2x6
Kalanos,the Brah-man,
It must be borne in mind that Indian society, as seen byMegasthenes , was not the artificial structure described inManu, with its rigid lines and four sharply demarcated castes.It was the actual society of the court, the camp, and thecapital, at a time when Buddhist ideals were conflicting withBrahmanical types. Some of the so-called errors of Megas-thenes have been imputed to him from a want of due apprecia-tion of this fact. Others have been proved by modern inquiryto be no errors at all. The knowledge of India derived bythe Greeks chiefly, although by no means exclusively, fromMegasthenes , includes details which were scarcely known toEuropeans in the last century. The Aryan and Aboriginalelements of the population, or the White and Dark Indians;the two great harvests of the year, in spring and autumn;the salt-mines ; the land-making silt brought down by therivers from the Himalayas ; the great changes in the river-courses ; and even a fairly accurate measurement of theIndian peninsula—were among the points known to the Greekwriters.
From those sources, the present writer, when engaged onthe Statistical Survey of India, derived pregnant hints inregard to the changes in the physical configuration of thecountry during the past 22 centuries. The account whichMegasthenes gives of the size of the Indus and its lakes,points to the same conclusion as that reached by the mostrecent observations, in regard to the Indian rivers beingoriginally lines of drainage through great watery regions. Intheir upper courses they gradually scooped out their beds,and thus produced a low-level channel into which the fensand marshes eventually drained. In their lower courses theyconducted their great operations of land-making from the siltwhich their currents had brought down from above. Inregard to the action of the rivers and their magnitude, as inseveral other matters, the ‘ exaggerations ’ of Megasthenes areproved to be nearer the truth than was suspected even byEnglish writers until the Statistical Survey began its work in 1871.
The Brahmans deeply impressed Alexander by their learningand austerities. One of them, Kalanos by name, was tempted,notwithstanding the reproaches of his brethren, to enter theservice of the conqueror. But, falling sick in Persia , Kalanosdetermined to die like a Brahman, although he had not con-sistently lived as one. Alexander, on hearing of the philo-sopher’s resolve to put an end to his life, vainly tried todissuade him ; then loaded him with jewels, and directed