The Mauryan Polity c5.s3.14

c5.s3.14

Fourthly, there is the fact of the idealising tendency which is deeply marked in every page of his writings. In this strain says Jolly, Megasthenes “was anxious to present the life and manners of the Indians in a very favourable light, much as at a later period Tacitus in his *Germania* held out the Germans of his time as a model to his own countrymen”.² Influenced perhaps by the stoic philosophy of his times, Megasthenes carried too far the tendency of idealising things so much so that his statements are open to question. Continues Jolly: “In some Megasthenes may have arbitrarily assigned the institutions of other countries to India. Thus his seven classes of population may be an imitation of the seven classes of the Egyptian people, according to Herodotus, though the details differ. The milestones may be a Persian institution. The Philosopher Plato in his idealistic work on the state might have furnished or influenced some of the political theories of Megasthenes. The sensational element is represented by winged serpents, one-horned horses and long-lived elephants of Megasthenes as also by his assertions about the enormous size of the continent of India and the gigantic dimensions of the ditch surrounding the capital of Pāṭaliputra.”¹ This view of the learned German scholar, if true, must relegate to the background the Fragments of Indika. If the tendency to idealise things is prominent it would be rather difficult to get at the fact. As regards the sensational element at least one explanation may be offered. It is that Megasthenes confused folklore with historical facts. Even to-day such folk-tales of winged serpents and horned horses are commonplace in India. Megasthenes might have heard of such stories and without inquiring into the truth muddled up facts with fiction. If we again agree that some institutions of other countries have been arbitrarily assigned to India then any institution may be foreign. There will, therefore, be no necessity for us to compare coincidences or otherwise with a native contemporary work in India. For it is building a theory on doubtful issues.