Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s18.1

c9.s18.1

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.