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2. Though Numismatics is a less conjectural branch of science, and when
starting from well-established basic dates, so to say, an exact one
(since it can hardly fail to yield correct chronological data, in our
case, namely, Indian antiquities); archeologists have hitherto failed to
obtain any such position. On their own confession, they are hardly
justified in accepting the Samvat and Salivahana eras as their guiding
lights, the real initial points of both being beyond the power of the
European Orientalists to verify; yet all the same, the respective dates
"of 57 B.C. and 78 A.D." are accepted implicitly, and fanciful ages
thereupon ascribed to archeological remains.

3. The greatest authorities upon Indian archeology and architecture--
General Cunningham and Mr. Fergusson--represent in their conclusions the
two opposite poles. The province of archeology is to provide
trustworthy canons of criticism, and not, it should seem, to perplex or
puzzle. The Western critic is invited to point to one single relic of
the past in India, whether written record or inscribed or uninscribed
monument, the age of which is not disputed. No sooner has one
archeologist determined a date--say the first century--than another
tries to pull it forward to the 10th or perhaps the 14th century of the
Christian era. While General Cunningham ascribes the construction of
the present Buddha Gaya temple to the 1st century after Christ--the
opinion of Mr. Fergusson is that its external form belongs to the 14th
century; and so the unfortunate outsider is as wise as ever. Noticing
this discrepancy in a "Report on the Archeological Survey of India"
(vol. viii. p. 60), the conscientious and capable Buddha-Gaya Chief
Engineer, Mr. J.D. Beglar, observes that "notwithstanding his
(Fergusson's) high authority, this opinion must be unhesitatingly set
aside," and forthwith assigns the building under notice to the 6th
century. While the conjectures of one archeologist are termed by
another "hopelessly wrong," the identifications of Buddhist relics by
this other are in their turn denounced as "quite untenable." And so in
the case of every relic of whatever age.

When the "recognized" authorities agree--among themselves at least--then
will it be time to show them collectively in the wrong. Until then,
since their respective conjectures can lay no claim to the character of
history, the "Adepts" have neither the leisure nor the disposition to
leave weightier business to combat empty speculations, in number as many
as there are pretended authorities. Let the blind lead the blind, if
they will not accept the light.*

--------
* However, it will be shown elsewhere that General Cunningham's latest
conclusions about the date of Buddha's death are not all supported by
the inscriptions newly discovered.--T. Subba Row.
---------

