The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c11.66

c11.66

During the interval between the death of the Buddha and the invasion of Alexander the Great in 327 B.C., Indian political annals, even after the painstaking research of the last two generations, can show only a few names.³ Practically nothing can be gleaned about administrative practices. It is only in the later years of the 4th century B.C. that the curtain rises with advent of the Greeks. There were at least nineteen writers who visited the country with Alexander or shortly after his death or who were at any rate his contemporaries. Patrokles states that Alexander caused the whole country to be described by men well-acquainted with it and that the description was put into his hands afterwards by his treasurer Xenokles.⁴ But all the