Ἰνδική 7.9

7.9

τὸν κόρδακα παρʼ Ἕλλησι καλεόμενον, καὶ κομᾶν Ἰνδοὺς τῷ θεῷ. μιτρηφορέειν τε ἀναδεῖξαι, καὶ μύρων ἀλοιφὰς ἐκδιδάξαι.

VII. The Indian tribes, Megasthenes tells us, number in all 118. [And I so far agree with him as to allow that they must be indeed numerous, but when he gives such a precise estimate I am at a loss to conjecture how he arrived at it, for the greater part of India he did not visit, nor is mutual intercourse maintained between all the tribes.] He tells us further that the Indians were in old times nomadic, like those Skythians who did not till the soil, but roamed about in their wagons, as the seasons varied, from one part of Skythia to another, neither dwelling in towns nor worshipping in temples; and that the Indians likewise had neither towns nor temples of the gods, but were so barbarous that they wore the skins of such wild animals as they could kill, and subsisted on the bark of trees; that these trees were called in Indian speech tala, and that there grew on them, as there grows at the tops of the palm-trees, a fruit resembling balls of wool; that they subsisted also on such wild animals as they could catch, eating the flesh raw, — before, at least, the coming of Dionysos into India. Dionysos, however, when he came and had conquered the people, founded cities and gave laws to these cities, and introduced the use of wine among the Indians, as he had done among the Greeks, and taught them to sow the land, himself supplying seeds for the purpose, — either because Triptolemos, when he was sent by Demeter to sow all the earth, did not reach these parts, or this must have been some Dionysos who came to India before Triptolemos, and gave the people the seeds of cultivated plants. It is also said that Dionysos first yoked oxen to the plough, and made many of the Indians husbandmen instead of nomads, and furnished them with the implements of agriculture ; and that the Indians worship the other gods, and Dionysos himself in particular, with cymbals and drums, because he so taught them ; and that he also taught them the Satyric dance, or, as the Greeks call it, the Kordax ; and that he instructed the Indians to let their hair grow long in honour of the god, and to wear the turban ; and that he taught them to anoint themselves with unguents, so that even up to the time of Alexander the Indians were marshalled for battle to the sound of cymbals and drums.