, who showed unwillingness to start on his mission."
Poor St Thomas! It was a far cry, but Habbân, the Indian merchant, conveyed his saintly purchase (for the Lord sold the unwilling missioner to him in a vision for twenty pieces of silver) to King Gundephar in safety. And the king bade the apostle, who was an architect, build him a palace in six months.
"And St Thomas, commanded therefore by the Lord, promised to build him the palace within the six months, but spent all the monies in almsgiving. So when the time came, he explained that he was building the king a palace, not on earth, but in heaven, not made with hands--and multitudes of the people embraced the faith."
So runs the old Monkish story. Is it true? Who knows! Gondophares was a real man, he was a real Indian king, he is associated in legend with a Christian mission, and the claim that St Thomas was the missioner is not at variance with known facts or chronology. With that we must be content.
And now the coins tell another tale. In their turn the Indo-Parthian princes were being driven southward. Their names disappear before those of the horde of Turki nomads called the Yuehchi, who about the middle of the second century B.C. followed the path taken years before by the Sâkas, and with two hundred thousand bowmen and a million persons of all ages and sexes poured themselves into India in search of pastures new.
So much for the north-western frontier. In the south-west, while Greek prince after Greek prince in the north was minting coins that were to carry his name idly, ineffectively, through the centuries, an aboriginal Dravidian people, driven, no doubt, thousands of years before from the fertile fields of the Gangetic plain by the steady advance of the Aryan immigrants, were as steadily regaining their hold upon Central India. The Andhra race was not slow to seize opportunity. The death of Asôka gave them the chance of casting off their allegiance to the Maury a empire, and they took it. A few years later the King of the Andhras, self-styled the "Lord of the West," was able to send an army to the eastern sea-coast, and so help Kalînga to revolt also. The capital of the Andhra kingdom appears to have been an unidentified city called Sri-Kâkulum, on the banks of the Krishna River; and the area of Andhra rule gradually increasing, crept closer and closer to that of Magadha. The memory of Hâla, the seventeenth king, lives still by virtue of an anthology of love-songs called "The Seven Centuries," which he is said to have composed. That, a collection entitled "The Great Storybook," and a Sanskrit Grammar all belong by repute to the reign of this king. Finally, the inevitable collision occurred between the powerful Andhra dynasty and the degenerate, dissolute monarchy at Magadha, which resulted in the annihilation of the latter. But before turning to this, the course of the years since the Maurya kings disappeared from sheer inanition must be traced briefly. It was in B.C. 194 that Pusŷa-mitra, commander-in-chief to the last of the Mauryas, lost patience with his weak master, assassinated him, and founded the Sunga line. A strong, unscrupulous man evidently, he held his own, succeeded in stemming the steady tide of disintegration on both the south-east and the north-west, and drove back the Greek invasion of Menander.
Still unsatisfied, he revived, in order to strengthen his rule, the old traditional Horse-sacrifice, of which we read in the Vedas.
A quaint old ceremony without doubt. Imagine a grey horse, approved by lucky marks, sanctified by priests, turned loose to wander at its will. And behind it, following it from field to field as it ranges, a complete army ready to claim pasturage for it from all and sundry during the space of one whole year. Hey presto! by beat of drum the fiat goes forth, as it grazes, that proprietors, principalities, powers, must submit or fight. So, if an unconquered army returned when the trial was ended, he who sent it forth had right to claim suzerainty, to call himself Lord-Paramount of all the others.
This particular "Asva-medha," as it is called, has a peculiar significance, in that it proves a determined return from Buddhism to Brahmanism on the part of the holders of the Magadha throne. It is said, indeed, that Pushŷa-mitra, like so many bloody usurpers, was dévote, and that his piety included persecution of the new faith. One thing seems certain: his ten successors in the Sunga dynasty were all more or less in the hands of the Brahmans, who managed the state while the titular monarchs amused themselves in various discreditable ways, until in B.C. 75, one Vasu-deva, Brahman prime minister, lost patience with his hereditary master, killed him while engaged in a dishonourable intrigue, and started a new dynasty--the Kanva--by mounting the throne himself! an idle proceeding, since it was soon to pass from the hands of his ineffectual successors to those of an Andhra prince.
But by this time--B.C. 75--another advancing flood--the Yuehchi migration--had appeared in the north-west, and for the first two centuries or so of our era was to claim equal share with the Dravidian kings in the Government of India.
And what of Vikramadîtya? Vikramadîtya the hero, the demigod, the king par excellence of the Indian populace of to-day? The monarch whose victory over some Scythian invaders in B.C. 57 was celebrated by the introduction of the Samvat era, which dates from that year? Are all the stories of him that are told about the smoke-palled winter fires in the Punjâb fields, the hundred and one tales of his munificence, his courage and his goodness--are all these mere legends?
So far as this early date is concerned, historians tell us that they are. More than five hundred years later one of the Gupta kings bore the name, and answers in some way to the description.
But how came he to be connected with the Samvat era which undoubtedly dates from B.C. 57? Who can say! Vikramadîtya is a terrible loss to India. How can we bear to part with the king whose swans sang always:
"Glory be to Vikramajeet,
He gave us pearls to eat!"
