The Mauryan Polity c13.s12.1

c13.s12.1

Passing on to the question and practice of writing, Stein quotes Megasthenes who is of opinion that "there were no written laws in ancient India and that the people were ignorant of writing and that they trusted to memory in all the business of life."² These statements are again a distorted version of actual conditions obtaining in the land. Megasthenes must have been evidently told that the laws of the land were contained in the *smṛtis*, and the *smṛtis* were remembrances in the form of codes of Vedic injunctions which every judge was expected practically to carry in his head. The judicial officers were so well posted with the laws and customs of the land that they decided cases without reference to the codes of law and this fact must have induced Megasthenes to draw the conclusion that they had no written laws, and to make a further inference that they were ignorant of writing. Evidently Megasthenes did not care to enquire deeply into things he saw and heard. He had gathered a few facts at haphazard and he perhaps thought it worth his while to put them in black and white along with his own impressions. Most of them have unfortunately remained as impressions and have not carried us much farther. Thus far and no further is the impression which the *Indika* makes on us at present.