The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.170

c18.170

The anecdote concerning the correspondence between Antiochos and Bindusāra, although trivial in itself, is worth quoting as a tangible proof of the familiar intercourse between the sovereign of India and his ally in Western Asia. Nothing, we are told, being sweeter than figs, Bindusāra begged Antiochos to send him some figs and raisin wine, and added that he would like him also to buy and send a professor. Antiochos replied that he had much pleasure in forwarding the figs and raisin wine, but regretted that he could not oblige his correspondent with the last-named article, because it was not lawful for Greeks to sell a professor.²