2" 1 S. IX. Mar. 17. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



209 



missionary campaign, and for the space of nearly six 

 centuries sent pilgrims, whose business it was to acquire 

 at the fountain head the elements of a more elevated 

 religion than that preached by Confucius. It was a very 

 good thought which suggested itself to these missionaries 

 when they sat down to write a journal of their travels. 

 Hiouen-thsang, the principal amongst them, translated 

 about the year 648 A.D., from Sanscrit into Chinese, a 

 number of "documents connected with Buddhism: these 

 have recentty appeared in a French dress through the 

 care of M. Stanislas Julien ; and it is as referring to them 

 that M. de Saint Martin's memoir is so interesting. 



Of all the topics concerning ancient India, geography is 

 perhaps the one about which we know the least ; and it 

 will appear evident that, examined from that stand-point, 

 such a work as Hiouen-thsang's Itinerary would be pe- 

 culiarly valuable. It includes all the regions extending 

 from the N.TV. angle of China to the southern extremity 

 of the Hindustanic peninsula. " Our traveller," says M. 

 de Saint Martin, " conducts us successively through 

 Tartary and the whole length of Transoxiana ; then we 

 follow him as he visits the valley of the Cabul river, the 

 Punjaub, the Kashmeer, the kingdoms watered by the 

 lower Indus, all the basin of the Ganges, and the Dec- 

 I can " Unfortunately, however, a variety of causes unite 

 to make the elucidation of Hiouen-thsang's geography 

 exceptionally difficult. The total absence of contem- 

 porary documents with which we might compare the 

 Chinese journal, the very little we still know respecting 

 Sanscrit geography previous to the Mussulman conquest, 

 the inaccuracy of the translator in rendering Sanscrit 

 proper names by Chinese equivalents — such are a few 

 of the impediments we might name. Nothing deterred, 

 M. Vivien de Saint Martin has applied himself strenu- 

 ously to his task, and with the help of all the sources of 

 information which modern science has brought together, 

 he now gives us an excellent commentary on the Chinese 

 travels of the Buddhist missionary. The map appended 

 to this most valuable brochure, embodying what we know 

 about Hindu geography duriug the seventh century of 

 the present era, is equally interesting. 



2. E'tude sur la Ge"ographie et les Populations primitives 

 rlu Xr>rd Ouest de VInde d'apres les Hymnes Vediques, pri- 

 cedee d'un Apcrcu de VE'tat actuel des E'tudes sur VInde 

 Ancienne. Par M. Vivien de Saint Martin. 8vo. Paris. 

 I Benjamin Duprat. (Impr. impe'riale.) 



More than ten j-ears ago the Acade'mie des Sciences et 

 Belles Lettres proposed as a subject for one of its annual 

 'prizes the following theme: Restitution de V Ancienne 

 Giayraphie de VInde d'apres les Sources, depuis les Temps 

 Primitift jusqu'ct V E'pnque de VInvaswn Musulmane. A 

 (•iinple glance at this programme will show both its vast 

 I extent, and the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of 

 I entirely discussing it in the present state of our know- 

 ledge of Hindu geographical authorities. M. Vivien de 

 Martin has nevertheless undertaken to perform the 

 ta-k, but at the same time he wisely adopts the plan of 

 ipublishing successively the various parts of his gigantic 

 work. By this means he is enabled to enter into more 

 particulars than he otherwise would perhaps have done, 

 and to avail himself, for future publication, of the criti- 

 cisms passed upon this. The Geographic de VInde d'apres 

 Us Livres Vediques obtained in 1855 the prize offered by 

 tin- Academy, and no one who has read the book will 

 idoubt but that so honourable a reward was fully deserved. 

 After noticing in his Introduction what has already been 

 for the investigation of Hindu geography, M. de 

 • Martin proceeds to fix the principal epochs which 

 ciencc embraces, and thus to mark out the several 

 i subdivisions of his own treatise. The first is the primi- 

 "!', anterior to the establishment of the Aryan na- 



tions in the plains of the Yamouna and the Ganges : it 

 includes a period of several centuries, and the Veda, 

 which is the book of that period, supplies us with all the 

 original documents we possess on the corresponding 

 geography. The Mahdbhdrata, the Rdmayana, and other 

 works of the same character, are the literary monuments 

 of the second epoch of Hindu history, the epoch during 

 which the Aryans held their sway, and which M. de 

 Saint Martin designates as temps heroiques. For five or 

 six hundred years ending about the middle of the sixth 

 century B.C., we have a period particularly rich in 

 literary monuments of the highest character, but unfor- 

 tunately the Aryas had neither a Livy nor an Herodotus 

 to write their history ; and instead of authentic docu- 

 ments, we possess only legends, in which it is not easy 

 to distinguish what is true from the extraneous embel- 

 lishments of fiction. The era of (yakvamouni and the 

 invasion of Buddhism mark the historical period. Here 

 we get something like a precise chronology, and our 

 sources of information are no longer of a legendary 

 character. The Buddhist books of Nepaul and Ceylon, 

 and the journals of the Chinese Buddhist missionaries, 

 supply us with details which have at least the merit of 

 authenticity. 



Hindustan also boasts of a classical era. During a 

 thousand years, beginning, as we have said, about the 

 middle of the sixth century b.c, the intercourse of the 

 Greeks with the nations of Asia, and more particularly 

 the expeditions of Alexander the Great, lead Hellenic 

 and Latin writers to apply their attention to Hindu geo- 

 graphy. Herodotus, Ctesias, Ptolemasus, form the prin- 

 cipal personages in the tribe of historians who have 

 preserved in the classical languages of ancient Europe 

 details and notes on that particular period. 



The portion of time immediately preceding the Ma- 

 hommedan conquest is compared by M. Vivien de Saint 

 Martin to the middle ages of the western world. No 

 written documents remain whereby this period may be 

 illustrated ; but, on the other hand, an extraordinary 

 number of inscriptions all assignable to it are still extant, 

 and when collected and translated will supply, towards 

 the elucidation of local geography, an inestimable amount 

 of interesting data. 



Finally, the invasion of Mahommedanism, being the 

 point de depart of the modern history of Hindustan, brings 

 before us an ample harvest of geographical writings. 

 Arabic and Persian works, both published and MSS., 

 abound, and the important catalogue begun by the late 

 H. Elliot under the title Index to the Mahomedan His- 

 torians of India, proves how vast is the field open for our 

 exploration and research. 



We have thus endeavoured to sketch out the difficult 

 programme which our indefatigable author has under- 

 taken to perform. A series of twelve discourses or dis- 

 quisitions on Hindu geography, an atlas of sixteen or 

 eighteen maps, such is the task to the completion of 

 which he devotes all his energies. 



It remains now that we should say a few words of the 

 Geographic de VInde d'apres les Hymnes Vediques, a volume 

 forming naturally the first part of the entire work. M. 

 Vivien de Saint Martin begins by examining the histo- 

 rical character of the Vedas ; he then assigns the date of 

 the composition ; and after having studied, both geogra- 

 phically and ethnologically, the various hymns which 

 form the whole collection, he deduces frrom that study a 

 survey of the geography of Hindustan about the fifteenth 

 century b.c. This disquisition, amply illustrated by 

 quotations and references, contains, of course, a great 

 number of facts which were hitherto only very imper- 

 fectly known, if known at all; the distinction between 

 the invading Aryans and the aborigines or Djats, the ex- 

 planation of the epithet Dasyou applied to the latter, and 



