1865.] Ancient Indian Weights. 61 



the king of the Gangetic provinces, occurs in Diodorus Siculus, to 

 the effect that Xandrames was prepared, with an overwhelming force, 

 to oppose Alexander in his progress beyond the Hyphasis.* Quintus 

 Curtius has preserved the designation in sufficient integrity as Aggrames, 

 and attests similarly the reputed power of the monarch in question.f 

 Arrian does not mention the names either of king or people ; but after 

 alluding to the autonomous citiesj to the west of the Hyphasis, goes 

 on to remark, that the country beyond that river was reported to be 

 highly productive and well cultivated, and to be governed equitably 

 by the Nobility. § The earlier classical critics were inclined to think 

 that this testimony of Arrian's conflicted with the assertions of Diodo- 

 rus, &c. ;|| but if I rightly interpret the evidence of the native authors 

 I am about to notice, and its special bearing upon the coins, these 

 seemingly opposing statements are not only reconcilable in themselves, 

 but mutually aid and assist in the single solution that it would be 

 possible to draw from the independent data they are here cited to 

 illustrate. 



The materials available from indigenous sources for the illustration 

 of this section of Indian history, though promising, in virtue of the 

 importance attached to the dynastic changes involved, are proportion- 

 ately meagre in detail and distorted in substance. So that, in pre- 

 ference to relying upon purely local chronicles, we draw our most 

 consistent testimony from the Ceylon annals, which, though they bad, 

 in the first instance, to embody foreign events, and possibly to arrive 

 at much of the necessary knowledge through oral channels, have even- 

 tually remained intact, unassailed by hostile revision or reconversion 

 for sectarian purposes into simulated Pauranic prophecies, or equally 

 unscrupulous scriptural fabrications. Not to encumber the text of this 

 paper with quotations, it may be sufficient to state the general purport 



* Diod. Sic. lib. xvii. 93. Tlpaicricov Kal ravSapiScav e8vos, tovtgov 8e {iacriXeveiv 

 EauSpdfxyiv 



f Quintus Curtius, ix., c. 2 : — " § 2. Pcrcontatus igitur Phegelam quae noscenda 

 erant, ' xi. dierum ultra flumen per vastas solitudiucs iter esse' cognoscit : ' ex- 

 cipere deinde Gang-en,' maximum tot.ius India fluininum. § 3. Ulteriorem ripam 

 colere gentes Gangaridas et Pharrasios ; eorumque regem esse Aggrammem, 

 xx. minibus equitum duccntisque peditum obsidentem vias." Sec also Plutarch 

 (Langhorne), iv. 405. 



X Arrian, Hist. v. cap. xxii. See also Diod. Sic. ii. cap. xxxix. 



§ Arrian, v. c. 25. Tlpbs yap rS>u a.pi<rrwv &pxt<rOai rovs ttuWovs, rovs 8e 

 ovSiu t|&> rod ifneiKous t^iyyelaQai 



|| Roorkes's " Arrian" (Loudon, 17-'J), ii. p. 54. 



