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Megasthenes and the Indian Chronology As based on the Puranas [megasthanijah pauranikavamsa-kalakramasca] / By Sri K. D Sethna; Pondichery / 9-37

[asmin nibandhe yavanarajadutasya megasthanijakhyasya vacananyava- lambya adirajaprthorarabhya candraguptaparyantanam puranoktanam magadha- naresanam sasanakramah kalakramascavadharitah | megasthanijanama yavana- rajaduti khristabdatpurvam 302 varse magadharajasya candraguptasya rajasabhayam yavanarajaduta padavimadhisthitavan | ayam rajadutah bharatiyapauranika- panditebhyah praptayah sucanaya anusarena magadharajanam samkhyavisaye nirnitavan yad bharate (arthat magadhadese ) 'dayonisasa ' ( Dionysus) nrpadarabhya 'saindrokotasa ' (Sandrocottus) nrpaparyantam 153 rajano rajyam cakruh | asmin nibandhe lekhakamahodayena sapramanam pratipaditam yad 'dayonisasa ' nama nrpah adirajaprthurevasit, 'saindrokotasa ' nama ca nrpo guptavamsa samsthapakah prathamah candragupta asit yah khistabdat purva 325-324 varse magadhasimhasanamaruroha | adhunika itihasakarah manyante yad megasthanijoktah saindrokrotasanama nrpah candraguptamaurya asit, parantu lekhakamahodayenatra puranoktanam pramananam yavanaitiha- sikanam vacananam ca adharena adhunikaitihasakaranam idam matam nirasya purvoktam matam sthapitam | ] I Megasthenes was the Greek ambassador sent by Seleucus Nicator in c. 302 B. C. to the court of the Indian king whom the Greeks called Sandrocottus and whose capital they designated as Palibothra in the country of the Prasii. Scholars have identified the Prasii as the Prachya (Easterners) and Palibothra as Pataliputra and seen the eastern kingdom of Magadha, whose capital was Pataliputra, in the Greek references to the Prasii. The name "Sandrocottus" has been equated with "Chandragupta" and the king who received Megasthenes is said to have been Chandragupta Maurya who, like Sandrocottus, was the founder of a dynasty in Magadha. 2

10 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No 1 The Question of the Two Chandraguptas The founder of the Mauryas, however, is not the only Chandragupta known to history as a Magadhan emperor and the founder of a dynasty. There is also the first of the Imperial Guptas, Chandragupta I. Modern historians date him to 320 A. D. and set forth many reasons for the identification of Sandrocottus with Chandragupta Maurya. These are claimed to be supported most convincingly by several lines of evidence converging to date Chandragupta Maurya's grandson Asoka to the middle of the 3rd century B. C. But the ancient chronology of India herself, based on the dynastic sections of the Puranas and other indigenous testimonies and traditions, runs counter to this historical vision. The Puranic account starts with the date 3102 B. C. which it calls the beginning of the Kaliyuga and goes back by 36 years to 3138 B. C. for the Bharata War between the Kuru and the Pandavas as well as for the birth of Parikshit, the grand-nephew of Yudhishthira-Yudhishthira who ruled at Hastinapura after the Pandava victory in that year down to the Kaliyuga year which was marked by the death of Krishna and the installation by Yudhishthira of Parikshit in his own place so that he and his family might be free to go on a world-pilgrimage. The ancient Indian chronology takes also into account 3177 B. C. This date is connected with what is termed the cycle of Sapta Rishi, the Seven Rishis, the stars of the constellation Great Bear. The Seven Rishis are supposed to make a cycle of 2700 years by a stay of 100 years in each of the 27 Nakshatras or lunar asterisms of the ecliptic. 3177 B. C. marks their entry for a century's stay in the asterism Magha. The Puranas offer two sets of general calculation. One is concerned with the Sapta Rishi cycle. The Vayu-Purana (99. 423), as well as the Brahmanda Purana, says that the Seven Rishis who were in Magha in the time of Parikshit complete their 24th century in a part of the Andhra (Satavahana) dynasty. This means: when 2400 years had passed after 3177 B. C. the Andhra 1. F. E. Pargiter, Purana Texts of the Dynasties of the Kali Age (London, 1913), p. 61, n. 92.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 11 dynasty had already started. The Brahmanda (III. 74.230) again says that during the same dynasty there is the 27th century and that the asterism Magha, whose guardians are the Pitris (Ancestors), follows once more. A verse of the Matsya Purana speaks also of the cycle repeating itself after the 27th century and connects the repetition with the same dynasty using an expression which can be translated either as "at the end of the Andhras" or as "in the end..." The second rendering would be consistent with the substance of the Brahmanda verse. And both the verses, putting the completion of the 27th century in the terminal portion of the Andhras, balance those which put the completion of the 24th in the initial portion. The Andhra line consisted, according to most Puranas, of 30 kings. So the closing part should mean at least one-fourth of the number, the last 7 or 8 kings. We may hold that 2700 passed from 3177 B. C. up to some point in the reign of one of the last 7 Andhras. The total of these reigns in the Puranas is (28 +7 +3 +29+6+10+7=) 90 years. Hence the end of the dynasty might be anywhere between (3177-2700=) 477 B. C. and (477- 90=) 387 B. C. As a complement to the Sapta Rishi computation we get from the Puranas a number of periods termed "intervals", which bring a greater exactness. From the birth of Parikshit to the coronation of Mahapadma Nanda, founder of the dynasty just preceding the Mauryas, there was an interval which is variously given as 1015, 1050, and 1500 years. From this coronation to the beginning of the Andhras there was an interval of 836 years. Since 1500 years-as Anand Swarup Gupta' has recently reminded us-tally with the total of the reign-lengths which most Puranas ascribe to the dynasties of Magadha from the Bharata War to Mahapadma's coronation, we may use it to reach the date of the 1. Ibid., p. 59. 2. "The Problem of Interpretation of the Puranas", Purana, Vol. VI, No. 1. January, 1964, pp. 67-68. 3. Ibid., p. 68: Barhadrathas, 1000 years; Pradyotas, 138; Sisunagas, 362.

