';o2 



ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



orindia''. He mentions alfo his having taught the Indians the ufe 

 of Tyvipana and Cymbalo in their battles, and of cloaths of various 

 colours, fuch as vv'^ere ufed by the Bacchinals in the rites of Bac- 

 chus f . And he mentions a circumftance related by the Indians 

 concerning the expedition of Oiiris, in which it differed from Alex- 

 ander's expedition, namely, that Ofiris had no fhips with him [j:, 

 but made the journey, as Diodorus has related, by land : Whereas, 

 Alexander had a fleet with him, commanded, as I have faid, by 

 Nearchus. 



It was certainly from the two Kings, I have mentioned, Sandra- 

 cottus and Porus, that Megafthenes learned the chronology of India, 

 which Arrian gives us in his ninth chapter j where he tells us, that 

 from Bacchus there were 153 Kings, whofe reigns amounted to 

 6042 years, which makes 39^ years to each King, one with ano- 

 ther. From the fame King he muft have learned, that Bacchus, 

 when he departed from India, left one of his companions, Spar- 

 tembas by name, the moft fkilled in his rites, to govern the Indians, 

 who reigned 25 years, and was fucceeded by his fon Boudyas ||. And 

 there is at this day a tribe of Indians called Afghans, and once a very 

 poweriul tribe, who are recorded by an antient hiftorian of good 

 authority to have been an Egyptian colony § : And, I think, it is 



very 

 * Page 340. and 43d. 



t Page 559- 



X Page 411. 



K Indica, cap. 8. 



§ This account of the Afghans is given us by an antient Indian Hiftorian, of the 

 name of Muttelu id Anwar, who is quoted as an autlior of good authority by another 

 Indian Hiftorian of the name of Feriihta, who lived in the beginning of the i 7th cen- 

 tury, and of whom Mr Dov/ has given us a tranflation, (See Dow's Hiftory of Indoftan, 

 vol. I. p. 37); and, I think, it is a Hiftory %ery wdl worth tranfiating. — There is a 

 Hiftory of the fame people, tranflated from the Indian language and prefentcd to the 



Literarv 