As in the "historical," so in this new "archeological difficulty,"
namely, the apparent anachronism as to the date of our Lord's birth, the
point at issue is again concerned with the "old Greeks and Romans."
Less ancient than our Atlantean friends, they seem more dangerous
inasmuch as they have become the direct allies of philologists in our
dispute over Buddhist annals. We are notified by Prof. Max Muller, by
sympathy the most fair of Sanskritists as well as the most learned--and
with whom, for a wonder, most of his rivals are found siding in this
particular question--that "everything in Indian chronology depends on
the date of Chandragupta,"--the Greek Sandracottus. "Either of these
dates (in the Chinese and Ceylonese chronology) is impossible, because
it does not agree with the chronology of Greece." ("Hist. of the Sans.
Lit.," p. 275.) It is then by the clear light of this new Alexandrian
Pharos shed, upon a few synchronisms casually furnished by the Greek and
Roman classical writers, that the "extraordinary" statements of the
"Adepts" have now to be cautiously examined. For Western Orientalists
the historical existence of Buddhism begins with Asoka, though, even
with the help of Greek spectacles, they are unable to see beyond
Chandragupta. Therefore, "before that time Buddhist chronology is
traditional and full of absurdities." Furthermore, nothing is said in
the Brahmanas of the Bauddhas--ergo, there were none before
"Sandracottus," nor have the Buddhists or Brahmans any right to a
history of their own, save the one evoluted by the Western mind. As
though the Muse of History had turned her back while events were gliding
by, the "historian" confesses his inability to close the immense lacunae
between the Indo-Aryan supposed immigration en masse across the Hindoo
Kush, and the reign of Asoka. Having nothing more solid, he uses
contradictory inferences and speculations. But the Asiatic occultists,
whose forefathers had her tablets in their keeping, and even some
learned native Pundits--believe they can. The claim, however, is
pronounced unworthy of attention. Of the late Smriti (traditional
history) which, for those who know how to interpret its allegories, is
full of unimpeachable historical records, an Ariadne's thread through
the tortuous labyrinth of the Past--has come to be unanimously regarded
as a tissue of exaggerations, monstrous fables, "clumsy forgeries of the
first centuries A.D." It is now openly declared as worthless not only
for exact chronological but even for general historical purposes. Thus
by dint of arbitrary condemnations, based on absurd interpretations (too
often the direct outcome of sectarian prejudice), the Orientalist has
raised himself to the eminence of a philological mantic. His learned
vagaries are fast superseding, even in the minds of many a Europeanized
Hindu, the important historical facts that lie concealed under the
exoteric phraseology of the Puranas and other Smritic literature. At
the outset, therefore, the Eastern Initiate declares the evidence of
those Orientalists who, abusing their unmerited authority, play ducks
and drakes with his most sacred relics, ruled out of court; and before
giving his facts he would suggest to the learned European Sanskritist
and archeologist that, in the matter of chronology, the difference in
the sum of their series of conjectural historical events, proves them to
be mistaken from A to Z. They know that one single wrong figure in an
arithmetical progression will always throw the whole calculation into
inextricable confusion: the multiplication yielding, generally, in such
a case, instead of the correct sum something entirely unexpected. A fair
proof of this may, perhaps, be found in something already alluded to--
namely, the adoption of the dates of certain Hindu eras as the basis of
their chronological assumptions. In assigning a date to text or
monument they have, of course, to be guided by one of the pre-Christian
Indian eras, whether inferentially, or otherwise. And yet--in one case,
at least--they complain repeatedly that they are utterly ignorant as to
the correct starting-point of the most important of these. The positive
date of Vikramaditya, for instance, whose reign forms the starting point
of the Samvat era, is in reality unknown to them. With some,
Vikramaditya flourished "B.C." 56; with others, 86; with others again,
in the 6th century of the Christian era; while Mr. Fergusson will not
allow the Samvat era any beginning before the "10th century A.D." In
short, and in the words of Dr. Weber,* they "have absolutely no
authentic evidence to show whether the era of Vikramaditya dates from
the year of his birth, from some achievement, or from the year of his
death, or whether, in fine, it may not have been simply introduced by
him for astronomical reasons." There were several Vikramadityas and
Vikramas in Indian history, for it is not a name, but an honorary title,
as the Orientalists have now come to learn. How then can any
chronological deduction from such a shifting premise be anything but
untrustworthy, especially when, as in the instance of the Samvat, the
basic date is made to travel along, at the personal fancy of
Orientalists, between the 1st and the 10th century?

-----------
* "The History of Indian Literature," Trubner's Series, 1882, p. 202.
-----------

Thus it appears to be pretty well proved that in ascribing chronological
dates to Indian antiquities, Anglo-Indian as well as European
archeologists are often guilty of the most ridiculous anachronisms.
That, in fine, they have been hitherto furnishing History with an
arithmetical mean, while ignorant, in nearly every case, of its first
term! Nevertheless, the Asiatic student is invited to verify and
correct his dates by the flickering light of this chronological
will-o-the-wisp. Nay, nay. Surely "An English F.T.S." would never
expect us in matters demanding the minutest exactness to trust to such
Western beacons! And he will, perhaps, permit us to hold to our own
views, since we know that our dates are neither conjectural nor liable
to modifications. Where even such veteran archeologists as General
Cunningham do not seem above suspicion, and are openly denounced by
their colleagues, palaeography seems to hardly deserve the name of exact
science. This busy antiquarian has been repeatedly denounced by Prof.
Weber and others for his indiscriminate acceptance of that Samvat era.
Nor have the other Orientalists been more lenient; especially those
who, perchance under the inspiration of early sympathies for biblical
chronology, prefer in matters connected with Indian dates to give head
to their own emotional but unscientific intuitions. Some would have us
believe that the Samvat era "is not demonstrable for times anteceding
the Christian era at all." Kern makes efforts to prove that the Indian
astronomers began to employ this era "only after the year of grace
1000." Prof. Weber, referring sarcastically to General Cunningham,
observes that "others, on the contrary, have no hesitation in at once
referring, wherever possible, every Samvat or Samvatsare-dated
inscription to the Samvat era." Thus, e.g., Cunningham (in his "Arch.
Survey of India," iii. 31, 39) directly assigns an inscription dated
Samvat 5 to the year "B.C. 52," &c., and winds up the statement with the
following plaint: "For the present, therefore, unfortunately, where
there is nothing else (but that unknown era) to guide us, it must
generally remain an open question, which era we have to do with in a
particular inscription, and what date consequently the inscription
bears." *