12 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 rise of the Nandas. We get (3138-1500=) 1638 B. C. Then we reach the start of the Andhras in (1638-836 =) 802 B. C. The Puranas, as D. C. Sircar notes, Andhras several numbers: 300, of these, 411 and 412 bring us B. C. respectively-both the dates 387 B. C. obtained from the Sapta record for the full run of the 411, 412, 456, 460 years. Out from 802 B. C. to 391 and 390 falling within the range 477Rishi computation. the Andhras is the Imperial Guptas in general and connect The next great dynasty after Guptas. The Puranas mention the a group of territories with them, which by being referred to no one particular Gupta would seem to be the persistent core, the stable heartland, of the expanding or contracting Gupta empire. But the Puranas supply no chronological matter about the Guptas, except that some lapse of time between them and the Andhras is suggested. Hence the Imperial Guptas, according to the Puranas, must come somewhere in the rest of the 4th century B. C. With a Chandragupta of Pataliputra at their head and a Sandrocottus becoming king of Palibothra in c. 325 or 324 B. C. by modern calculations, it is evident that Puranically Sandrocottus must be Chandragupta I of the Imperial Guptas and not Chandragupta Maurya. Whatever we may say, by way of criticism, about the Kaliyuga's commencement in 3102 B. C, or the Bharata War's occurrence in 3138 B. C. or the coronation of Mahapadma Nanda in 1638 B. C. or even the start of the Andhras in 802 B. C., we cannot help being struck with the precision with which this chronology synchronises Chandragupta I with Sandrocottus. Such a situation raises the question: "Which of the two Chandraguptas was Sandrocottus at whose court Megasthenes lived?" And it is indeed very pertinent to ask: "Does Megasthenes offer any chronological clue to solve it ?" 1. "The Satavahanas and the Chedis", The Age of Imperial Unity, edited by R. C. Majumdar and A. D. Pusalker (Bombay, 1951), p. 196, fn. 1 continued from p. 195.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 13 The Chronological Clue from Megasthenes We have three versions of a statement by Megasthenes, which can bear upon our problem. J. McCrindle has translated all of them.1 Pliny (VI. xxl. 4-5) reports about the Indians: "From the days of Father Bacchus to Alexander the Great, their kings are reckoned at 154, whose reigns extend over 6451 years and 3 months." Solinus (52.5) says: "Father Bacchus was the first who invaded India, and was the first of all who triumphed over the vanquished Indians. From him to Alexander the Great 6451 years are reckoned with 3 months additional, the calculation being made by counting the kings, who reigned in the intermediate period, to the number of 153." Arrian (Indica, I. ix) observes: "From the time of Dionysus to Sandrocottus the Indians counted 153 kings and a period of 6042 years, but among these a republic was thrice established... and another to 300 years, and another to 120 years. The Indians also tell us that Dionysus was earlier than Heracles by fifteen generations, and that except him no one made a hostile invasion of India...but that Alexander indeed came and overthrew in war all whom he attacked..." It would be worth while discussing the three versions in every detail and arriving at what must have been the full original pronouncement of Megasthenes which has thus got transmitted with some confusions and inconsistencies and one lacuna. But for our immediate purpose it will suffice to make a few clarifying observations and then inquire: "What historical or legendary figure mentioned by the Indians became identified with Dionysus (Bacchus) in the Greek mind to serve as the starting-poing of Indian chronoiogy and of the line of Indian kings? First, we may note from the more expansive versions of Solinus and Arrian that Dionysus and Alexander are terms of 1. The Classical Accounts of India, edited with an Introduction, Notes and Comments by R. C. Majumdar (Calcutta, 1960), pp. 340, 457, 223.

14 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 comparison in respect of the invaders of India-especially the Greek ones. Dionysus is declared to be the first who invaded India, Alexander the only other person to do so. The most appropriate way to connect them is by calculating the time that elapsed between them. Solinus gives us just this time-connection. To connect the two invaders by a number of kings, as does Pliny, is controversial; for, it brings up at once the issue: "Does the number refer to the whole of ancient India ?" 153 or 154 kings are far too few for the whole, in which there were a host of practically independent kingdoms, each with its own genealogy of rulers. The number must be in reference to merely one particular kingdom which was associated with Alexander and with which Dionysus may have been associated either directly or through some scion of his. But can we associate any such kingdom with Alexander? He subjugated several states, but he was not specifically a king of this or that state. So his name at one end of a king-series is an anomaly. Quite the reverse is the case with Sandrocottus whose name in Arrians' king-series replaces Pliny's "Alexander". Sandrocottus, though emperor of many peoples, is specifically known as the King of the Prasii-the Prasii whom Pliny elsewhere (VI.22) describes as the greatest nation in India. We can easily conceive him as the tail-end of a line which goes back through various dynasties of kings ol Palibothra to a hoary past along one branch among many leading to a common ancestor. This conception seems natural when we realise that the small king-number was mentioned to Megasthenes at Palibothra itself, where he was stationed as ambassador. And what endows this conception with inevitability is the importance which Indian chronologists and historians have given to Magadha whose capital was Palibot hra: the kings of Magadha after the Bharata War are the principal theme of the Puranic lists of dynasties. Sandrocottus and not Alexander was certainly the terminus intended by Megasthenes to the king-series the Indians mentioned to him. But this series, although not related to Alexander, can well serve to describe from the Magadhan point of view the time-span

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 15 from Dionysus to Alexander. And that is exactly how Solinus uses it, even if without the implication of Magadha such as Arrian has. Arrian too is justified in using it to describe the time-span from Dionysus to Sandrocottus. For, the two time-spans could not be much different. Alexander and Sandrocottus were contemporaries, and the gap of over 409 years which is there between the number in Arrian and that in Pliny or Solinus is a gross mistake. Arrian's time-span should really be not so much less nor even the same but a little more. Plutarch' as well as Justin² record that when Alexander, some time after his invasion, met Sandrocottus, the latter was not yet a king. According to Plutarch, the meeting took place round about the time the Macedonians "most resolutely opposed Alexander when he insisted that they should cross the Ganges". Alexander's progress came to a halt at approximately the end of July 326 B. C.³. Thus we are sure that Sandrocottus mounted the throne of Palibothra later than this date. If we accept the more detailed time-span-6451 years and 3 months-conveyed by Pliny and Solinus as our basis and if we try to guess the one in Arrian by introducing the least possible changes in the figures which he supplies, Sandrocottus coronation must have been not 6042 but 6452 years after what Arrian calls "the time of Dionysus" and Pliny "the days of Father Bacchus". Here we must consider the import of these two phrases, for they determine how we should count the 153 or 154 kings. Do they direct us to the beginning of Dionysus kingship in India or to the end of it ? In other words, is Dionysus included in the 153 or 154 kings? The phrase "From...to" employed by all the writers is ambiguous, whether we apply it to the "time" and "days" or to the king-number. Luckily we have an unequivocal phrase in Solinus to guide us: "the calculation being made by counting the kings who reigned in the intermediate period..." The reference is to the number of years and months from Dionysus 1. Life of Alexander, LXIII. 2. Historiarum Philippicarum, XV. 1 v. 3. "Foreign Invasions" by R. K. Mookerji, The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 50.

