The Classical Accounts of India c7: I. Herodotus
The Classical Accounts of India c7
- Language
- English
I. Herodotus
c7.1
"Herodotus, the Greek historian, called the Father of History, was born between 490 and 480 B. C. at Halicarnassus, a town in Caria on the south-west coast of Asia Minor, which was then subject to the Persians. His famous book, *The History* (or *The Histories*), contains the passage quoted below. The translation is based upon that of McCrindle.¹
c7.2
¹ The translation of McCrindle (M-V, pp.1ff.) has been revised in the light of the latest translation by Aubrey de Selincourt (pp. 216-7).
c7.3
There are several English translations of the whole book: namely,
1. By Issac Taylor (London, 1829).
2. By Canon G. Rawlinson (1858-60),
3. By G. C. Macaulay (1890).
4. By Aubrey de Selincourt (Penguin Classics, 1955).
5. "The outline of knowledge" (Edited by J. A. Richards), N. Y. 1924.
c7.4
Darius, son of Hystaspes, set up twenty Satrapies (Provincial Governorships), and assessed each nation for taxes.
(A list of Satrapies is given)
Twentieth: The Indians, the most populous of all the nations in the world, paid the largest sum,—360 talents of gold-dust. (Book III, 97)
c7.5
Book III,98.
c7.6
I will now describe the method by which the Indians obtain the great quantity of gold which enable them to pay the above-mentioned quantity of gold-dust. That part of India towards the rising sun is all sand. Indeed of all the inhabitants of Asia of whom we have any reliable information, the Indians are the most easterly—beyond them the country is uninhabitable desert. There are many tribes of Indians who speak different languages; some of them are pastoral and nomadic, and others not. Some inhabit the marsh-country by the river. The people eat raw fish which they catch by going out in boats made of reeds,—each boat made from a single joint. These Indians make their garment from a sort of rush which grows in the river, gathering it and beating it out, and then weaving it into a kind of matting which they wear to cover their chests, like a breastplate.
c7.7
99. Other Indians, living to the east of these, are nomads, and eat raw flesh : they are called Padaeans. They are said to have the following customs. When any one of the community is sick, if he be a man, the men who are his nearest connections put him to death, alleging that if he is wasted by disease his flesh would be spoilt ; but if he denies that he is sick, they, not agreeing with him, kill and feast upon him. And if a woman be sick, in like manner the women who are most intimate with her do the same as the men. And whoever reaches to old age, they sacrifice and feast upon ; but few among them attain to this state, for before that they put to death every one that falls into any distemper.
c7.8
100. Other Indians have the following different custom : they neither kill anything that has life, nor sow anything, nor are they wont to have houses, but they live upon herbs, and they have a grain the size of a millet in a pod, which springs spontaneously from the earth, this they gather, and boil it and eat it with the pod. When any of them falls ill, he goes and lies down in the desert, and no one takes any thought about him, whether dead or sick.
c7.9
101. The intercourse of all these Indians whom I have mentioned takes place openly like cattle ; and all have a complexion closely resembling the Ethiopians. The seed they emit is not white as that of other men, but black as their skin ; the Ethiopians also emit similar seed. These Indians are situated very far from the Persians, towards the south, and were never subject to Darius.
c7.10
102. There are other Indians bordering on the city of Caspatyrus and the country of Pactyice, settled northward of the other Indians, whose mode of life resembles that of the Bactrians. They are the most warlike of the Indians, and these are they who are sent to procure the gold : for near this part is a desert by reason of the sands. In this desert, then, and in the sand, there are ants in size somewhat less indeed than dogs, but larger than foxes. Some of them are in possession of the King of the Persians, which were taken there.
c7.11
the ants in Greece do, and in the same manner; and they are very like them in shape. The sand that is heaped up is mixed with gold. The Indians therefore go to the desert to get this sand, each man having three camels, on either side a male one, harnessed to draw by the side, and a female in the middle. This last the man mounts himself, having taken care to yoke one' that has been separated from her young as recently born as possible; for camels are not inferior to horses in swiftness, and are much better able to carry burdens.
c7.12
103. *Is occupied with a short description of the camel.*
c7.13
104. The Indians then adopting such a plan and such a method of harnessing, set out for the gold, having before calculated the time, so as to be engaged in their plunder during the hottest part of the day, for during the heat the ants hide themselves under the ground. Amongst these people the sun is hottest in the morning, and not, as amongst others, at mid-day, from the time that it has risen some way, to the breaking up of the market; during this time it scorches much more than at mid-day in Greece, so that, it is said, they then refresh themselves in water. Mid-day scorches other men much the same as the Indians; but as the day declines, the sun becomes to them as it is to others in the morning; and after this, as it proceeds it becomes still colder, until sunset; then it is very cold.
c7.14
105. When the Indians arrive at the spot, having sacks with them, they fill them with the sand, and return with all possible expedition. For the ants, as the Persians say, immediately discovering them by the smell, pursue them and they are equalled in swiftness by no other animal, so that the Indians, if they did not get the start of them while the ants were assembling, not a man of them could be saved. Now the male camels (for they are inferior in speed to the females) slacken their pace, dragging on, not both equally, but the females, mindful of the young they have left, do not slacken their pace. Thus the Indians, as the Persians say, obtain the greatest part of their gold; and they have some small quantity more that is dug in the country.
c7.15
106. The extreme parts of the inhabited world somehow [illegible] the most excellent products; as Greece enjoys by far the best tempered climate. For in the first place, India is the farthest part of the inhabited world towards the east, as I have just observed: in this part, then, all animals, both quadrupeds and birds, are much larger than they are in other countries, with the exception of horses; in this respect they are surpassed by the Medic breed called the Nysaean horses. In the next place, there is abundance of gold there, partly dug, partly brought down by the rivers, and partly seized in the manner I have described. And certain wild trees there bear wool instead of fruit, that in beauty and quality excels that of sheep; and the Indians make their clothing from these trees.
c7.16
Book IV. 44. A great part of Asia was explored under the direction of Darius. He being desirous to know in what part the Indus, which is the second river that produces crocodiles, discharges itself into the sea, sent in ships both others on whom he could rely to make a true report and also Scylax of Caryanda¹. They accordingly setting out from the city of Caspatyrus and the country of Pactyice², sailed down the river towards the east and sunrise to the sea³: then sailing on the sea westward, they arrived in the thirtieth month at that place where the King of Egypt despatched the Phoenicians, whom I before mentioned, to sail round Libya. After these persons had sailed round, Darius subdued the Indians and frequented this sea.
c7.17
¹ Caryanda was a city of Caria on the coast, not far from Halikarnassus, of which Herodotus was a native. As Scylax was the fellow-countryman of the historian there seems little, if any, ground for doubting, as some have done, whether this voyage was actually made.
c7.18
² Dr. M. A. Stein (in his Memoir on Maps illustraing the Ancient Geography of Kashmir, 1899) identifies the land of Paktyike with the territory of Gandhara, the present Peshawar District. While thinking it unlikely that the exact site of Kaspatyros will ever be indentified, he suggests that the expedition of Scylax may have started from some point near Jahangira, a place on Kabul river some six miles distant from its junction with the Indus. Paktyice is probably now represented by the ethnic name *Pakthun* or the Indian Pathan.
c7.19
³ The Indus, however, after emerging from the mountains holds its course southward.
c7.20
*The translation of the foregoing extracts has been taken from Bohn's Herodotus translated by Cary.*