
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 Aqgrames, 
and attests similarly the reputed power of the monarch in question.¢ 
Arrian does not mention the names either of king or people; but after 
alluding to the autonomous cities{ 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, &e. ;|| but if I rightly interpret the evidence of the native authors 
Tam 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 had, 
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. Mpaiclwyv nal Tavdapidav evos, rovrwy b& BaciArcbew 
Eavdpduny 
+ Quintus Curtius, ix., c. 2:— § 2, Percontatus igitur Phegelam qua noscenda 
erant, ‘xi. dierum ultra flumen per vastas solitudines iter esse’ cognoscit: ‘ ex- 
cipere deinde Gangen,’ maximum totius India fluminum. § 3. Ulteriorem ripam 
colere gentes Gangaridas et Pharrasios; eorumque regem esse Agorammem, 
xx, millibus equitum ducentisque peditum obsidentem vias.” See aiso Plutarch 
(Langhorne), iv. 405. 
{ Arrian, Hist. v. cap, xxii. See also Diod. Sic. ii, cap. xxxix, 
§ Arrian, v. c. 25. pbs yap Tay aplotav upxecbar Tovs moAAovs, Tovs dé 
ovdéy Zw Tod emieikods eényeioOat 
|| Roorkes’s ** Arrian” (London, 1729), ii, p. 54. 
