BY THE ANCIENT HINDUS. 



169 



considerably reduced, but reports and translations which fulfil 

 these requirements are still a desideratum. 1 



The two great epics and the puranas are the works which 

 mainly represent the historical branch of Indian literature. 

 But woe betide him who would look up to them as authentic 

 and trustworthy sources. However important and interest- 

 ing in many other respects, historical accuracy is not a 

 quality they aim at ; for they are rather a depository of 

 legendary myths, which are enlarged by an imagination 

 morbidly fond of wonders. Nevertheless they must not be 

 quite thrown away as useless, for they may contain here and 

 there some grains of historical truth, as a rock may contain 

 some dispersed grains of gold, though they can with difficulty 

 only be separated from their less precious surroundings. 

 Besides the epics and puranas, the law books make sometimes 

 occasional remarks which throw light on historical subjects ; 

 they together with the works on polity allow us merely an 

 insight into the manners and customs of the old Hindus ; 

 and in this respect they are of the highest importance. In 

 the following pages we shall discuss the customs of the 

 ancient Indians so far as they bear on the nature of their 

 arms. Two ancient Sanskrit works, the Nitiprakasika of 

 Vaisampayana and the Sukranlti of TTsanas or Sukracarya, 

 are in my possession which contain important, and up to the 

 present generally unknown information on this subject, which 

 I hope will be of interest to the reader. 



1 Yet in this time of literary upholstery people desirous of gaining literary 

 success often overlook these facts so evident to all outsiders. A sad example 

 of labor thus thrown away and of much patient research so fruitlessly spent, 

 is the voluminous history of the Mongols, in the preface of the first volume 

 of which the author, Mr. Henry H. Howorth, says that he approaches 1 the 

 problem as an ethnologist and historian and not as a linguist,' and that he 

 had ' no access to the authorities in their original language, and only to 

 translations and commentaries.' This confession, however honest, need not 

 have been made, as the work itself throughout suggests by its defects the 

 want of linguistic attainments which for a writer on oriental history is a 

 conditio sine qua non. 



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