16 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 to Alexander and these years and months are brought into relation with the number of kings. About both the time-period and the king-series we get the clear term "intermediate". The number of kings applies to those who reigned between the days of Dionysus and the days of Alexander: the total of their reigns- 6451 years and 3 months-applies also to the period between the reigns of Dionysus and Alexander. After Dionysus ceased reigning and before Alexander started doing so we have the intermediate period. Similarly, the kings who are counted are the ones succeeding Dionysus and preceding Alexander. Indeed, Dionysus, who "was the first of all who triumphed over the vanquished Indians", must be couted as the first king over the Indians. But he is not a part of the 153 or 154 kings. Neither is Sandrocottus. If we count both of them, the king-number will be 155 or 156. The final point to glance at is: "Which of the two kingnumbers is to be accepted ?" Since two authors out of three give 153 and since Arrian who correctly refers the king-series to Sandrocottus is one of them, 153 would appear to have more weight. But, when the difference of 154 from it is exceedingly small, perhaps the two serial numbers are there because of a disagreement among computers whether a certain name was to be included or not in the full tally. # In view of all our observations our job is to link Sandrocottus with an ietervening chain of 153 or 154 kings to the ancient monarch of India whom the Greeks named Dionysus. By doing it we should be able to decide between Chandragupta Maurya and Chandragupta I for Sandrocottus and between the rise of the Mauryas and the rise of the Imperial Guptas for 325 or 324 B. C. The whole of ancient Indian chronology hinges on our decision apropos of the clue from Megasthenes. Dionysus in India Obviously, to come to a decision we must consult the Indian sources on which Megasthenes based himself. Where timeperiods or king-lists are concerned, the informants of Megasthenes

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 17 are very likely to have been Puranic pundits. "In fact," says D. R. Manked' rightly, "apart from the Puranas, there is no other source for such information." No doubt, the early Puranas were not quite in the form which we have today of this kind of literature, but there must have been many things in common and we are justified in tracing the extant Puranic documents to versions in fairly ancient times. "The early versions of the Puranas", A. D. Pusalker sums up, "existed at the period of the Bharata War and that of Megasthenes." And, like the original work of Megasthenes himself, these versions must have had a consistent tale of historico-chronological indications, which at present we can partly rebuild only by critical collation of the various reports. Along with the Puranas there were some other traditional accounts--the Vedas, the Brahmanas and the Epics. These too we must draw upon wherever necessary in our search for Dionysus in India. Strictly speaking, the religious Indian analogue of Dionysus, god of wine, is Soma. Soma is apostrophised in the Rigveda as lord of the wine of delight (ananda) and immortality (amrita), pouring himself into gods and men, the deity who is also deephidden in the growths of the earth, waiting to be released as a rapture-flow for men and gods. In the times after the Rigveda, Soma emerges more specifically as a lunar god no less than as a king of the vegetable world with his being of nectar passing between heaven and earth through ritual and sacrifice. During those times, Soma is also regarded, in the earliest reference to the origin of kingship (Aitareya Brahmana, I.14), as the god whom the other gods, seeking to fight the Titans (Asuras) effectively, elected as their king after having lived without a king so far. In the Satapatha Brahmana (V. 3. 3. 12; 4. 2. 3; XIII. 6. 2. 18; 7. 1. 13) the Brahmins speak of Soma as their king while common folk acknowledge an earthly monarch. The same book (XI. 4.3.9) applies to Soma the epithet (Raja-pati), "lord of kings." All this 1. Puranic Chronology (Anand, 1951), p. 2. 2. Studies in the Epics and Puranas (Bhavan's Book University, Bombay. 1955), p. lxvi. 3

18 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 goes to suggest that Soma in ancient Indian tradition was the primeval as well as the supreme king from the religious stand-point. But the true religious analogue of Dionysus need not be exclusively what the Greeks had in view, and we are concerned with the Indian figure whom they in the days of Alexander and Megasthenes identified with their Dionysus for various reasons, among which a strong touch of Soma, even if inevitable, might yet be only one stimulus. Besides, although Megasthenes connects wine with some religious ceremonies in India, there seems to have been in the country then no marked cult of the wine-god. The god mentioned as "Soroadeios" and interpreted to Alexander as "maker of wine" is now recognised to have been "Suryadeva", the sun-god. "Some illiterate interpreter", E. Bevan explains, "must have been misled by the resemblance of Surya, 'sun', to Sura, 'wine'." In the absence of a marked cult of Soma, the wide-spread Indian worship, which the Greeks reported, of Dionysus must indicate some other deity tinged with Soma-characteristics. The unanimous vote of scholars, bearing on Strabo's statement (XV. I) from Magasthenes that the Indians who lived on the mountains worshipped Dionysus, whereas the philosophers of the plains worshipped Heracles, is for Shiva, who was worshipped with revelry by certain hill-tribes. The pillar symbol, linga, associated popularly with Shiva as a phallus, making him a fertility god, and the bull which goes with him as his vahana, vehicle-these two characteristics must have affined him still further with Dionysus who "is believed to have been originally a Thracian fertility god worshipped in the form of a bull with orgiastic rites" and whose exoteric symbol, the phallus, was carried about in the rural festivals as well as in the mysteries.³ But surely when the Greeks spoke of royal history running in India from the time of Dionysus to that of Alexander and Sandrocottus, their Dionysus was a fusion of this Shiva with 1. The Cambridge History of India (1923), Vol. I, p. 422. 2. Smaller Classical Dictionary (Everyman), p. 110, col. 2. 3. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (13th Ed.), Vol. VIII, p. 287, col. 2.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 19 some legendary hero who, unlike Shiva, was celebrated as a primal king and who carried even more than Shiva a Soma-colour in some way affining him to the wine-aspect of the Hellenic god. The fusion is to be expected, since he was to the Greeks as much an empire-builder as a god. In the imagination of the Macedonian soldiers he was the subject of Euripides fable-a conqueror of the East whom they endowed with a constructive role in the remote past of India. This role bulked large in the thought of Megasthenes and it is well spotlighted by Arrian, (Indica, I, vii) drawing upon the Greek ambassador's book: "Dionysus,...when he came and conquered the people, founded cities and gave laws to these cities and introduced the use of wine among the Indians, as he had done among the Greeks, and taught them to sow the land, himself supplying seeds for the purpose...It is also said that Dionysus first yoked oxen to the plough and made many of the Indians husbandmen instead of nomads, and furnished them with the implements of agriculture; and that the Indians worship the other gods, and Dionysus himself in particular, with cymbals and drums, because he so taught them; and that he also taught them the Satyric dance, or, as the Greeks call it, the Kordax; and that he instructed the Indians to let their hair grow long in honour of the god, and to wear the turban; and that he taught them to anoint themselves with unguents, so that even up to the time of Alexander the Indians marshalled for battle to the sound of cymbals and drums." Then Arrian refers to Dionysus departure from India after having established the new order of things and having appointed as king of the country one of his companions who was the most conversant with Bacchic matters and who subsequently reigned for 52 years. Among the cities founded by Dionysus, Arrian (Anabasis, V.1; Indica, I. 1) in company with all his fellow-annalists names only Nysa (in the Hindu Kush), so called after either Dionysus nurse or his native mountain. Some further points may be cited from Diodorus. Like others he (II. 38) mentions the Indian mountain "Meros" (Meru), at whose foot lay the city of Nysa, as a place where Dionysus

