The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c7.s1.15

c7.s1.15

The earliest foreign notice of India is that in the inscriptions of the Persian king, Darius, son of Hystaspes, at Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustam, the latter of which may be referred to the year 486 B. C.² Herodotus, who wrote late in the fifth century, contributes valuable information concerning the relation between India and the Persian empire, which supplements the less detailed statements of the inscriptions. The fragments of the works of Ktēsias of Knidos, who was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon in 401 B. C., and amused himself by collecting travellers' tales about the wonders of the East, are of very slight value.³