--------
* Op. cit., p. 203.
--------

The confession is significant. It is pleasant to find such a ring of
sincerity in a European Orientalist, though it does seem quite ominous
for Indian archeology. The initiated Brahmans know the positive dates
of their eras and remain therefore unconcerned. What the "Adepts" have
once said, they maintain; and no new discoveries or modified conjectures
of accepted authorities can exert any pressure upon their data. Even if
Western archeologists or numismatists took it into their heads to change
the date of our Lord and Glorified Deliverer from the 7th century "B.C."
to the 7th century "A.D.," we would but the more admire such a
remarkable gift for knocking about dates and eras, as though they were
so many lawn-tennis balls.

Meanwhile, to all sincere and inquiring Theosophists, we will say
plainly, it is useless for any one to speculate about the date of our
Lord Sanggyas's birth, while rejecting a priori all the Brahmanical,
Ceylonese, Chinese, and Tibetan dates. The pretext that these do not
agree with the chronology of a handful of Greeks who visited the country
300 years after the event in question, is too fallacious and bold.
Greece was never concerned with Buddhism, and besides the fact that the
classics furnish their few synchronistic dates simply upon the hearsay
of their respective authors--a few Greeks, who themselves lived
centuries before the writers quoted--their chronology is itself too
defective, and their historical records, when it was a question of
national triumphs, too bombastic and often too diametrically opposed to
fact, to inspire with confidence any one less prejudiced than the
average European Orientalist. To seek to establish the true dates in
Indian history by connecting its events with the mythical "invasion,"
while confessing that "one would look in vain in the literature of the
Brahmans or Buddhists for any allusion to Alexander's conquest, and
although it is impossible to identify any of the historical events
related by Alexander's companions with the historical tradition of
India," amounts to something more than a mere exhibition of incompetence
in this direction: were not Prof. Max Muller the party concerned--we
might say that it appears almost like predetermined dishonesty.

These are harsh words to say, and calculated no doubt to shock many a
European mind trained to look up to what is termed "scientific
authority" with a feeling akin to that of the savage for his family
fetich. They are well deserved, nevertheless, as a few examples will
show. To such intellects as Prof. Weber's--whom we take as the leader
of the German Orientalists of the type of Christophiles--certainly the
word "obtuseness" cannot be applied. Upon seeing how chronology is
deliberately and maliciously perverted in favour of "Greek influence,"
Christian interests and his own predetermined theories--another, and
even a stronger term should be applied. What expression is too severe
to signify one's feelings upon reading such an unwitting confession of
disingenuous scholarship as Weber repeatedly makes ("Hist. Ind. Lit.")
when urging the necessity of admitting that a passage "has been touched
up by later interpellation," or forcing fanciful chronological places
for texts admittedly very ancient--"as otherwise the dates would be
brought down too far or too near!" And this is the keynote of his
entire policy: fiat hypothesis, ruat caelum! On the other hand Prof.
Max Muller, enthusiastic Indophile as he seems, crams centuries into his
chronological thimble without the smallest apparent compunction....

These two Orientalists are instances, because they are accepted beacons
of philology and Indian paleography. Our national monuments are dated
and our ancestral history perverted to suit their opinions; the
pernicious evil has ensued, that as a result History is now recording
for the misguidance of posterity the false annals and distorted facts
which, upon their evidence, will be accepted without appeal as the
outcome of the fairest and ablest critical analysis. While Prof. Max
Muller will hear of no other than a Greek criterion for Indian
chronology, Prof. Weber (op. cit.) finds Greek influence--his universal
solvent--in the development of India's religion, philosophy, literature,
astronomy, medicine, architecture, &c. To support this fallacy the most
tortuous sophistry, the most absurd etymological deductions are resorted
to. If one fact more than another has been set at rest by comparative
mythology, it is that their fundamental religious ideas, and most of
their gods, were derived by the Greeks from religions flourishing in the
north-west of India, the cradle of the main Hellenic stock. This is now
entirely disregarded, because a disturbing element in the harmony of the
critical spheres. And though nothing is more reasonable than the
inference that the Grecian astronomical terms were inherited equally
from the parent stock, Prof. Weber would have us believe that "it was
Greek influence that just infused a real life into Indian astronomy" (p.
251). In fine, the hoary ancestors of the Hindus borrowed their
astronomical terminology and learnt the art of star gazing and even
their zodiac from the Hellenic infant! This proof engenders another:
the relative antiquity of the astronomical texts shall be henceforth
determined upon the presence or absence in them of asterisms and
zodiacal signs, the former being undisguisedly Greek in their names, the
latter are "designated by their Sanskrit names which are translated from
the Greek" (p. 255). Thus "Manu's law being unacquainted with the
planets," is considered as more ancient than Yajnavalkya's Code, which
"inculcates their worship," and so on. But there is still another and a
better test found out by the Sanskritists for determining with
"infallible accuracy" the age of the texts, apart from asterisms and
zodiacal signs any casual mention in them of the name "Yavana," taken in
every instance to designate the "Greeks." This, apart "from an internal
chronology based on the character of the works themselves, and on the
quotations, &c., therein contained, is the only one possible," we are
told. As a result the absurd statement that "the Indian astronomers
regularly speak of the Yavanas as their teachers" (p. 252). Ergo, their
teachers were Greeks. For with Weber and others "Yavana" and "Greek"
are convertible terms.

