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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s18: 6. Greek Ambassadors

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s18

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6. Greek Ambassadors

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Subsequent to these writers came the ambassadors from the Hellenistic kingdoms to the Mauryan court, whose observations on India were based on a wider and somewhat closer knowledge of the country. Among them the most celebrated was, of course, Megasthenes. But there were also Deimachus, who resided for a long time in Pāṭaliputra, whither he was sent on an embassy by Seleucus to Amitraghāta (Bindusāra), the successor of Chandragupta; Patrocles, the admiral of Seleucus, who was sent out to explore the less known regions of Asia and whom Strabo described as the least mendacious of all writers on India whom he had consulted; Timosthenes, admiral of the fleet of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and Dionysius who, according to Pliny, was sent by the same ruler to the Indian King. But none of them seems to have added anything of real importance to what Megasthenes had stated about India. Megasthenes, in fact, marks the culmination of the knowledge which ancient Europe ever had of India. Writers who came after Megasthenes improved their knowledge of India's geography, but their account of Indian civilisation was accurate only in the measure in which they followed Megasthenes.

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Megasthenes lived for some time with Sybyrtius, the Satrap of Arachosia, and from there Seleucus sent him out as ambassador to the court of Chandragupta, and he visited Chandragupta often during his stay at the capital; this was of course after the conclusion of the treaty of alliance between Chandragupta and Seleucus (305 B.C.).² Megasthenes evidently knew Kabul and the Panjab very well and travelled along the royal road from the frontier to the capital of the Mauryan empire. For his knowledge of the rest of India he depended on report. He wrote the *Indika*, a comprehensive work on India, apparently divided into four books describing the country, its soil, climate, animals and plants, its government and religion, the manners of the people and their arts. He sought to describe many things from the King's Court down to the remotest tribes. Many writers copied him assiduously in later times even as they cast aspersions on his veracity, as did Eratosthenes and Strabo.

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² Arrian (*Indica*, V) seems to say that Megasthenes visited Porus: but this has been rightly traced to a scribal error in the text of Arrian who

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Of the education and training of Megasthenes we know little. We may guess that he was an administrator and diplomat with a sober vision that sought to penetrate behind appearances and give a faithful report to his monarch of the strength and weakness of the neighbouring empire on the east. We do not know if he wrote out his work when he was in India or after his return to the West. In a ny event his statements on the Indian State, Law and Administration must be interpreted with care in the light of his natural prepossessions as an official of a large Hellenistic State and it is probable that some of them included an argument, criticism, or correction due to what other Greek writers before him had stated on particular topics. Megasthenes has often been denounced as untrustworthy both by ancient and modern writers, but this charge applies, properly speaking, only to what he writes from hearsay, particularly on the fabulous races of India and on Herakles and the Indian Dionysus. Of the former the learned Brahmins of the country had a great deal to tell him, but he says that he did not set down everything he heard, which may be readily accepted in the light of the Purāṇic accounts of such races. Quite probably he fell into some errors, but as we can be certain in no instance that we have his very words before us, it is always doubtful if the mistake was made by Megasthenes or the writers who used his work. Let us also remember that these writers extracted from Megasthenes just those data on India which they considered would be of interest to their readers or which lent themselves to attractive literary treatment calculated to amuse them. Of the manner in which the *Indika* of Megasthenes was used by these authors, Schwanbeck remarks: ‘Since Strabo, Arrianus, and Diodorus have directed their attention to relate nearly the same things, it has resulted that the greatest part of the *Indika* has been completely lost, and that of many passages, singularly enough, three epitomes are extant, to which occasionally a fourth is added by Plinius.’¹

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¹ might have said only that Chandragupta was greater than Porus, implying a comparison, quite natural to him, to the advantage of Megasthenes as against the earlier group of writers who accompanied Alexander. See McCrindle, *Megasthenes and Arrian*, p. 15. Lassen (ii, p. 668) accepts the interpretation of Arrian, *Anab.* V, 612, that Megasthenes visited India more than once.

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¹ McCrindle, *Megasthenes and Arrian*, p. 19. Diodorus, native of Sicily, was a contemporary of Julius Caesar: his *Bibliotheke* comprised 40 books, some of them no longer extant: book II., chh. 35–42 epitomise Megasthenes: bk. XVII gives an account of Alexander's invasion, and XVIII and XIX contain short notices of India:—all translated by McCrindle in his works. Arrian (A. D. 132) wrote the *Anabasis* and *Indika*, using the contemporary account of Alexander and the work of Megasthenes. Strabo came from Amasia in Asia Minor, *c.* 64 B.C.—19 A.D., His *Geography* is a very comprehensive work: Bk. XV, chh, 1 and 2 are devoted to India and Ariana respectively, and are translated by McCrindle in his *Ancient India as described in Classical Literature*. Strabo drew his material mostly from the contemporaries of Alexander and from Megasthenes. Pliny he Elder, 23–79 A.D., wrote a cyclopaedic *Natural History* in thirty-seven books: the sixth book contains his geography of India, based mainly on the *Indika* of Megasthenes, translated by McCrindle, ibid.

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