254 Lassen on the History traced [No. 99, 



religious doctrine to assist them in general opposition to all 

 attacks from the west. 



Upon no other ground than the above mentioned, on both 

 sides of the Indian Caucasus, have the various forms of doctrine 

 and life, which antiquity has produced, approached each other 

 so nearly and so immediately, in successions alternately at- 

 tractive or repulsive, vivifying or annihilatory. In Cabul the 

 paths cross, which lead down through regions more and more 

 torrid eastwards to tropical climates, which pass through Aracho- 

 sia westwards to the mountain-valleys of the Iranians, to the 

 plains of the Semites, and to the coast of the Javanese Sea, 

 which traverse mountains of eternal snow northwards to Bac~ 

 tria, and as they separate, give the caravans a free passage 

 to the pasturing plains of Tartary, to the remote towns of 

 the peaceful Seres, and to the infinitely varied nations of the 

 west 3 there met the worshippers of Zoroaster and Brahma, 

 the apostles of the Buddhistic quietism, and the artists who 

 opposed the plastic forms of the Hellenic gods, to the grotesque 

 symbols of the east; here came together the cautious Banian 

 with the merchant from China; and in the royal armies, Hindoos 

 upon their elephants and the bowmen of Sacia halted near the 

 serried Macedonian phalanx and the well ordered squadrons of 

 Bactria, 



On this cross road of historical formations was the Greek 

 placed in Bactria. He was privileged at this post, most advan- 

 ced to the east, as it were, to open with the right hand the Vedas 

 of the Brahmans, and the Nosk of the Mazdajasnes ; with the left, 

 to shake the locks which closed the gates of the great Chinese 

 wall, and the entrance into the empire of the Ci Central land." 

 In our days has the western world first achieved a similar 

 position ; from a far greater distance indeed, yet though with 

 infinitely more increased, and multiplied means, perhaps not 

 with greater success ? neither has the Chinese empire yet be- 

 come more accessible, nor has Indian heathenism lost even an 

 inch of ground. 



These intimations may suffice to bring to mind the import- 

 ance as respects universal history, which might be claimed 

 for the history of the countries at the borders of the Oxus 



