Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s25.1

c9.s25.1

Though Megasthenes seems to have introduced his account of the legends centring round Dionysus and Herakles with the observation that he heard them from 'the men of greatest learning among the Indians', it is obvious that all the versions of these stories now accessible to us have been thoroughly edited from the Greek point of view. We may be sure that no Indian scholars ever spoke of Dionysus and Herakles under those names, and that, if anything, Megasthenes took some things that he heard to be the same as some other things known to him better, and made his own identifications before setting down his thoughts. Let us remember also that the vainglorious credulity of Alexander had given a good start to these legends with the earlier writers, with whose works Megasthenes was very well acquainted. Dionysus figures in these legends as the conqueror and civiliser of India and its first ruler, the founder of cities, the teacher of industrial arts, and the establisher of religion and polity. The Oxydrakoi claimed to be descended from Dionysus, the vine grew in their country and they displayed great pomp in their processions, and their kings set out on their military expeditions in the Bacchic manner; from these facts, modern scholars have inferred that Dionysus of these narratives was a Greek representation of the Indian god Śiva. It is difficult either to confirm or contradict this opinion, but it is clearly wrong to think that Herakles represents Kṛṣṇa. There can be no doubt that some elements of Kṛṣṇaism are mixed up here, for Arrian remarks: 'This Herakles is held in especial honour by the Sourasenoi (Śūrasenas) who possess two large cities, Methorā (Mathurā) and Cleisobora (Kṛṣṇapura ?), and through whose country flows a navigable river called Iobanes (Yamunā).' But the mention by Megasthenes of his daughter Pandaia and of the Pāṇḍya kingdom in the south over which she was set to rule, and some other traits, particularly the Sibai (Śivas) claiming descent from Herakles, bring him once more into the cycle of Śaiva legends. Arrian gives the curious information, which doubtless he owes to Megasthenes, that from Dionysus to Sandrakottos the Indians counted 153 kings and a period of 6042 years broken by three periods of republican rule, and that Herakles came fifteen generations after Dionysus—figures which do not tally with any known Purāṇic reckonings which they resemble so much. Herakles is also said to have founded 'no small number of cities, the most renowned and greatest of which he called Palibothra'¹.