[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924) › c18.30 # The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.30 The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.30 - **Language:** English ### [c18.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c18.30) ³ Megasthenes, \*Fragm.\* xxvii. The Greek is τῷ δὲ παρελθόντι ἐντὸς μέχρι γυναικῶν θάνατος, which McCrindle renders 'it is death for man and woman alike to pass the ropes’, but the Greek idiom will not bear this translation. Müller correctly renders ‘quodsi quis interius ad mulieres \[\*scil.\* to the female guards\] usque accedit, interficitur’. This rendering, perhaps, would require the text to read τῶν γυναικῶν. The word τῶν may have dropped out. The female guards are mentioned in the Sanskrit plays. In the \*Mudrā Rākshasa\*, Act iii, Chandragupta is represented as attended by a girl named Sonottarā. The girls were bought from their parents (Strabo, xv, 55); and good-looking maidens for the royal harem (παρθένοι εὐειδεῖς πρὸς παλλακίαν) were still regularly imported in the first century A. D. at Barygaza (Broach), on the western coast (\*Periplus\*, ch. 49; see also chs. 8, 9, 31, 36; transl. Schoff; Longmans, 1912). Chāṇakya prescribes that ‘On getting up from bed, the king should be received by troops of women armed with bows’ (\*Arthaśāstra\*, Bk. i, ch. 21; revised English version by R. Shamasastry, Bangalore Government Press, 1915, p. 47). - [Previous: c18.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c18.29) - [Next: c18.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c18.31) - [Up: c18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c18) ## Linked texts (2) - [Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.artha.kautilya.1.21) — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit - [Mudrārākṣasa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.plays.rajacarita.mudraraksasa) — Viśākhadatta, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c18.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c18.30) · Pramāṇa