But it so happens that Yavanacharya was the Indian title of a single
Greek--Pythagoras; as Sankaracharya was the title of a single Hindu
philosopher; and the ancient Aryan astronomical writers cited his
opinions to criticize and compare them with the teachings of their own
astronomical science, long before him perfected and derived from their
ancestors. The honorific title of Acharya (master) was applied to him
as to every other learned astronomer or mystic; and it certainly did
not mean that Pythagoras or any other Greek "Master" was necessarily the
master of the Brahmans. The word "Yavana" was a generic term employed
ages before the "Greeks of Alexander" projected "their influence" upon
Jambudvipa, to designate people of a younger race, the word meaning
Yuvan "young," or younger. They knew of Yavanas of the north, west,
south and east; and the Greek strangers received this appellation as
the Persians, Indo-Scythians and others had before them. An exact
parallel is afforded in our present day. To the Tibetans every foreigner
whatsoever is known as a Peling; the Chinese designate Europeans as
"red-haired devils;" and the Mussalmans call every one outside of Islam
a Kuffir. The Webers of the future, following the example now set them,
may perhaps, after 10,000 years, affirm, upon the authority of scraps of
Moslem literature then extant, that the Bible was written, and the
English, French, Russians and Germans who possessed and translated or
"invented" it, lived in Kaffiristan shortly before their era under
"Moslem influence." Because the Yuga Purana of the Gargi Sanhita speaks
of an expedition of the Yavanas "as far as Pataliputra," therefore,
either the Macedonians or the Seleuciae had conquered all India! But
our Western critic is ignorant, of course, of the fact that Ayodhya or
Saketa of Rama was for two millenniums repelling inroads of various
Mongolian and other Turanian tribes, besides the Indo-Scythians, from
beyond Nepaul and the Himalayas. Prof. Weber seems finally himself
frightened at the Yavana spectre he has raised, for he
queries:--"Whether by the Yavanas it is really the Greeks who are meant
or possibly merely their Indo-Scythian or other successors, to whom the
name was afterwards transferred." This wholesome doubt ought to have
modified his dogmatic tone in many other such cases.

