e great emperor after his twenty
flaming Napoleonic years; his vast mountain-cleaving schemes
were left unfinished; Central Asia grew more troublesome again,
and he had to call off Chang Ch'ien from an expedition into India
by way of Yunnan and Tibet and the half-cleaved mountains, to
fight the old enemy in the north-west. But until the thirteen
decades were passed, and Han Chaoti, his successor, had died in
63 B.C., the vast designs were still upspringing; high and
daring enterprise was still the characteristic of the Chinese
mind. The thirteen decades, that is, from the accession of Han
Hueiti and the beginning of the Revival of Literature in 194.

XV. SOME POSSIBLE EPOCHS IN SANSKRIT LITERATURE

Han Chaoti died in 63 B.C.; his successor is described as a
"boor of low tastes";--from that time the great Han impetus goes
slowing down and quieting. China was recuperating after Han
Wuti's flare of splendor; we may leave her to recuperate, and
look meanwhile elsewhere.

And first to that most tantalizing of human regions, India;
where you would expect something just now from the cyclic
backwash. As soon as you touch this country, in the domain of
history and chronology, you are certain, as they say, to get
'hoodooed.' Kali-Yuga began there in 3102 B.C., and ever since
that unfortunate event, not a single soul in the country seems to
have had an idea of keeping track of the calendar. So-and-so,
you read, reigned. When?--Oh, in 1000 A.D. Or in 213 A.D. Or
in 78 A.D. Or in a few million B.C., or 2100 A.D. Or he did
not reign at all. After all, what does it matter?--this is
Kali-Yuga, and nothing can go right.--You fix your eyes on a
certain spot in time, which, according to your guesses at
the cycles, should be important. Nothing doing there, as
we say. Oh no, nothing at all: this is Kali-Yuga, and what
should be doing? .... Well, if you press the point, no doubt
somebody was reigning, somewhere.--But, pardon my insistence,
if seems--. Quite so, quite so! as I said, somebody must
have been reigning.--You scrutinze; you bring your lenses
to bear; and the somebody begins to emerge. And proves
to be, say, the great Samundragupta, emperor of all India
(nearly); for power and splendor, almost to be mentioned
with Asoka. And it was the Golden Age of Music, and perhaps
some other things.--Yes, certainly; the Guptas were reigning
then, I forgot. But why bother about it? This is Kali-Yuga,
and what