AN

HISTORICAL DISQUISITION

CONCERNING

ANCIENT INDIA.

BS.4" 89

AN

HISTORICAL

DISQUISITION

CONCERNING

The Knowledge which the Ancients had of

INDIA;

AND THE

PROGRESS of TRADE with that COUNTRY
prior to the Discovery of the Paffage to it by the

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

With

an APPENDIX,

CONTAINING

Obfervations on the Civil Policy-the Laws and Judicial Proceedings-
the Arts-the Sciences-and Religious Inftitutions,

By WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D. D. F. R. S. Ed.

PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY, AND HISTORIOGRAPHER

TO HIS MAJESTY FOR SCOTLAND.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR A. STRAHAN, AND T. CADELL IN THE STRAND;
AND E. BALFOUR AT EDINBURGH,

M DCC XCI.

L

PREFACE.

T

HE perufal of Major Rennell's Memoir for illustrating his Map of Indoftan, one of the most valuable geographical treatises that has appeared in any age or country, gave rife to the following work. It fuggefted to me the idea of examining more fully than I had done in the Introductory Book to my Hiftory of America, into the knowledge which the Ancients had of India, and of confidering what is certain, what is obfcure, and what is fabulous, in the accounts of that country which they have handed down to us. dertaking this inquiry, I had originally no other object than my own amufement and inftruction:

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