The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s1.256

c10.s1.256

Not one ounce of ant-gold ever originated in India, and the Greeks got no gold worth mentioning in north-west India because there was next to none there² and the Siberian supply had stopped; the only native Indian gold of any account came from the washings on the upper Ganges and its tributaries which are referred to by Megasthenes³ and Pliny⁴ and probably (later) by the Brihat Samhitā.⁵ In fact Indians knew next to nothing about gold-mining; Alexander's mining engineer Gorgos, who opened a silver mine⁶ in the Salt Range in Sopeithes' kingdom whence came Sopeithes' unique silver coinage, said that Indian ideas of mining and refining were elementary,⁷ and Megasthenes said that they did not even know how to separate gold from dross.⁸ Essentially, India's gold was imported and so had to be paid for like other commodities; the North-West got its gold from Siberia, the East probably imported some gold from the very rich river-washings in Yunnan and the neighbouring provinces,⁹ in either case in the form of gold-dust; there were no other sources of supply,¹⁰ unless in China, and in the first century A.D. northern and western India sought to offset the loss of the Siberian supply by importing bullion, or coins used as bullion, from the Roman world.¹¹ Darius' Indian satrapy *may* have paid its tribute in imported gold-dust, but the prodigious amount mentioned by Herodotus could never have been paid for; it is irreconcilable with the facts and with Darius' inscription, and cannot be true.