Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 710

EXAGGERATION
670
IN
HINDU EPICS
wont to do things by halves, they have freely availed them-
selves of the privilege of exaggeration and embellishment.
Facts are so interwoven with foolish and senseless efforts of
the imagination that it is impossible to disentangle the truth.
should one feel astonished at Xerxes being able to
gather together and maintain a million soldiers when he set.
Why
forth to conquer Greece
?
Such an army would have formed
only a small detachment of one of the armies of the kings of
India.
These latter never took the field at the head of less
If t lie
than several hundreds of millions of righting men
reader will recollect what I have remarked several times,
namely, that only that which is extraordinary and extrava-
gant has the power of pleasing the Hindu, he will hardly be
astonished at the strange mania which has induced Hindu
authors to carry exaggeration even to puerility. In every
country writers adapt their work to the taste of the public,
being anxious to gain from them the greatest possible
approbation. The maxim
!
Rien n'est beau que
le vrai,
le
vrai seul est aimable,
good Hindu literature.
The one fact that I have been able to glean for certain is
that the armies of the ancient Hindu kings were divided into
four arms or sections, of which the whole formed a chatur-
angam. These four corps were the elephants, the chariots,
the cavalry, and the infantry. Such, indeed, were the com-
ponent parts of the army of Porus, who was vanquished and
taken prisoner on the banks of the Hydaspes by Alexander.
No one at the present day denies the fact that the Hindus
would be rank heresy in
invented the military game
of chess
x
.
The following is the story, according to Oriental writers, of how
game was invented. At the beginning of the fifth century of the
Christian era a very powerful young monarch was reigning in India, who
was of excellent character, but who allowed himself to be corrupted by
1
this
This prince soon forgot that the love of the people is the
only sure support of a throne. The Brahmins and Rajahs uttered many
remonstrances, but in vain. Intoxicated by his greatness, which he
fancied was unassailable, he despised their counsels. Accordingly a
Brahmin named Sissa undertook to open the young monarch's eyes by
strategy.
To this end he invented the game of chess, in which the king,
though the most important of all the pieces, can nevertheless neither
attack nor defend himself without the assistance of his subjects. This
game speedily became famous, and the king expressed his anxiety to
flatterers.