Piadasi whose rock-cut inscriptions remain scattered over
India; nor the Amtiyako Yonaraja--the "Ionian King Antiochus"
apparently,--Atiochus Theos, Selecus Nicator's granson: as is
supposed; nor yet the other four kings mentioned in the same
instricption in a Sanskrit disguise as contemporaries, Ptolemy
Philadelphos of Egypt (285-247); Magas of Cyrene (285-258);
Antigonus Gonatas of Macedon (277-239), and Alexander of Epirus,
who began to reign in 272;--if all these identifications should
fall to the ground, let no one be surprised. There are passages
in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky that seem to suggest there is
nothing in them; and yet, after studying those passages, I do
not find that she says so positively: her attitude seems rather
one of withholding information for the time being; she supplies
none of a contrary sort. The time may not have been ripe then for
unveiling so much of Indian history; nor indeed, in those days,
had the pictures of these kings, and particularly of Asoka, so
clearly emerged: inscriptions have been deciphered since, which
have gone to fill out the outline; and the story, as it his been
pieced together now, has an air of verisimilitude, and hangs
together. Without the Greek identifications, and the consequent
possibility of assigning dates to Chandragupta and his son, we
should know indeed that there was a great Maurya empire, which
lasted a matter of thirteen decades and a few odd years; but we
should hardly know when to place it. Accepting the Greek
identifications, and placing the Mauryas where we do in time--you
shall see how beautifully the epoch fits into the universal
cycles, and confirms the teaching as to Cyclic Law. So,
provisionally, I shall accept them, and tell the tale.

First a few more items from Megasthenes as to India under