20 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 had been, and he links with its name the Greek legend that Dionysus was bred in his father Zeus thigh (meros in Greek). In a few things Diodorus differs from what most authors have quoted from Megasthenes. After repeating the story of the invasion of India by Dionysus, he (ibid.) mentions Dionysus as not leaving the country after his achievements but as reigning over the whole of India for 52 years and then dying of old age while his sons succeeded to the government and transmitted the sceptre in unbroken succession to their posterity. What is more, Diodorus (III. 63) shows us that the Greeks knew of a counterlegend to the one about the entry of Dionysus into India from the west. And from this counter-legend the starter of the king-series to whom the Indians referrred emerges in a clearer shape: "Now some,...supposing that there were three individuals of this name, who lived in different ages, assign to each appropriate achievements. They say, then, the most ancient of them was Indos, and that as the country, with its genial temperature, produced spontaneously the vine-tree in great abundance, he was the first who crushed grapes and discovered the use of the properties of wine... Dionysus, then, at the head of an army, marched to every part of the world, and taught mankind the planting of the vine, and how to crush grapes in the winepress, whence he was called Lenaios. Having in Like manner imparted to all a knowledge of his other inventions, he obtained after his departure from among men immortal honour from those who had benefited by his labours. It is further said that the place is pointed out in India even to this day where the god had been, and that cities are called by his name in the vernacular dialects, and that many other important evidences still exist of his having been born in India..." There are some more details to the Dionysus-story, but all about him is not of equal importance; and those points in particular which have too clearly a Greek colour cannot be of much help to us. A few points which strike us as rather fanciful may also be passed over. What we have mainly to match from Indian sources is an ancient human-divine personage who is a great proggressive and

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 21 constructive leader, no less than a conqueror-one who is organically knit together with the country's traditional history and geography and stands deified in legend at the head of all royal successions in India. The Three Candidates. Indian tradition shows us three human-divine personages. each of whom in an important sense is a king in the past and acted as a fundamental force of progress. Legendary India starts with Manu Svayambhuva.' He is reputed to have subdued all enemies, become the first king of the earth and revived the institutions of the four castes and of marriage, which had been established by his predecessor and progenitor, the deity Brahma. With a status similar in another epoch is Manu Vaivasvata." He is said to be the originator af the human race and all the dynasties mentianed in the Puranas spring from him. He framed rules and laws of government, and collected a sixth of the produce of the land as a tax to meet administrative expenses. He is also famous for having saved humanity from the deluge which occurred at this time. As a conqueror, Dionysus may be seen as resembling Svayambhuva. As a law-giver, he may be traced in Vaivasvata. As a primal king, he is more like Vaivasvata than Svayambhuva, for, though both are royal genealogy-starters in their own ways, the latter is such simply by being the first Indian-and Dionysus, even as "Indos", was not the Adam of India. But in all his other capacities Dionysus is not at all like either Vaivasvata or Svayambhuva. The third human-divine figure who is a primal king in Indian eyes stands in time intermediate between Svayambhuva and Vaivasvata: he is Prithu Vainya-Prithu, the son of Vena. 1. The Vedic Age, edited by R. C. Majumdar and A.D. Pusalker (London, 1952), pp. 270-71. 2. Ibid., pp. 271-72.

22 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 When we examine him, we discover that in all important respects he is the candidate par excellence for the Indian Dionysus. Prithu Vainya as Dionysus Prithu is not explicitly acknowledged by extant Indian records as a genealogy-starter, but he is called again and again the first king in a very special connotation of the phrase and, if he suited the Greeks who were obsessed with their Dionysus in Indian annals and who connected Dionysus with Sandrocottus, Indian records could easily lend themselves to making him for them a genealogy-starter. For, although Svayambhuva was the first king on earth and Vaivasvata the king at the source of all detailed human families, Prithu initiated the special status and significance enjoyed by kingship in ancient Indian history: he is "celebrated as the first consecrated king, from whom the earth received its name Prithvi". Even the hoary Satapatha Brahmana (V. 3. 5. 4) styles him the first anointed monarch. As D. R. Patil' relates, the Vayu Purana terms him adiraja (first king) and the Mahabharata (IV and XI) says that the divine Vishnu entered the person of the king and hence the whole universe worships the kings as if they were gods. The Vishnu Purana, too, deems him a portion of deity. Prithu as king precedes Vaivasvata in time, but it is not by mere precedence that, like Svayambhuva, he is primal in royalty. He is adiraja by God-invested right and thus combines in himself the typical position of Dionysus the starter of royal dynasties: king as god and god as king. Thus he is suited the most to begin a line of duly coronated rulers. Nor is he less a conqueror than Svayambhuva. When he was born, says the Vayu Purana, he stood equipped with bow, arrows and a shining armour. After his consecration he proceeded to vanquish the earth because he found her devoid of Vedic rites and proper service. Terrified of his uplifted weapons the earth. 1. Ibid, p. 271. 2. Cultural History from the Vayu Purana (Poona, 1946), pp. 28, 163. 3. Tr. by M. N. Dutt (Calcutta, 1896), p. 62. 4. Patil, Op. cit., p. 163.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 23 fled in the shape of a cow and, on being pursued, pleaded not to be destroyed and she surrendered herself to his demands. Prithu is also the earliest among the kings to be called chakravartin- that is, in F. E. Pargiter's words," "sovereigns who conquered surrounding kingdoms and brought them under their authority, and established a paramount position over more or less extensive regions around their own kingdom." As the earth-vanquisher and the chakravartin prototype he is exactly like Dionysus who, "at the head of an army, marched to every part of the world". He also resembles Dionysus uniquely and exclusively by many of his peace-time achievements. The Atharvaveda (VIII. 10. 24) gives him, as V. M. Apte' writes, "the credit of introducing the art of ploughing". Pusalker" sums up many of his constructive activities: "He levelled the whole earth, clearing it of ups and downs, and encouraged cultivation, cattle-breeding, commerce and building of cities and villages." Here we may recall Diodorus phrase on Dionysus: "cities are called by his name in the vernacular dialects." Apropos of Hiuentsang's travels (c. 640 A. D.) in India, A. Cunningham' writes of the town which the Chinese scholar mentioned as Pehoa: "The place derives its name from the famous Prithu-Chakra-vartti, who is said to have been the first person that obtained the title Raja." Then Cunningham refers to the legendary events after the death of Prithu's father Vena: "On his death Prithu performed the Sraddha, or funeral ceremonies, and for twelve days after the cremation he sat on the bank of the Sarasvati offering water to all comers. The place was therefore called Prithudaka or Prithu's pool, from daka or udaka water; and the city which he afterwards built on the spot was called by the same name. The shrine of Prithudaka has a place in the Kurukshetra Mahatmya, and is still visited." S. Majumdar adds by way of annotation 1. Ancient Indian Historical Tradition (London, 1922), p. 399. 2. The Vedic Age, p. 460. 3. Ibid., p. 271. 4. The Ancient Geography of India, edited with an Introduction and Notes by S. Majumdar (Calcutta, 1924), p. 385. 5. Ibid., p. 702.

