The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.23

v1.c26.23

A good deal of what Herodotus wrote about India (middle of the fifth century) was no doubt drawn from Hecataeus—his idea, for instance, that the river Indus flowed towards the east, and that beyond that corner of India which the Persians knew there was nothing towards the east but a waste of sand. Perhaps what Herodotus says is less remarkable than what he does not say. For of the monstrous races which Scylax and Hecataeus before him, which Ctesias and Megasthenes after him, made an essential part of the Indian world, Herodotus says not a word. Hellenic rationalism took in him the form of a saving good sense. Certain of the broad facts about India Herodotus knew correctly—the diversity of its population, for one. 'There be many nations of Indians,' he says, 'diverse one from the other in tongue, some of them are roving tribes, some of them are settled, and some dwell in the swamps of the river, and live on raw fish which they catch from boats of reed (*kalamos*)'¹. Herodotus knew also that the population of India was a very vast one. 'The Indians are by far the greatest multitude of all the peoples of men whom we know',² he says. Of course, the Indians who came especially within the sphere of his knowledge would be the more or less barbarous tribes near the Persian frontier. What he tells us therefore of their manners and customs does not apply to civilised India. Of the peoples beyond the Persian frontier he had heard of the marsh-dwellers, who dressed in garments made of some sort of water-reed³. Other Indians dwelling to the east of these are rovers, eaters of raw flesh, and they are called 'Padaeans.' He goes on to say that members of the tribe were killed on the approach of old age and eaten by their fellow-tribesmen⁴.