Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c8.24

c8.24

Megasthenes was originally stationed at the court of Syburtius, satrap of Arachosia². He was ordered to proceed to India about 302 B.C. Whether he also visited the court of another Indian prince, to whom the generic name of " Porus " is given³, and whether he paid one or many visits to the Maurya monarch⁴, is not quite certain. " He dwelt for some time," says Solinus, " with Indian kings, and wrote a History of India, that he might hand down to posterity a faithful account of what he saw there." The credibility of his narrative was generally accepted in ancient times, —Arrian calls him a " trustworthy person⁵ "— though the sceptical Strabo, disgusted by the impossibility of distinguishing truth from falsehood in the many conflicting accounts of India, roundly calls him a liar, almost as untrustworthy as Dēimachus¹. Pliny shares his opinion². As a matter of fact, Megasthenes has now been completely vindicated. His description of India agrees wonderfully with what we have learnt from independent Indian sources, and the only justification of Strabo’s censures is to be found in his account of the fabulous races of India. And here Megasthenes, like his predecessors, is not wholly to blame. He repeats legends which were current in India, and he took them in perfect good faith from his informants, as may be seen from the fact that their names are all literal translations of Sanskrit words³. Megasthenes is, of course, only reliable as far as he saw the country with his own eyes. Thus he is unaware of the existence of the great Ganges delta, as he never descended that river below Pāṭaliputra⁴. He states that, unlike the Indus, the Ganges has only a single mouth⁵!