24 puranam - PURANA 39 [Vol. VIII., No. 1 on Prthudaka: "Referred to in the Kavyamimamsa (p. 93) as the boundary between Northern and Central India. Jaya Chandra Narang goes as far back as Patanjali in referring to this town: "Uttarapatha is defined......as the country to the north of Prithudaka, i.e. the modern Pihowa on the Sarasvati...." Nor is this the sole Dionysian item of geography to be noted. In the Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela (second half of the 1st century B. C.) we read of the claim of this king of Kalinga to have devastated Pithuda, the capital of a king of the Masulipatam region in the Madras State. Kharavela's Pithuda seems to be the same as Pitundra, metropolis of the Masoloi according to the geographer Ptolemy (c. 140 A. D.). And both the names appear to resolve only into the Sanskrit Prithuda. Now we may turn to the religious aspect of Prithu to match that of Dionysus. Although king, he carried on profound religious practices, as the Matsya Purana informs us. And his pursuit of the earth, we may remember, was due to his anger at the neglect of Vedic rites and proper service. In the Rigveda he figures in one hymn (X. 148.5) as a rishi. There is, further, the suggestion from the compilers of the Vedic Index (II, p. 16) that, as D. R. Patil³ puts it, "Prithu of the Rigveda was probably a vegetation deity." This brings him very close indeed to Dionysus as well as to Soma. And his connection with the vegetable world emerges too from the story of his pursuit of the earth. When the earth surrenders herself to his demands, there takes place "the milching of the earth". This act seems to have many levels of significance. On the most apparent, the idea which is prominent is rightly said by Patil' to be "that the king must provide for his people means for sustenance especially through the vegetable world". But there is also here a relation to the Somaconcept. For, the "milching" involves the preparation of a wondrous drink from earth-products. And this drink assumes directly the aspeet of Soma when we observe the circumstances 1. "Structure of India in Relation to Language and History", The Cultural Heritage of India (Calcutta, 1958), p. 47. 2, X. 3. Op. cit., p. 163. 4. Ibid.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 25 under which the Vayu Purana mentions the deposition of Prithu's father Vena: Vena was deposed because he "held ideas against the performances of sacrifices and in his reign the gods did not partake of Soma at all". And Prithu is declared, on his consecration as king, to have restored the Vedic sacrifices: he thus released, as it were, the rapture-wine from the earth for the gods. Thus one of the most Dionysian characteristics can be combined with Prithu. When we look at the Rigvedic Vena we see in a still more Dionysian light the pertinence of the Puranic story of his depriving the gods of Soma. Vena in the Rigveda is not only called (X. 93.14) a "generous patron", the original bounty which in the Puranas is pictured as becoming perverted: he is also a form of the Vedic wine-god of delight, Soma, the true religious analogue of Dionysus. In one hymn (I. 83.4,5), where the birth of Light from the lower life and from its crookedness is spoken of, we have the expression: yatah suryo vratapa vena ajani, "the Sun was born as the protector of the Law and the Blissful One"." Vena is the word for "the Blissful One" and the Blissful One is that power or personality of the Supreme which is Bhaga and which is the creative enjoyer, the one who takes the delight of all that is created, the one to whom all creation is bhojanam, meaning both enjoyment and food. Bhaga is Soma, and Soma gets directly implied to be Vena when the Rigveda (IV. 58.4) speaks of three kinds of clarity (ghritam): "One Indra produced, one Surya, one the gods fashioned by natural development out of Vena." Sri Aurobindo, after giving this translation, comments: "Indra is the Master of the thought-mind, Surya of the supramental light, Vena is Soma, the master of mental delight of existence, creator of the sense-mind." Thus Prithu Vainya gets steeped in a Soma-connotation. And Megasthenes was encouraged to catch it in a Dionysian shape from his Indian informants all the more by the very sound of 1. Ibid., p. 24. 2. Sri Aurobindo, On the Veda (Pondicherry, 1956), p. 276. 3. Ibid., p. 120, 4

26 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 this hero's patronymic "Vainya". Just as the Indian hill-fortress Varana becomes Aornos to Alexander's army and just as the Indian god-name "Varuna" is answered by the Greek "Ouranos", so too "Vainya" must have sounded to the Greek ear like the Greek "Oinos" (wine), "Oine" (vine), "Oeneos" (vintner). We may recollect that Dionysus, because of his art of crushing grapes in the winepress, came to be termed "Lenaios". The Greeks may have understood Prithu to have been designated as "Vainya" for the same art. While we are about Prithu and his father we may allude to the myth that Dionysus was bred in the thigh of his father Zeus and delivered from it to the world. The common myth concerning Prithu's birth is that he was born from the churning of Vene's left arm. But Ronald M. Huntington¹ has drawn attention to traditional sources which, instead of "left arm", read "thigh". And this Puranic myth has yet another point worth marking, The expression "churning" is applicable only to a liquid, and the an earth-nectar turned churned Vena assumes the look of unproductive and needing to be revived-once more the idea of perverted Soma. But, if the Vena of the Puranas reveals the sense of the Rigvedic Soma becoming perverted, then Prithu the saviour who is churned out of him grows the same Soma set right again: he is Soma once more delight and immortality, Soma restored to divinity. Thus Prithu subsumes all that Soma brings of equivalence to Dionysus. Not only does he take into himself the godhead of wine, but also his status as the first consecrated king of earth merges in the kingship which for the first time came into being among the gods. Even with Dionysus as Shiva, Prithu has a rapport. The Smriti (IX. 44) calls the earth Prithu's wife (bharya). So, if in the story of his pursuit of her she is given the form of a cow, he 1. "The Legend of Prithu", Purana, vol. II, 1-2, July 1960, p. 190, fn. 8.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 27 as her husband becomes by implication a bull. And the bull, ever since the Rigveda, has been a symbol of generation, inward or outward, spiritual or physical. Hence Prithu joins up on one side to the bull-form that went with the worship of Dionysus and on the other to the bull-vehicle that is Shiva's. And since Shiva with his phallus-emblem was a fertility god like Dionysus, Prithu by his connection with the vegetable world and even more as a vegetable deity gets assimilated with equal ease to both. The Greeks would find little difficulty in making their Dionysus a composite of Shiva and Prithu. The Sanskrit for the Name "Dionysus" Our special formula of Dionysus-Prithu and our broad one of Dionysus = Shiva Prithu would receive the finishing touch if in regard to Shiva and Prithu we could light upon an Indian equivalent of the name "Dionysus". This name as a whole has had various explanations: the terminal component has been taken as "Nusos" (Thracian for "son") or "Nusa" tree or "Nysa" (proper name of a mountain or a nurse). The only thing certain is the initial component "Dio" from "Dios" (God). Now, it is well-known that the Indian "Deva" for the Greek "Dios" is particularly linked with Shiva e.g. "Mahadeva" Great God. It is also evident from the story in Puranas and the Mahabharata that the concept of King as Divinity derives from the consecration of Prithu is the first king to be considered Deva : the appellation Bhudeva ("Earth-God") which is common in Indian literature for a king may be traced to the legend of his anointment. So we have for both Shiva and Prithu an Indian equivalent to the initial component of "Dionysus". The terminal component can find too its Indian equivalent with regard to them if we remember how first the, companion of Alexander related the cult of Dionysus to India. They did so on reaching the town in the Hindu Kush, which they called Nysa after the name heard by them on its occupants' lips. They enthusiastically conjecured that Dionysus had given this town its name in honour of his nurse or of his mountain.' Naturally then they would expect the 1. Arrian, Anabasis, V. 1; Indica, I. 1.

