Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c10.17

c10.17

The knowledge possessed about India by the Alexandrian Greeks was chiefly due to Eratosthenes, the learned President of the Library from 240–196 B.C., though some facts must have been made known before this by Dionysius, who had been sent to India, says Pliny, in the reign of Philadelphus on an embassy, and published details about the forces of the Indian nations on his return. His account of India, contained in the third book of his *Geography*, was considered by Strabo¹ to be of the greatest value, superior to that of Megasthenes. Eratosthenes depended for his information upon the data supplied by Patrokles, an officer who held an important command over the eastern provinces of the Syrian Empire under Seleukus Nikator and Antiochus I. He appears to have used the opportunities he thus enjoyed in an admirable manner, and to have collected much invaluable information. Eratosthenes goes a good deal further than his contemporaries in his knowledge of the general configuration of India, which he describes as a rhomboid, its four sides being composed of the Indus, the Himālayas, and the shores of the Eastern and Southern Oceans respectively². He knows of the Royal Road to Pāṭaliputra and of the mouth of the Ganges. He has heard of the “summer rains,” brought by the Etesian winds, and watering the flax, rice, millet, and other crops. He calls the people of Southern India the Koniaki (a reminiscence of Cape Kory), and he has heard of Ceylon and its numerous elephants³.