114 General Observations on [Feb. 



500, the Roman Exarchs or Governors were obliged to fly from Syria to 

 India, and certainly by sea, as the Romans were at war with the Persians 

 to escape from an invasion by the king of the Hemiarites. Wilford 

 assures us also " that so early as B. C. 189, or before it, Hindus of both 

 sexes were not uncommon in Greece : that they were settled in Colchis, 

 and that the Sindi of Thrace came originally from India. The Indus 

 was so named from a Hindu Mahant who fell into it during Manhius' 

 expedition at the above date and was drowned." The probability, I will 

 venture to say, is that the river had originally that name, or one very like 

 it, and thence those who dwelt on its banks were called Indus, but long 

 subsequent to the location of the brahmans there. 



The constant intercourse which from a remote period had been kept 

 up betwixt India and the western nations, was put a stop to by the ad- 

 vance of Mahometanism. 



The embassies from Porus to Augustus, and from Pandion king of 

 the southern parts of the peninsula, sufficiently attest the intercourse 

 24 years B. C. at least.* 



It is difficult at this day to determine who the people called Hindus 

 by the westerns, were. The brahmans occupied the banks of the Indus 

 and Cutch, and all western foreigners must, when approaching by land 

 or by coasting the shores of India, near to the Indus, have encountered 

 probably and chiefly men of the tribe of brahmans. 



It is a question who were these early Hindus. It is more than pro- 

 bable that they were Buddhists, for, as Wilford observes, ancient travel- 

 lers make no mention of the monstrous statues of the Hindus. The 

 historians of Alexander take notice of the Siboe carrying among their 

 standards the image of Hercules, whoever he was.f 



This, if not a statue or representation of a Buddha, was at any rate one 

 of a hero, or famous man, for these statues mentioned by Philostratus as 

 having been cut out of the rock beyond Hurdwar, had nothing mon- 

 strous in them, any more than those made by Grecian artists in the 

 Punjab. 



If it was with the brahmans that " a regular trade was carried on from 

 the accession of the Ptolemies to the throne of Egypt, to the conquest of 

 that country by the Romans, and which did not cease until the middle of 

 the 7th century, when the growing power of the Musalmans put a stop 



* As. Res. Vol. X. p. 109 et seq. f Wilford, As. Res. Vol. X. p. 111. 