28 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 God worshipped there to be their own Dionysus and their expectations must have been amply fulfilled when they may have found this God, who was Shiva, called Deva: what could the Deva of Nysa be save Dionysus? Megasthenes, on longer stay in India, particularly in Magadha, heard of a king whose various achievements and functions answered to what the Greeks' own tradition had said about Dionysus, and this king was known not only as the first in an important sense but also as Deva: further, he had some associations in common with the Deva of Nysa. Would it be any wonder if he too got called Dionysus ? The appropriateness of the dubbing must have been confirmed for Megasthenes by a phrase he may have come across about this king. Since the God-head is said to have entered Prithu and Prithu to have become the first consecrated monarch by that divine Presence, one can imagine the informants of the Greek ambassador using for Prithu the apt phrase Raja daivyena sahasa, "King with God-force". This phrase could very well be to Greek ears the Indian way of saying "Raja Dionysus". It is a phrase easily for Prithu against a Puranic-cum-Vedic background. In the Puranas Prithu, with the Godhead in him, turned Truthwards the Earth-cow whose sacrificial and productive "milk" had been confined by irreligious powers. In the Rigveda (X.108.6) we have actually the expression sahasa daivyena about the heavenly Sarama who comes pressing upon the dark powers named the Panis to let the hidden Cows go upward to the Truth. Some Final Considerations Looked at from every angle, Prithu emerges as the Indian original of the Greeks' Dionysus in a multiple manner impossible to either Svayambhuva or Vaivasvata. Even the role of Dionysus as law-giver, which affines Dionysus to Vaivasvata, is implict in Prithu's role as champion of Vedic rites and fosterer of trade and sovereign over a vast number of peoples and builder of cities. And though Vaivasvata is the father of the human ages and thereby looks plausible for the part of history-starter which Dionysus plays in the Greek account, the history he starts is joined with Prithu

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 29 in an important and organic way. The period at whose head stands Vaivasvata differs from all preceding periods in that, unlike them, it had cities and villages, knew agriculture, trade, pasture and cattle-breeding. And it knew all these things because of Prithu Prithu has given a special distinguishing character to the Vaivasvata epoch and made the period, in which the Puranic dynasties from that Manu flourished, what it historically is." Vaivasvata is thus significantly assimilated into Prithu. Svayambhuva himself, the sheer first of all earth-kings in the Puranas, is assimilated in a certain sense. The Matsya Purana (X), after describing how Prithu chased and conquered the earth which was fleeing from him like a cow, says: "The land promised to obey the behests of the king. Then the king, after making Svayambhuva Manu as his calf, milked the earth in the form of the cow with his own hands. The earth then produced different kinds of grain which support mankind." The strange psycho-symbolic phrase about Svayambhuva renders that prime king a living portion of the Prithu-history, a power serving organically the achievement of the first consecrated monarch. A last consideration, rounding off the rich many-sided equation of Prithu to Dionysus, is a legend connected with Magadha. We have argued that the 153 or 154 kings of Megasthenes trace the line upward from Sandrocottus, rather than from Alexander, to Dionysus and that they pertain to just the province of Magadha as their tail-end. It would be most appropriate if to balance Sandrocottus at the lower extreme as king of Magadha the list went back, with whatever intermediate breaks, to an original Magadhan monarch. The equation of Prithu to Dionysus makes Dionysus such a monarch, for the Brahma Purana, which in the midst of later accretions is held to have very ancient matter enshrined in it, bears a legend in which "the first great Samrat or Emperor of Magadha" is Prithu. 1. Cf. Vayu Purana, 62. 170-74; also Patil, Op. Cit., p. 71. 2. The Sacred Books of the Hindus, p. 31. 3. B. C. Law, Tribes in Ancient India (Poona, 1943), p. 95. 4. The Cambridge History of India, p. 300.

