petty tyranny of the nobles, who appear more than once to have carried their turbulence so far as to have drawn upon their whole class death or banishment.

The next period, after the great wars, upon which we can fix with certainty is the reign of Chandra Gupta, by the Greeks called Sandracottus. This prince was descended from the ancient lunar kings of Magadha, but he was illegitimate, his mother being the daughter of a barber, and he only succeeded to the throne by intrigue and crimes. Sacatara, prime minister of Nanda, the father of Chandra Gupta, murdered his master, but was in turn with the whole of his family, except one son named Vicatara, put to death by Upadhanwa, the son and successor of Nanda. The young man however whom Upadhanwa had spared, watched for an opportunity of revenge, and having provoked the young monarch to offer an affront to a Brahmin, he took advantage of the confusion occasioned by the excommunication of the king, and with Chandra Gupta entreated the assistance of the neighbouring monarchs to overturn the kingdom of Prachi*, half of which he promised to Par

* Prachi, or the East, comprehending all the country eastward from Allahabad. The Greeks called the inhabitants of this district Prasii, and its capital was Raja Griha or Palibothra. Prachi included, 1st, the country from Allahabad to Raja Griha, and 2d, Bengal, or Gaucavadesa, whose inhabitants were called by the Greeks Gangarides.

vateswara, lord of the mountains, king of Nepaul, in case of success. That monarch not only assisted Chandra Gupta with his own troops, but also procured the help of the Yavans or Greeks, when after a disgusting scene of alternate cruelty and treachery, Chandra Gupta was seated on the throne of Prachi, where he soon forgot his promise to Parvateswara.

The new monarch put to death all the noble and legitimate children of his father, after which his reign appears to have been peaceful and prosperous, respected abroad and beloved by his subjects. The accounts of the Greek cotemporary historians agree remarkably well with this Indian account of Sandracottus, only that they hint that the minister Sacatara was his real father. The most remarkable event in the latter part of his reign was the invasion of his kingdom by Seleucus, about A. C. 300.; but the inroad ended in a treaty, by which the Greek gave his daughter in marriage to Chandra Gupta, who agreed to furnish him annually with fifty elephants.

The same good intelligence is recorded to have subsisted between the descendants of the two kings, for Antiochus the Great went to India to renew the ancient alliance with Sophagasemus (Shivaca Sena) the grandson of Chandra.

From this period the race of Bala Rama, called the Bali Putras, gradually declined on the throne of Maghada till A. D. 191, when Sipaca or Sri Carna Devi established the dynasty of the Andhra monarchs, which in its three branches made a conspicuous figure on the banks of the Ganges for nearly eight hundred years. The interval between Chandra Gupta and Sipaca was filled up by twenty-four kings, the ten first of which were of the family of Soma, who were succeeded by ten of the Surya Varshas, the most remarkable of whom was Vicramaditya, whose reign furnishes the date of the common æra of India, beginning fifty-six years before that of Christ. During the reign of four insignificant monarchs of the Canwa race, the Andharas gradually rose to power and virtually governed the kingdom, when in A. D. 151 the murder of the last Canwa prince placed Sipaca on the throne.

The first race of Andharas was of the genuine family, the second was a spurious branch, and the third consisted of the servants of the latter, who at first governed and afterwards dethroned their masters.

The native country of this family was Gaur, but they took their name from the province of Andhara, between Nellore and the Godavery, of which they were at one time the sovereigns,

but in what manner or at what period they obtained possession of it we are ignorant.

Sri Carna Devi or Sipaca, styles himself in some grants of land Lord of Tri Calinga or the three shores, so that his dominion must have extended over the whole of India, if not the peninsula of Malacca, at least its western shore, if the expression be not merely intended to mark his superiority over the inferior monarchs his neighbours. His descendant Puloman, the last of the second family of Andharas, was a most pious and warlike prince, and after a life of heroic exploits he put an end to his life in the holy stream of the Ganges, a kind of death which seems to have been fashionable in his. family, as his grandfather closed a brilliant career of conquest, by the voluntary deed of death near the uprising ocean. The death of Puloman happened A. D. 648, a date corroborated by the Chinese annals, and after that event the empire of India was divided into a number of small monarchies, and Maharajahs or great chiefs, established themselves at Canoge, in Guzerat, at Maithila*, Sacitat, Varanesa ‡, and Tamralipta §. Magad'ha was reduced to its original limits or South Bahar, and the kings of Gaur or Bengal quickly became so powerful,

*Tirhut.

+ Oude.

Benares.

Tamlook,

that the seat of the government of Magad'ha was removed from Palibothra to Patna, as being farther from the enemy's frontier.

While these changes were going on in the kingdom of Magad'ha, the countries to the westward, or that part of Hindostan called the Panjab, was ravaged by a horde of Huns, who seem to have met with little resistance from the native monarchs.

The situations of the different kingdoms of the south of India I described in a former letter, their history is buried in obscurity till about the time of the Mahomedan conquest, but they appear to have been occasionally under the dominion of the powerful monarchies of the North, though the distinct characters of their languages and alphabetical writing prove that they must have been for the most part either totally independent or only nominally in subjection. When the Mussulmans first appeared in the south of India, Bulal Raï was the sovereign of Carnata, Dravida, and Tulava, and his capital was Dwara Summudra, 155 miles north-west from Seringapatam; but the city being shortly ruined by the invaders, the seat of government was removed to Tonara near Seringapatam, and Bulal Raï built the city of Vejeyanuggur as a defence against the Moslems. This new city soon became famous all over the East for its riches and