The king whose puppets of stone that bore aloft his throne refused to bear the weight of his successor, and wandered out into the wide world, each telling a tale of departed glory!
No! Vikramadîtya, the beloved of every Indian school-boy for his valour, of every little Indian maiden for his gentleness, cannot be given up without a protest.
"The fiction which resembles truth is better than the truth which is dissevered from the imagination." Let us hark back to those words of wisdom, and search round for some faint foothold for blessed belief.
Let us turn to our case of coins in hope. Stay! What is this?
A nameless one. The date is close to the era we are seeking; the only inscription runs thus, "Soter Megas."
The "Great Saviour!" Is not that enough for the imagination? So let us pass by the cogitations of the historian as to what nameless king minted the coin, and listen with renewed confidence to the tale told by a childish voice of how King Vikramadîtya slew the foul fiend.
What does it matter whether he was Vikramadîtya or another? Foul fiends must always be killed; as well by a nameless king, provided he be a "Great Saviour."
But one point more requires a few words ere we pass on--the extent to which Greek culture influenced India.
Curiously little. A glance at the Græco-Buddhist carvings which still, in some places on the frontier, are to be had for the mere picking up as they lie littered about among the rough-hewn stones which once were fort or palace, temple or shrine, shows that while India accepted Greek art, she did not oust her own, but grafted the new skill on the old stock.
And though it fires the imagination to think of Greek customs, Greek philosophy, Greek valour and intellect making its home for hundreds of years among the young green wheat-fields by the bed of the Indus, we must not blind our eyes to the fact that the broad yellow flood of the river seems to have been an impassable barrier to the whole theory of life which was the root-stuff of such custom, such philosophy, such valour, such intellect.
India went on her way, as she has gone always, almost untouched by outside influences. Despite the brilliancy of the Macedonian cavalry, her own retained its ancient traditions; despite the intellectual keenness of European theorists, India has dreamt--as she dreams still--her old dreams.
There is a little temple near the supposed site of Taxîla. Or perhaps it was not a temple at all: it may have been anything else. But two or three of the broken pillars have Ionic capitals.
That is about the extent of Greek influence in India.
The device of a camel and a bull on the reverse and obverse of a coin minted by Kadphîses, the first Kushân king in India, is, Mr Vincent Smith remarks, a singularly appropriate symbol for the conquest of Hindustan by a horde of nomads from Central Asia.
These wanderers, ever pressed from behind, had come far; they had met and overwhelmed by sheer numbers many hostile tribes. But all this was prior to their passage into India proper. That took place about the year B.C. 40, when Hermaios, the last of the Indo-Greek rulers, gave way to the first Mongolian king.
It is curious to note this transference of power viewed in the light of our case of coins. First, we find the names of both princes preserved in the legend, the portrait of the Greek, with his title in Greek lettering, still adorning the obverse. After a while the legend changes, the Mongolian's name monopolises it, though the portrait remains. Again a while, and Hermaios' face disappears in favour of the features of the Roman Emperor, Augustus; a piece of flattery due to the growing fame of Rome at its zenith, even in the Far East. So, after again a little while, the coin shows nothing but that symbol of conquest, the Bactrian Camel dominating the Indian Bull!
A pause for consideration will show us that this was no ordinary conquest. The domination of a highly civilised people such as the Indians were undoubtedly, even in those far ages, by a horde of upland wanderers, veneered with a culture picked up hastily as they journeyed, cannot have come about without much disturbance. Yet of this we have no record. The feet of those million or more of men, women, children, seem to have overwhelmed even their own noise and clamour. Still, we know that the final overthrow of the old dynasties in the Punjâb and the Indus valley was deferred until Kadphîses I. had been gathered to his fathers after a reign of forty years, and his son, Kadphîses II., reigned in his stead. As energetic, as ambitious as his father, he was keen enough to see the advantages of propitiating that great Western emperor of Rome, whose gold was now pouring into India in exchange for the latter's silk, gems, dye-stuffs, and spices; so, after conquering the whole of the North-Western Provinces, he sent an embassy to Rome in order to acquaint the Emperor Trajan of the fact.
Probably we have here the first political connection between East and West.
For the rest, was this in truth, not the golden age, but the age of gold, for in addition to the Roman Aurei, of which numberless specimens are to be found in our Museums, we have examples of Oriental gold coins of the same purity and weight, which must have been struck by the Kushân kings, as these leaders of the wanderers are called.
On the death of the second Kadphîses, one Kanîshka came to the throne. This is a name which still has a voice in Indian tradition, and, beyond India, is still known in the legendary lore of Tibet, Mongolia, and China.
Yet as to who he was, whether he came to the throne by honest succession, or even as to the date of his reign, we have next to no accurate information.
Here and there, as we dig at the grave of this dead king, our spade and mattock turn up a coin, an inscription, perhaps an allusion in later literature; but the point remains unsettled as to whether Kanîshka reigned in B.C. 57 or A.D. 120. The evidence of coins points to the latter date. There is a certain quaint four-pronged symbol to be found in most of the coins struck by Kadphîses II., which is found also in the innumerable coinage of Kanîshka; for, whoever he was, he minted much. Sure sign of a long and prosperous reign.