30 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 The Kings from Dionysus to Sandrocottus Now we may legitimately start counting after Prithu the 153 or 154 kings and see whether our Dionysus-theory of him leads us to a Chandragupta and which of the two possible Chandraguptas becomes our terminus. As the Puranas are the main Indian source for the dynastic lists we have to make use of their detailed account. But in their present versions they are not uniform in these lists, though the variations are within certain limits. What we should try to reach is the primal Puranic list by means of collation. Pargiter, in his Ancient Indian Historical Tradition has set up a table of collated genealogical lines from the time of Vaivasvata to that of the Bharata War. His Puranic Texts of the Dynasties of the Kali Age collates the members of the eight dynasties which the Puranas set ruling in Magadha. As for the line from Prithu to Vaivasvata, the collated picture in outline is in Pusalker's remark in The Vedic Age': "Fifth in descent from Prithu was Daksha, whose daughter's grandson, Manu Vaivasvata, saved humanity from the deluge......" If Daksha is the 5th descendant from Prithu, Vaivasvata's number is 8 because he is 3rd in descent from Daksha. The details of the picture may be filled in from the Puranas, with Daksha's daughter Aditi substituted by her husband Kasyapa. Of course, Prithu himself stands unnumbered outside the picture at the upper end just as a Chandragupta will have to stand at the lower: 153 or 154 kings have to be in "the intermediate period" between these two. Prithu Vainya 1. Antardhana (or Antardhi) 5. Daksha 2. Havirdhana 3. Prachinabarhisha 6. Kasyapa 7. Vivasvata 4. Prachetas 8. Manu Vaivasvata But how shall we count after Vaivasvata ? He had 10 sons founding 10 families ruling over various sections of the 1. Vayu Purana, II. 22, 23, 25, 26, 39, 41; Matsya Purana, XI.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 31 country. Are we to count whatever members of all these families are found, on collation, in the Puranas? In reference to the Solar and Lunar lines into which the Puranas branch off Vaivasvata's progeny, Mankad' who has mistakenly attempted tracing from Vaivasvata the entire number of kings given by Megasthenes has yet some very perspicacious observations to guide the counting. He says that we have to proceed in two instalments. First we must come down from the time of Vaivasvata to that of the Bharata War and afterwards go on to the time of Alexander. But, in order to make the two movements a single whole, we must remember that Sandrocottus, the king before whom the Greek number completed itself and whose Indian counterpart we have to reach, was a Magadhan king. Therefore, we must move from Vaivasvata in such a way as to get along the Magadhan branch. The Magadhan branch, in all the Puranas, is always put in direct continuation of the Lunar line. So we have to ignore the Solar line coming down to the Bharata War and continuing further for about 30 kings. But the Lunar line has several branches and we have to ignore all except the one which carries us to the kings of Magadha before and during and after the Bharata War. The king of Magadha who died in the Bharata War was Sahadeva, the son of Jarasandha. So, prior to taking the main theme of the Puranic lists, the kings of Magadha subsequent to the War, we have to count along a course which leads from Vaivasvata to Sahadeva: we must not bring in any king occuring along another course. up With the correct procedure established, we have next to look at Pargiter's list of the appropriate kings down to Sahadeva. In this list, one name is put by him within brackets: it is Bharadvaja. The bracketing is done because Bharadvaja, as Pargiter relates on page 159 of his book, never sat on the throne; an adopted son of Bharata, he consecrated his own sun Vitatha as Bharata's successor after the latter had died. So we must 2. Op. cit., p. 4. 1. The Vedic Age, p. 271. 3. Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, pp. 144-49.

32 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 omit Bharadvaja if we are to take the actual kings. Then, with Manu Vaivasvata as number 8 and his daughter Ila replaced by her husband Budha, we get the following table: 8. Manu 9. Budha 10. Pururavas 11. Ayu 12. Nahusha 13. Yayati 14. Puru 15. Janamejaya I 16. Prachinvant 17. Pravira 18. Manasyu 31. Bhuvamanya 32. Brihatkshatra 33. Suhotra 34. Hastin 35. Ajamidha 36. Riksha 37. Samvarana 38. Kuru 39. Sudhanvan 40. Suhotra 41. Chyavana 19. Abhayada 20. Sudhanvan-Dhundu 21. Bahugava 22. Samyati 23. Ahamyati 24. Raudrasva 25. Richeyu 26. Matinara 42. Krita 43. Vasu 44. Brihadratha 45. Kusagra 46. Rishabha 47. Pushpavant 48. Satyahita 49. Sudhanvan Urja 27. Tamsu 50. 28. Dushyanta 51. Sambhava 29. Bharata 52. Jarasandha 30. Vitatha 53. Sahadeva Coming to the Magadhan kings after the Bharata War, we have 8 dynasties whose member have been enumerated one after another and who therefore can be counted. We shall follow Pargiter's collection of the relevant Puranic texts. About the Barhadrathas he tells us: "There were 32 kings altogether, 10 before the battle and 22 after." We have already mentioned the earlier 10, from Brihadratha to Sahadeva. About the Pradyotas we learn that they were 5. About the Sisunagas we are told:³ 1. The Puranic Texts of the Dynasties of the Kali Age (London, 1913), p. 13. 2. Ibid., p. 19, line 10; p. 68. 3 Ibid., pp. 20, 65.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 33 "All the authorities say that there were 10 kings." The Nandas are given¹ as 9 a father and 8 sons. attested number is 10" The Sungas Of the Mauryas "the best have the same number: 10.3 The Kanvas count 4. On the Andhras, Pargiter³ writes: "The Vayu, Brahmanda, Bhagavata and Visnu all say there were 30 kings...and 30 is no doubt the correct number." Let us put the "best attested" counts in a table: Barhadrathas Pradyotas 22 5 10 Sisunagas Nandas Mauryas Sungas 9 10 Kanvas Andhras 10 4 30. At two places we shall have a king named Chandragupta to answer to Sandrocottus. First, immediately after the Nandas. The number of this Chandragupta, founder of the Mauryas, is after (22+5+10+9=)46. But 46 added to the previous 53 yields only 99 whereas the number preceding him should be 153 or 154. So Chandragupta Maurya is ruled out. The next Chandragupta will come after the Andhras to found the dynasty of the Imperial Guptas. The sum-total of kings at the end of the Andhras-that is, at the end of all the 8 countable dynasties said to have ruled over Magadha-is (22 +5+ 10+9+10 +4+30=) 100. If we add these 100 kings to the 53 before them we obtain 153-exactly one of the two kingnumbers from Megasthenes for "the intermediate period" between Dionysus and Sandrocottus. Even the other number-154-becomes both apt and intelligible on a back-view of Pargiter's table. For 153 is reached on omission of Bharadvaja who never sat on the throne. But if we include him because he was next after Bharata and just before 2. Ibid., pp. 27, 70. 4. Ibid., p. 71. 5. Ibid., pp. 36, 72. 1. Ibid., p. 25, line 7; p. 26, line 7; p. 69. 3. Ibid., pp. 33, 70. 5

