Myths are now proved to be fables, just in proportion as we misunderstand them; truths, in proportion as they were once understood. Western ignorance is a Hellenic inheritance, much of it the result of Hellenic vanity. See how the European Orientalist has raised himself to the eminence of a philological oracle. In ascribing chronological dates to Indian antiquities, Anglo-Indian as well as European archæologists are often guilty of the most ridiculous anachronisms. Greek chronology is too defective, too bombastic, and too diametrically opposed to fact, to inspire with confidence anyone less prejudiced than the European Orientalist. Comparative mythology bear witness that the religious ideas of the Greeks and most of their gods were derived from the religions flourishing in the northwest of India, the cradle of the main Hellenic stock. Let hypothesis prevail, even though the heavens may fall. As Yavanacharya was the Indian title of a single Greek, Pythagoras, so Shankaracharya was the title of a single Hindu philosopher. Yavanani does not mean Greek writing, it means any foreign writing. The Aryan Mahabharata and the Homeric Trojan War belong to the same cycle of events: both epics are mythical as to personal biographies and fabulous supernumeraries, yet perfectly historical in the main. The Greeks besmirched their noble ancestry by belittling their Hierophants as Troglodytes! Three Hierarchs represented Budhistical and Brahmanical power in pre-Homeric Greece. While the political power of Sri-B’dho-Lemos or Triptolemos was formidable, the cave-dwelling Budhist Priests or Sroo-cula-dutæ, Lords of the Cave, who protected their secret doctrines from profanation, are today belittled as Troglodytai. Further examples of the profound Brahmanical influence in Greece are the Goghos, or Cow-Killer, who became Kakos, i.e., bad. And Soo-Bhoo-ya, or one engaged in abstract meditation, became Sophos, i.e., Wise. Despatis or Land-Lord became Despotes, thus marking the transition from Oligarchic privilege to Democratic tyranny. Sanskrit is the Mother of Greek. As Ouranos destroyed his children from Gaia, so Kronos destroyed his from Rhea. This is an allusion to the fruitless efforts of Earth or Nature alone to create real human men. An auspicious prophecy: the Greek language will wake up once more after the Sanskrit goes to sleep. With glossary of pre-Homeric Indo-Grecian terms.

An exploration of how the Greeks reacted to and interacted with India from the third to first centuries BCE. When the Greeks and Macedonians in Alexander's army reached India in 326 BCE, they entered a new and strange world. They knew a few legends and travelers' tales, but their categories of thought were inadequate to encompass what they witnessed. The plants were unrecognizable, their properties unknown. The customs of the people were various and puzzling. While Alexander's conquest was brief, ending with his death in 323 BCE, the Greeks would settle in the Indian region for the next two centuries, forging an era of productive interactions between the two cultures. The Greek Experience of India explores the various ways that the Greeks reacted to and constructed life in India during this fruitful period. From observations about botany and mythology to social customs, Richard Stoneman examines the surviving evidence of those who traveled to India. Most particularly, he offers a full and valuable look at Megasthenes, ambassador of the Seleucid king Seleucus to Chandragupta Maurya, and provides a detailed discussion of Megasthenes's now-fragmentary book Indica. Stoneman considers the art, literature, and philosophy of the Indo-Greek kingdom and how cultural influences crossed in both directions, with the Greeks introducing their writing, coinage, and sculptural and architectural forms, while Greek craftsmen learned to work with new materials such as ivory and stucco and to probe the ideas of Buddhists and other ascetics.