Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c20.6

c20.6

Megasthene's (c. 300 B.C.) who resided with Candragupta as the ambassador of Seleukos Nikator and wrote an account of India in four books, of which considerable fragments are preserved, chiefly by Strabo, Pliny, and Arrian. His general account of the manners of the Indians relates chiefly to those of northern India, of whom he had personal knowledge. But he also gave a geographical description of India, for Arrian informs us (Ind. VII) that he gave the total number of Indian tribes as 118, and Pliny (VI. 17ff) does in fact enumerate about 90, to whom may be added some seven or eight more mentioned by Arrian. It is true that Pliny does not distinctly state that he takes his geographical details from Megasthenes, and that he quotes Seneca as having written a book on India. But Seneca also (Pliny, VI. 17) gave the number of the tribes as 118 in which he must have followed Megasthenes. Further, Pliny says (ibid) that accounts of the military forces of each nation were given by writers such as Megasthenes and Dionysius who stayed with Indian kings: and as he does not mention Dionysius in his list of authorities for his Book VI., it follows that it was from Megasthenes that he drew his accounts of the forces of the Gangaridae, Modogalinga, Andarae, Prasi, Megallae, Asmagi, Oratae, Suarataratae, Autoutola, Charmae, and Pandae (VI. 19), names which, as will be shown below, betray a knowledge of all parts of India. It is a fair inference that the remaining names mentioned by Pliny were taken by him from Megasthenes, perhaps through the medium of Seneca's work. The corruption of Pliny's text and the fact that Megasthenes learnt the tribal names in their Prakrit forms, make it extremely difficult to identify many of the races referred to.