Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s21: 9. Rivers
Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s21
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9. Rivers
c9.s21.1
The immensity of the Indian rivers, of the Indus and Ganges systems, is noted and commented on by Megasthenes. The Ganges ‘which at its source is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its waters into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gangaridai..........Another river, about the same size as the Ganges, called the Indus, has its sources, like its rival, in the north, and falling into the ocean forms *on its way* the boundary of India’. Besides these two great rivers and their tributaries, there were ‘a great many others of every description’,² and many of them were navigable. Arrian recognised, following Nearchus that the larger portion of India is a plain formed of alluvial deposits of the large rivers particularly the Indus and the Ganges.³ The erratic changes in the courses of the rivers of the Indus system were noticed by Aristobulus; once when he went on some business into the country he saw a tract of land deserted on account of the Indus having shifted its course into a new channel; there were the ruins of a thousand towns and villages once full of life.⁴ During floods the rivers rose to considerable heights and inundated vast areas, the cities located on eminences being turned into islands for a time. When the water subsided and the land but half dried, it was sown and planted with little labour and perfectly satisfactory results.¹
c9.s21.2
² Frag. I (pp. 33–4): Arrian, *Indika*, ch. 4 (pp. 186–94). Megasthenes records the fable of river Silas in which nothing would float and which petrified everything plunged in it. Fr. XXI-XXIV, pp. 65–6: 196–7.
c9.s21.3
³ Strabo, XV, 1, 16 (p. 21): Arrian's *Anabasis* Bk. V, ch. vi, pp. 88–90 of *Ancient India, Its Invasion by Alexander*.
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⁴ Strabo, XV, 1, 19 (p. 25).
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¹ Ibid., 18 (pp. 23–24).
Linked texts (1)
- Ἰνδική — Λούκιος Φλάουιος Ἀρριανός, Ancient Greek