The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.230

v1.c26.230

Of the south of India, Europe up to the Christian era knew little more than a few names, brought by merchantmen. So little was the division of India into two worlds by the Vindhya realised that Strabo could suppose all Indian rivers to take their rise in the Himālayas². It was chiefly as the country from which pearls came that the Greeks knew Southern India. Pearls came from the coasts of the Pāṇḍya kingdom corresponding roughly with the modern districts of Madura and Tinnevelly, and Megasthenes had heard, as we know, of Pandaea the daughter of Heracles (Kṛishṇa) who had become queen of a great kingdom in the south. With her he also connected the pearl. Heracles, according to the legend told him, wandering over the earth, had found this thing of beauty in the sea, made, it might seem, for a woman’s adornment. Wherefore from all the sea pearls were brought together to the Indian coast for his daughter to wear. The origin of the word which the Greek used for pearl, *margarites*, is unknown.