34 08 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 Vitatha we shall get 154 dynastic names. Thus both the numbers from Megasthenes get aligned to the Puranas with an astonishing accuracy. It seems impossible to doubt that Prithu Vainya at the commencement and Chandragupta I of the Imperial Guptas at the termination are what the Indian informants of Megasthenes intended when they spoke of a king-series from Dionysus to Sandrocottus. Through Megasthenes the Puranic chronology of the rise of the Imperial Guptas in c. 325 or 324 B.C. appears to be completely vindicated. Some Possible Objections Answered However, a few objections may be raised. One may say: "The Puranas designate the Pradyotas as kings of Magadha, but modern research is disposed to put them on the throne of Avanti. Also, modern research has not struck upon any definite evidence to regard the Andhra Satavahanas as Magadhan kings. If we knock the two dynasties out, there will never be 153 or 154 kings before Chandragupta I along the Magadhan line backward to Prithu . The answer is very simple : "To begin with, modern Jesearch is not yet unanimous: scholars like V. Smith¹ do not agree with the majority opinion. But even if this opinion happens to be correct, our argument stands. For, we are unconcerned at the movement with the issue of the Puranas' correctness in this matter: we are concerned with nothing else than what the Puranas record and what we are supposing their pundits to have conveyed to the Greek ambassador in the time of Sandrocottus. The issue really is: 'Does the Puranic list, right or wrong, correspond numerically to that of Megasthenes? The correspondence is very striking." 2 One may also object: According to Pargiter's careful analysis, the scheme of genealogy from Vaivasvata to Sahadeva, 1. The Early History of India (London, 1934), Chapters II and VIII. Vide also Anand Swarup Gupta, "The problem of Interpretation of the Puranas," Purana, Vol. VI, No. 1, January, 1965, p. 68, fn. 37, on the question of the Pradyotas. 2. Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, pp. 144-49.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 35 To take only inclusive of both, comprises 94 generations. (53-7) 46 king-names, as you do, misrepresents the state of affairs. You should really count 94 kings and, adding the 7 more up to Prithu, get 101 names before the Bharata War. Then the total number will be (101+100=) 201 instead of 153. This will throw the Puranas out of tune with Megasthenes and invalidate your whole procedure and proving." Here also the main point is overlooked. We do not affirm that only 46 kings existed from Vaivasvata to the Bharata War along the line we have to choose as the sole legitimate one. Nor do the Puranas make such an affirmation: Pargiter¹ has shown that they do not really claim to be exhaustive about any line. But our concern is simply with the number of names actually offered and with the problem: "Does it agree or not with the Greek account ?" Pargiter's analysis of the generations makes no odds. A most notable agreement is there. Both our procedure and proving remain untouched. The only objection truly worth weighing arises from Arrian's concluding remark: "The Indians also tell us that Dionysus was earlier than Heracles by fifteen generations." In the context of the king-series, Heracles is evidently meant to have been either fifteenth in the list or contemporaneous with whoever else was fifteenth. But we know who Heracles was, from Arrian's own slightly earlier statement (Indica, I, viii): "Heracles...who is currently reported to have come as a stranger into the country is said to have been in reality a native of India. This Heracles is held in especial honour by the Sourasenoi, an Indian tribe who possess two large cities, Methora and Cleisobora, and through whose country flows a navigable river called the Jobares. But the dress which this Heracles wore, Megasthenes tells us, resembled that of the Theban Heracles, as the Indians themselves admit. It is further said he had a numerous progeny of male children born to him in India (for, like his Theban namesake, he married many wives) but that he had only one daughter. The name of this 1. Ibid., p. 89.

36 puranam - PURANA [Vol. VIII., No. 1 child was Pandaia, and the land in which she was born and with the sovereignty of which Heracles entrusted her was called after her name Pandaia." Sufficient clues have been seen by scholars¹ in this account to identify Heracles. D. R. Bhandarkar equates him with Krishna Vasudeva (plus Krishna's brother Balarama) and the Sourasenoi with the Surasenas or Satvatas. Lassen,, McCrindle and Hopkins state that Methora and Cleisobora are respectively Mathura and Krishnapura on the Jamuna (Jobares). The story about Pandaia is a confused reference to Krishna's close personal association with the Pandavas in the Bharata War and to his family-tie to them by the marriage of his sister to the Pandava Arjuna. But if Heracles is Krishna, how, in any sense, can he be 15th after Dionysus or Prithu? He cannot be even 15th from Vaivasvata, for he was a contemporary of Sahadeva. In fact, Pargiter, when followed not along the Lunar line leading to Sahadeva but along another line of the Lunar family which leads to Krishna, shows him to be the 53rd name, though the 94th generation, if Vaivasvata is the 1st name and generation. This would make him (53 +7=) 60 in name-number after Prithu and (94+7=) 101 in generation after him. Hence the account of Megasthenes cannot be equated here to the Puranic results and the rift threatens to invalidate our conclusions, by means of Puranic comparison, in favour of Chandragupta I. One may put up the defence that the rift may be due to a slip by the copyists of Megasthenes, like the egregious yet obvious error of a much smaller time-gap between Dionysus and Sandracottus than between Dionysus and Alexander. Such a slip need not prejudice the highly impressive correspondence already traced. But, of course, it would be better if the discrepancy could be explained away. And actually there is a way out of the difficulty. It lies in inquiring: "Can Krishna be put, in some sense or other, immediately after the 14th name in our Puranic list so that he may be the 15th after Prithu ? If he can, we may legitimately suggest that Megasthenes has made a mix-up without truly falsifying the Puranic information. 1. Pusalker, Studies in the Epics and Puranas. p. 64.

Jan. 1966] MEGASTHENES AND THE INDIAN CHRONOLOGY 37 When we examine our Puranic list we find that 14th after Prthu is Puru, the son of Yayati. But Puru is not the only son: we have named him alone because through him we arrive ultimately at the Magadhan line. Pusalker, drawing upon the Puranas and the Mahabharata, tells us, as also does Pargiter by his tables: "Yayati had five sons. Devayani bore two, Yadu and Turvasu, and Sarmishtha three, Anu, Druhyu, and Puru." All these sons are 14th after Prithu. Pusalker continues: "Yadu, the eldest son of Yayati, founded the Yadavas, the first Lunar dynasty to rise into prominence." The greatest and almost the last Yadava was Krishna. Now, the term "Yadava" means in general a member of Yadu's family but its first and immediate meaning is "son of Yadu." If Krishna the Yadava is understood as son of "Yadu", then, since Yadu is 14th after Prithu, Krishna is 15th. And he is 15th not only as a name: those who are next in succession to Yadu-his "sons", as they are called-are 15th in generation no less than in name-number, and therefore Prithu would be exactly 15 generations earlier than Krishna who according to us, substituted one of these sons in Megasthenes understanding. The precise generation-number 15 into which Krishna as' "Yadava" could fit is too suggestive to be without relevance to our problems of Dionysus having been "fifteen generations earlier than Heracles". Besides, the very name of the son, through whom the line which nearly ended with Krishna came into being is somewhat allied in sound to Krishna's own: it is Kroshtr. Thus every objection can be met. And we may hold, in conclusion, that Megasthenes, on his own evidence, was not a contemporary of Chandragupta Maurya. He is historically on the side of the Puranic chronology in so far as it leads to the accession of Chandragupta I in c. 325 or 324 B. C. His chronological information came from Indians who in c. 302 B. C.-the date of his arrival at the court of Sandrocottus-were setting up their time-scheme with the end of Prithu's semi-legendary reign at one extreme and at the other the rise of the Imperial Guptas in their own day. 1. The Vedic Age, p. 274. 2. Ibid., pp. 298-99.