7880.] 



an tlie Civilization of Ancient India. 



187 



lations was furnished by the travelling companies of players, who are 

 known to have traversed the Hellenistic kingdoms ; and the poets, as 

 well as the players, were not averso to travelling. Menander and 

 Philemon were both invited to the court of Ptolemy Soter. 



Greek ideas entered India chiefly by two routes, one overland 

 through Palmyra and Bactria, the other maritime through Alexandria 

 and the ports of the western coast, especially Barygaza, the modern 

 Bharoch. We know from the anonymous Periplus of the Erythraean 

 Sea, which was written between A. D. 80 and 89,* that a very active 

 commerce was then carried on between Barygaza and the inland city 

 Ozene (the modern Ujjain in Siudia's territory), where Asoka had once 

 been Viceroy, and which, in the time of the author of the Periplus, was 

 the great depot of the foreign trade. 



The scene of the ' Toy-Cart,' the most ancient Indian drama extant, 

 is laid at Ujjain, and several considerations lead Dr. Windisch to con- 

 clude that the Indian drama was first developed at that city, as a 

 direct consequence of intercourse with Alexandria. The few known 

 facts in the history of the Bactrian king Menander, who flourished about 

 B. C. 110,f indicate that the overland communication between India 

 and the West must have been briskly maintained in his time. The 

 importance of Palmyra as a commercial depot {ante, p. 157) was of 

 later date. Before the Christian era the Western communications of 

 India were with the Hellenized kingdoms of Asia and Egypt. In the 

 first century after the Christian era they were extended to Rome and 

 the Roman provinces. It is, in my opinion, not at all unlikely that 

 the New Attic Comedy was known to learned men in India through 

 the Latin adaptations of Plautus and Terence as well as in the original 

 Greek. 



Whether it be admitted or not that the Indian drama is of foreign 

 origin, no one, I suppose, will venture to deny that ample opportunities 

 existed during several centuries for tho importation of all sorts of Greek 

 ideas, dramatic or other. 



In the opinion of Dr. Windisch the cumulative effect of the evidence 

 of resemblance in particular points between the Indian and Qrceco- 

 Roman dramas is so great that " we must recognize either a wonderful 

 case of pre-established harmony, or the existence of Greek influence on 

 the Indian drama." The dilemma appears to me to be expressed with 

 perfect accuracy, and I am fully convinced of the reality of the Greek 



* The proof is given in the Introduction to MeCrindle's translation, 

 t This is the date adopted by Professor Gardner in his Catalogue of Coins of 

 the Greek and Scythic kings of Bactria and India. 



