THE SPLENDOUR OF GREECE 75 



The Chinese records are no more reliable than the 

 Hebrew or the Roman. For our modern scholars the 

 historic period opens in China only about 1,122 b.c. 

 Before that we have only a few bronze vessels and 

 bells with ancient hieroglyphics on them, indicating 

 a rudimentary civilization as far back, possibly, as 

 1,700 b.c. Many experts think that there are traces 

 of a migration from Central Asia, if not further west ; 

 and so we get the suggestion, which I have given 

 earlier, of a connection with the Sumerians who 

 founded Babylonian civilization. But the general 

 opinion is that Chinese civilization developed in 

 China. In fact, its main development was clearly 

 after 1,100 b.c, and it runs on the lines with which 

 we are now familiar. 



India is, of course, much more easily connected 

 with the west. We have seen that the ancestors of 

 the Hindus branched off from the Persians and 

 moved north-eastward. They seem to have entered 

 the Punjab, by Chitral and through Afghanistan, 

 about 2,000 b.c; and they became the masters of the 

 less vigorous and less warlike primitive inhabitants. 

 But they can hardly be said to have taken civilization 

 to India. They were a simple pastoral Aryan people, 

 with agriculture and metal, but a very primitive 

 patriarchal economy. Some think that the earlier 

 inhabitants (Dravidians) were navigators, and had 

 already brought the rudiments of civilization by sea 

 from Babylonia. At all events, the great mingling of 

 peoples on the plains of northern India gave the 

 essential condition of progress, and by 1,000 b.c 

 India was civilized. 



We cannot here go into the history of these civili- 

 zations, but a word should be added on their long 



