EARLY INDIA
1g
meagre extent of their geographical knowledge. The
time of Megasthenes was the era of early rivalry between
the two great religious cults of India, Brahmanism
and Buddhism, and the first indications of the great system
of caste, the division of the peoples into social sects, was
given to the Western world by this observant ambassador,
who from the point of view maintained by a resident of
“court and camp and capital,” placed European knowledge
of Indian social geography on” a definite and fairly
accurate footing. CL.
So far we are only able to recognise with distinctness
{Wo great migrations across the western mountains into
[ndia, the early settlements of the Vedic tribes who gave
the “race type” to Indian civilisation, and the short advent
of the Greeks, who left the impress of their culture on
Indian art for centuries after they had themselves disappeared.
But along with the recognisable Aryan advance
there had been since the dawn of tradition a movement of
the Turanian peoples of High Asia in the same direction
and along the same lines. These Scythic movements
finally culminated in the displacement of the Greek and
the establishment of Turanian sovereignty in Northern
[ndia about the commencement of the Christian era, and
from this date we almost lose sight of all such collateral
information as may serve to establish points for maintaining
a geographical conception of India. Until the rise of
the Muhammadan power in the East we are dependent on
the indefinite and often perplexing records of Chinese
pilgrims who, in search of religious light, journeyed
through the wildest and worst passes of the Himalayas
after visiting the mediaeval Buddhist centres of High Asia
(cities which once flourished where now are nothing but
rolling waves of sand) to offer their devotions at the
shrines of Gandhara, or to circle round the stupas of
Sanchi or Benares. Recent geographical surveys carried
across the Hindu Kush to Afghanistan and to the Chinese
borders of Asiatic Russia, together with the marvellous
results of researches made by Sven Hedin and other
travellers in the deserts of Western China, have resulted
