VIII,] MEGASTHENES IN INDIA. 149
To compare the statements made in the two has been the work
of modern scholars, especially of Lassen, who in his Indische Alter-
thumskunde has brought together almost every thing that can
throw light on the investigation. It is satisfactory to find that
the issue of the enquiry has been in most instances to corroborate,
even in points of minute detail, the evidence of Megasthenes.
India, as understood by that writer, comprised the wide plains
in the north of Hindustan and the territories ad-
joining them. Of the great peninsula of Southern
India, and the plateau of the Deccan in its centre,
he had no knowledge. This is clear from his remark, that "the
whole of India is intersected by rivers1." For him, the southern
coast formed a continuous and almost straight line from the
Persian gulf to its eastern extremity. Of Taprobane (Ceylon) he
had heard, but merely as a large island lying at a distance of
seven days' voyage from the coast, in which elephants were bred,
and a great abundance of gold and pearls was found3. He
rightly regarded the northern boundary of the
Its Boundaries.
country as being formed by the Himalaya, which
range was known to him by distinct names in different parts—that
towards the west being the Paropamisus, which, as we have seen,
lay to the north of Afghanistan; that towards the east, where it
was supposed to sink down into the sea, the Imaus; while the
central chain, in which the Ganges rose, was called Emodus. In
reality the two last of these, Imaus and Emodus, are only two
forms of the same native name, Haimavata or Hemota, which
signifies " snowy." The western limit was found in the Indus,
while on the southern and eastern sides the ocean stretched, the
angle between them being formed by a projecting promontory,
which represented Cape Comorin. Megasthenes accurately con-
ceived the Indus as flowing from north to south,
and reaching the sea by two mouths which enclose
its delta; the Ganges also he rightly regarded as
following the same direction at first, and afterwards bending east-
wards : but of the lower course of the latter river he was clearly
ignorant, for he speaks of it as reaching the eastern sea, and as
1 Strabo, 15. i. 13.
8 Strabo, 15. 1.14; Pliny, 6. 81.