But, drive out prejudice with a pitch fork it will ever return. The
eminent scholar, though staggered by his own glimpse of the truth,
returns to the charge with new vigour. We are startled by the fresh
discovery that Asuramaya:* the earliest astronomer, mentioned
repeatedly in the Indian epics, "is identical with 'Ptolemaios' of the
Greeks." The reason for it given is, that "this latter name, as we see
from the inscriptions of Piyadasi, became in Indian 'Turamaya,' out of
which the name 'Asuramaya' might very easily grow; and since, by the
later tradition, this 'Maya' is distinctly assigned to Romaka-pura in
the West." Had the "Piyadasi inscription" been found on the site of
ancient Babylonia, one might suspect the word "Turamaya" as derived from
"Turanomaya," or rather mania. Since, however, the Piyadasi
inscriptions belong distinctly to India, and the title was borne but by
two kings--Chandragupta and Dharmasoka--what has "'Ptolemaios' of the
Greeks" to do with "Turamaya" or the latter with "Asuramaya," except,
indeed, to use it as a fresh pretext to drag the Indian astronomer under
the stupefying "Greek influence" of the Upas Tree of Western Philology?
Then we learn that, because "Panini once mentions the Yavanas, i.e.,
.... Greeks, and explains the formation of the word 'Yavanani,' to
which, according to the Varttika, the word lipi, 'writing,' must be
supplied," therefore the word signifies "the writing of the Yavanas" of
the Greeks and none other. Would the German philologists (who have so
long and so fruitlessly attempted to explain this word) be very much
surprised if told that they are yet as far as possible from the truth?
That--Yavanani does not mean "Greek writing" at all, but any foreign
writing whatsoever? That the absence of the word "writing" in the old
texts, except in connection with the names of foreigners, does not in
the least imply that none but Greek writing was known to them, or that
they had none of their own, being ignorant of the art of reading and
writing until the days of Panini? (theory of Prof. Max Muller). For
Devanagari is as old as the Vedas, and held so sacred that the Brahmans,
first under penalty of death, and later on of eternal ostracism, were
not even allowed to mention it to profane ears, much less to make known
the existence of their secret temple libraries. So that by the word
Yavanani, "to which, according to the Varttika, the word lipi,
'writing,' must he supplied," the writing of foreigners in general,
whether Phoenician, Roman, or Greek, is always meant. As to the
preposterous hypothesis of Prof. Max Muller that writing "was not used
for literary purposes in India" before Panini's time (again upon Greek
authority) that matter has been disposed of elsewhere.

---------
* Dr. Weber is not probably aware of the fact that this distinguished
astronomer's name was simply Maya; the prefix "Asura" was often added
to it by ancient Hindu writers to show that he was a Rakshasa. In the
opinion of the Brahmans he was an "Atlantean" and one of the greatest
astronomers and occultists of the lost Atlantis.
---------

Equally unknown are those certain other and most important facts, fable
though they seem. First, that the Aryan "Great War," the Mahabharata,
and the Trojan War of Homer--both mythical as to personal biographies
and fabulous supernumeraries, yet perfectly historical in the main--
belong to the same cycle of events. For the occurrences of many
centuries, among them the separation of sundry peoples and races,
erroneously traced to Central Asia alone, were in these immortal epics
compressed within the scope of single dramas made to occupy but a few
years. Secondly, that in this immense antiquity the forefathers of the
Aryan Greeks and the Aryan Brahmans were as closely united and
intermixed as are now the Aryans and the so-called Dravidians. Thirdly,
that before the days of the historical Rama, from whom in unbroken
genealogical descent the Oodeypore sovereigns trace their lineage,
Rajpootana was as full of direct post-Atlantean "Greeks," as the
post-Trojan, subjacent Cumaea and other settlements of pre-Magna Graecia
were of the fast Hellenizing sires of the modern Rajpoot. One
acquainted with the real meaning of the ancient epics cannot refrain
from asking himself whether these intuitional Orientalists prefer being
called deceivers or deceived, and in charity give them the benefit of
the doubt.*

---------
* Further on, Prof. Weber indulges in the following piece of
chronological sleight of hand. In his arduous endeavour "to determine
accurately" the place in history of "the Romantic Legend of Sakya
Buddha" (translation by Beale), he thinks "the special points of
relation here found to Christian legends are very striking. The
question which party was the borrower Deals properly leaves
undetermined. Yet in all likelihood (!!) we have here simply a similar
case to that of the appropriation of Christian legend by this worshipers
of Krishna" (p. 300). Now it is this that every Hindu and Buddhist has
the right to brand as "dishonesty," whether conscious or unconscious.
Legends originate earlier than history and die out upon being sifted.
Neither of the fabulous events in connection with Buddha's birth, taken
exoterically, necessitated a great genius to narrate them, nor was the
intellectual capacity of the Hindus ever proved so inferior to that of
the Jewish and Greek mob that they should borrow from them even fables
inspired by religion. How their fables, evolved between the second and
third centuries after Buddha's death, when the fever of proselytism and
the adoration of his memory were at their height, could be borrowed and
then appropriated from the Christian legends written during the first
century of the Western era, can only be explained by a German
Orientalist. Mr. T.W. Rhys Davids (Jataka Book) shows the contrary to
have been true. It may be remarked in this connection that, while the
first "miracles" of both Krishna and Christ are said to have happened at
a Mathura, the latter city exists to this day in India--the antiquity of
its name being fully proved--while the Mathura, or Matures in Egypt, of
the "Gospel of Infancy," where Jesus is alleged to have produced his
first miracle, was sought to be identified, centuries ago, by the stump
of an old tree in thee desert, and is represented by an empty spot!
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