But there is evidence also which brings home to the enquirer the mysterious attraction which lingers alike in the search for buried treasure, and the search for buried history. For, close beside our traces of Kanîshka, of Kadphîses, we come upon those of that nameless King, the Great Saviour, whose unknown personality dominates for the imaginative the two centuries of time which holds in their grip of years the birth of Christ. A hundred years before that event, a hundred years after, this vision of a Great King flits vaguely through the obscure, making us say: "It cannot be, and yet--suppose it were?"
Good old Vikramadîtya! Will the years, as they bring new discoveries, bring you back from the realms of myth?
Meanwhile, "Soter Megas Basileus Basileon" remains free of the fetters of fact, and Kanîshka, the king, evades them in a fashion that is purely tantalising.
"Strangely open to doubt," is the verdict of the historian on almost everything concerning him.
And yet we know much.
We know that, like Asôka, he was an ardent Buddhist, though of how or why he adopted this faith we are ignorant. We know that he ruled as far east as Benares, as far south as the mouths of the Indus, as far west and north as the Pamirs. His capital was Peshawur; but he had subdued the old Indian capital of Pâlipûtra. We know, also, that he was a man of artistic tastes, a student and an admirer of Nature; for his favourite holiday ground was the valley and hills of Kashmir, where he erected many great monuments. At Peshawur itself, besides a monastery whose ruins may still be traced outside the Lahore gate of the modern town, he raised a great tower to cover some Buddhist relics. The spire or pinnacle of this was in thirteen stories, made of beautifully carved wood, and, surmounted by an iron finial, rose 400 feet in height. It is thus described by a Chinese pilgrim who visited it in the sixth century.
But what best deserves remembrance in connection with Kanîshka's name are the wonderful sculptures which of late years have been discovered in such quantities in the Hashtnûgar district, and elsewhere. They are known, generically, as the Gandhâra sculptures, as they are supposed to be the output of a distinct school which flourished in the district of that name. But in conception, style, and execution, they assimulate closely to the Græco-Roman school, which at this period of the world's history was nearly cosmopolitan.
Kanîshka is also to be remembered for the Great Buddhist Council he convened, in imitation, apparently, of Asôka. The story goes that certain commentaries, being approved by this Council, were ordered to be engraved on copper, and placed, for security, in a st'hupa or tumulus.
The site of this has not yet been discovered, the copper plates remain unread!
A find this, perchance, for the coming years! It is something to look forward to, something which may clear up many points concerning Kanîshka now "strangely open to doubt."
The history of his successors is, likewise, doubtful. We stand, indeed, on the threshold of one of those curious intervals in Indian story, when the curtain comes down on the living picture of the stage, leaving us to wonder what the next act of the drama will be, and when it will recommence. Still more like, perhaps, is the position of the spectator to one who, on some mountain top, watches the rolling clouds sweep through the valleys below him. A stronger breath of wind, a little rift in the hurrying white vapour, and a glimpse of the life that goes on and on below the mists comes into view for a moment, and is gone the next.
So we look back towards the beginning of the third century after Christ. A glint of sunlight, a passing peep of something recognisable, obliterated in an instant by the rolling clouds growing more and more obscure as they deepen and darken.
"Then there were in this land three kings, Hûshka, Jûshka, and Kanîshka, who built three towns."
So runs the Kashmir chronicle.
It reads like the beginning of a fairy tale, but nothing follows save a gold coin with the beautifully executed portrait of a striking-looking man upon it, a man with deep-set eyes and determination marked upon every feature. Beneath it, the legend of King Huwûshka, or Hûshka.
Another glimpse comes to us of one Vâsu-deva. Does he in truth belong to the Mongolian princes, with their strange uncouth names? His is a purely Indian one, and the coins which bear his name no longer bear the Bactrian camel. The bull, too, is attendant on the Indian God Siva, complete with his noose and trident.
Had Buddhism, then, gone by the board? Who can tell. The curtain is finally rung down about the year A.D. 230 on the confused passing of the Andhra dynasty in the south, the Kushân dynasty in the north, and does not rise again, not even for a moment, until a hundred years have passed.
And yet, before this little book is published, the grave may have given up its dead, and out of a few dry bones, a chance coin, a half-obliterated inscription, some new personality may have arisen to live again through those long, empty years.
India is very wide, and she is very secretive. How can it be otherwise, when beyond reach of the clash and welter of kings, of courts and conquests, the great mass of the people live untouched by change, watching their crops, ploughing, sowing, reaping, "undisturbed" (as Megasthenes pointed out with wonder), "even when battle is raging in their neighbourhood, by any sense of danger, since the tillers of the soil are regarded by the Indians as a race sacred, inviolable." To the world beyond such lives are a secret; they hold the unknown.
So from behind the curtain the "Song of the Plough" rises in monotonous chant as, in the same dress, using the same implements as he uses to-day, the peasant drives his white oxen, and sings:--