Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s2.t1.12

c9.s2.t1.12

A more famous name that occurs in several inscriptions of Darius in the list of subject peoples is Hidu (Hindu), which corresponds to the "Indians" of Herodotus. The circumstances leading to their subjugation, as described by the famous Greek historian, are too well known to need recounting. We are told that "the Indians, who are more numerous than other nations with which we are acquainted, paid a tribute exceeding that of every other people, viz., 360 talents of gold-dust. This was the twentieth satrapy." Herzfeld takes Hidu to refer to Sind. The description of Herodotus that "the tribes of India are more numerous than any other nation and do not all speak the same language", taken together with the information that they paid an amount of tribute exceeding that of every other people, suggests that the twentieth province of the Achaemenid Empire could not have been confined within the narrow limits of modern Sind. If the sandy tract, which is said to have lain 'eastward of India' refers to the desert of Rajputana, then we have probably to include a considerable portion of the southern Punjab, if not the whole of the *central* as well as the lower Indus valley within the borders of the twentieth satrapy. It may no doubt be argued in this connection that certain words of Megasthenes and Arrian suggest a more restricted dominion. The former says that "the Indians had never engaged in foreign warfare, nor had ever been invaded and conquered by a foreign power, except by Hercules and Dionysus and lately by the Macedonians". Arrian also makes the statement that "according to the Indians, no one before Alexander, with the exception of Dionysus and Hercules, had invaded their country." As both these writers often take the Indus to be the western boundary of India proper, their statements may be taken to imply that the Persian dominion in the east did not extend beyond the mighty Sindhu. But it has perhaps been rightly pointed out that "Alexander's historians may have been inclined to minimise the accomplishments" of the Persians "in order to bring into greater prominence the achievements of the famous Greek invader." In any case we should give more weight to the contemporary testimony of Herodotus than to the observations of Megasthenes and Arrian who wrote in much later ages.