ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY. 697 



course between India and Babylon. Sindhu, as my learned friend, 

 Prof. Sayce, informs me, occurs in cuneiform texts as far back as 3000 

 B. C. as the name of some textile fabric. In Sanskrit saindhava would 

 mean what grows on tlie Sindhu or the Indus,* and would therefore 

 be a very good name for cotton or linen. But so long as this word 

 stands alone, it would not be safe to build any conclusions on it as to 

 an ancient trade between India and Babylon. 



For the pix^sent, therefore, we must continue to look upon China and 

 India as perfectly isolated countries durir.g the period of which we are 

 here speaking. But though in the ej^es of the historian tlie ancient 

 literature of these two countries loses in consecpience much of its inter- 

 est, it acquires a new and peculiar interest of its own in the eyes of the 

 phiU)sopher. It is entirely home grown and home-spun, and tlius forms 

 an indei)endeut parallel to all the other literature of the world. It has 

 been truly said that the religion and the phdosophy of India come upon 

 us like meteors from a distant planet, perfectly independent in their 

 origin and in their character. Hence, when they do agree witli other 

 religions and philosophies of the ancient world, they naturally inspire 

 us with the sanu^ conhdence as when two mathematicians, working 

 quite independently, arrive in tlie end at the same results. t 



It is true that in these days of unexpected discoveries we are never 

 entirely safe from surprises. But as far as our evidence goes at pres- 

 ent — and we can never say more — the idea once generally entertained 

 and lately revived by Prof. Gruppe, that there was some connection 

 between the ancient religion of India and those of Egypt and Babylon 

 IS, from a scholar's i)oint of view, simply impossible. Before the time 

 of Alexander the Great it would be very difHcult to point out any 

 foreign intellectual importation into the land of the Indus or the 

 Seven Rivers. The knowledge of the alphabet nuiy have reached 

 India a little before Alexander's invasion. We know that Darius sent 

 Skylax on a scientitic expedition down to the mouth of the Indus. This 

 expedition, like other scientific expeditions, was the forerunner of Per- 

 sian conquests along the Indus. The people called in the cuneiform 

 inscriptions Gaddra and Hidhu, that is, in Sanskrit, Ganhddra and 

 Sindhu^ occur among the conquests of Darius, at least in his later 

 inscriptions. It is quite possible therefore that even at that early time 

 a knowledge of reading and writing may have been comuumicated to 

 India. Travellers from India were seen by Ktesias in Persia at the 

 beginning of the fifth century B. c, and he describes some whom he 

 had seen himself as being as fair, or actually as white, as any in the 

 world. Others he describes as black, not by exposure to the sun, but 

 by nature. This was probably written at the same time when Buddha, 

 in a sermon which he delivered (the Assalayana Sutta), said : " The 



* M. M., Physical RelUjion, p. 87. 



t Deussen, Die Sutras des Veddnie, p. vi. 



