1840.] Historical Geography of Hindustan , ^c. 853 



belief. This consisted, as would appear, in the worship of Mahat, or 

 intellect made manifest, as Gautama Buddha, with the introduction of an 

 atheistical philosophy, which reasoning from material objects to the exis- 

 tence of spirit, confounded the shadow with the reality, and denied the 

 existence of whatever was not cognizable by the senses. Some such 

 difference in opinion brought about the Mahabarat, or great war in which 

 the Pandus, with Krishna,* espoused the cause of the innovators, while 

 Dritarashtra Raja and the Kurus held to the original faith. About this 

 time, also, Viyasa collected and arranged the Vedas, which consisted ori- 

 ginally of the prayers and hymns, or their SanUta, that preceded, in Mr. 

 Colebrooke's opinion, the Bramhana, or theological part. 



The division of the people into four castes followed, if it was not co- 

 temporary with these innovations, and was effected about the period of 

 the Macedonian conquest, if as we may infer from the respectful men- 

 tion of the Yavana, or Greek power, in the Mahabharat, the composition 

 of this poem dates posterior to the Macedonian conquest of India, t Some 

 hold an opinion that the institution of caste, with its extravagant preten- 

 sions to antiquity, had been matured in Hindustan Proper long prior 

 to the time of Alexander's historians. Those entertaining this belief have 

 pretended to discover that the enumeration of classes made by Arrian 

 is the exact counterpart of divisions now acknowledged by the Hindus. 

 The probability of this cannot be granted without great latitude, and the 

 seven classes of employment into which the Hindus were then distributed, 

 as detailed by that writer, cannot be admitted to be identical with the now 

 existing divisions of this people, into Brahmans, Kshetriyas, Vaisiyas, and 

 Shudras. The former would have been found among the Egyptians, and 

 were as characteristic of them as of the Hindus ; whilst the other arrange- 

 ment was effected, in all probability, about the time when the Sanscrit 

 writers composed the earliest poetical works of the latter. If the Maha- 

 bharat, or poem of the great war, was composed soon after the Greek 

 conquest, the reformation of orthodox Brahmanism would be placed not 

 long before the Christian aera.J The Mahabharat may be then admitted 



* Krishna's existence, as a real historical personage among the Hindus, is more than 

 doubtful. He every where appears as the hero of fable, and whatever is believed 

 regarding him, belongs to one whom the Hindus had heard of rather than known as a 

 leader among themselves. 



t See note v. on the history of Kashmir, A. R. vol. xv. p. 102. 



X The Arab historian and geographer, Al-Masudi, who wrote a. d. 949, tells us that 

 schism in the Hindu religion happened during the reign of Korish; and if his chrono- 

 logy for this event can be trusted, the origin of the Indian sectaries will be fixed at the 

 commencement of our sera. Three hundred and twenty years elapsed, it is said, from 

 the death of Phur (the Porus of Alexander's historians) to that of Korish ; and if this 

 be correct, the quarrel between the Buddhas and Brahmans happened b. c. 7. 



