Note 16 — CHAPTER 2

A generic term for the sovereigns of the race of Hari, used by Arrian as a proper name [?]. A section of the Mahabharata is devoted to the history of the Harikula, of which race was Vyasa.

Arrian notices the similarity of the Theban and the Hindu Hercules, and cites as authority the ambassador of Seleucus, Megasthenes, who says: “This Herakles is held in special honour by the Sourasenoi, an Indian tribe who possess two large cities, Methora and Cleisobora.... But the dress which this Herakles wore, Megasthenes tells us, resembled that of the Theban Herakles, as the Indians themselves admit.” [Arrian, Indika, viii., Methora is Mathura; Growse (Mathura, 3rd ed. 279) suggests that Cleisobora is Krishnapura, ‘city of Krishna.’]

Diodorus has the same legend, with some variety. He says: "Hercules was born amongst the Indians, and like the Greeks they furnish him with a club and lion’s hide. In strength (bala) he excelled all men, and cleared the sea and land of monsters and wild beasts. He had many sons, but only one daughter. It is said that he built Palibothra, and divided his kingdom amongst his sons (the Balika-putras, sons of Bali). They never colonized; but in time most of the cities assumed a democratical form of government (though some were monarchical) till Alexander’s time." The combats of Hercules, to which Diodorus alludes, are those in the legendary haunts of the Harikulas, during their twelve years’ exile from the seats of their forefathers.

How invaluable such remnants of the ancient race of Harikula! How refreshing to the mind yet to discover, amidst the ruins on the Yamuna, Hercules (Baldeva, god of strength) retaining his club and lion’s hide, standing on his pedestal at Baldeo, and yet worshipped by the Suraseni! This name was given to a large tract of country round Mathura, or rather round Surpura, the ancient capital founded by Surasena, the grandfather of the Indian brother-deities, Krishna and Baldeva, Apollo and Hercules. The title would apply to either; though Baldeva has the attributes of the ‘god of strength.’ Both are es (lords) of the race (kula) of Hari (Hari-kul-es), of which the Greeks might have made the compound Hercules. Might not a colony after the Great War have migrated westward? The period of the return of the Heraclidae, the descendants of Atreus (Atri is progenitor of the Harikula), would answer: it was about half a century after the Great War. [These speculations are worthless.]

It is unfortunate that Alexander’s historians were unable to penetrate into the arcana of the Hindus, as Herodotus appears to have done with those of the Egyptians. The shortness of Alexander’s stay, the unknown language in which their science and religion were hid, presented an insuperable difficulty. They could have made very little progress in the study of the language without discovering its analogy to their own.