WESTERN INDIA AS KNOWN TO THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.[1]
Appendix VI.
Early Greeks and Romans. Hêrodotos and Hekataios, the earliest Greek writers who make mention of India, give no information in regard to Western India in particular.
Ktêsias.Ktêsias (c. 400 b.c.) learnt in Persia that a race of Pygmies lived in India in the neighbourhood of the silver mines, which Lassen places near Udaipur (Mewar). From the description of these Pygmies (Phôtios. Bibl. LXXII. 11–12) it is evident that they represent the Bhíls. Ktêsias also mentions (Phôtios. Bibl. LXXII. 8) that there is a place in an uninhabited region fifteen days from Mount Sardous, where they venerate the sun and moon and where for thirty-five days in each year the sun remits his heat for the comfort of his worshippers. This place must apparently have been somewhere in Mârwâr, and perhaps Mount Âbu is the place referred to.
Alexander.Alexander (b.c. 326–25) did not reach Gujarát, and his companions have nothing to tell of this part of the country. It is otherwise with
Megasthenês.Megasthenês (c. 300 b.c.) who resided with Candragupta as the ambassador of Seleukos Nikator and wrote an account of India in four books, of which considerable fragments are preserved, chiefly by Strabo, Pliny, and Arrian. His general account of the manners of the Indians relates chiefly to those of northern India, of whom he had personal knowledge. But he also gave a geographical description of India, for Arrian informs us (Ind. VII) that he gave the total number of Indian tribes as 118, and Pliny (VI. 17ff) does in fact enumerate about 90, to whom may be added some seven or eight more mentioned by Arrian. It is true that Pliny does not distinctly state that he takes his geographical details from Megasthenês, and that he quotes Seneca as having written a book on India. But Seneca also (Pliny, VI. 17) gave the number of the tribes as 118 in which he must have followed Megasthenês. Further, Pliny says (ibid.) that accounts of the military forces of each nation were given by writers such as Megasthenês and Dionysius who stayed with Indian kings: and as he does not mention Dionysius in his list of authorities for his Book VI., it follows that it was from Megasthenês that he drew his accounts of the forces of the Gangaridæ, Modogalinga, Andaræ, Prasi, Megallæ, Asmagi, Oratæ, Suarataratæ, Automula, Charmæ, and Pandæ (VI. 19), names which, as will be shown below, betray a knowledge of all parts of India. It is a fair inference that the remaining names mentioned by Pliny were taken by him from Megasthenês, perhaps through the medium of Seneca’s work. The corruption of Pliny’s text
Appendix VI.
Early Greeks and Romans.
Megasthenês. and the fact that Megasthenês learnt the tribal names in their Prakrit forms, make it extremely difficult to identify many of the races referred to.
That part of Pliny’s account of India which may with some certainty be traced back to Megasthenês begins with a statement of the stages of the royal road from the Hypasis (Biás) to Palibothra (Patna) (Nat. Hist. VI. 17). The next chapter gives an account of the Ganges and its tributaries and mentions the Gangaridæ of Kalinga with their capital Pertalis as the most distant nation on its banks. In the 19th chapter, after an account of the forces of the Gangaridæ, Pliny gives a list of thirteen tribes, of which the only ones that can be said to be satisfactorily identified are Modogalinga (the three Calingas: Caldwell Drav. Gr.), Molindæ (compare Mount Mâlindya of Varâha Mihira Br. S. XIV.), and Thalutæ (McCrindle reads Taluctæ and identifies with the Tâmraliptakas of Tamluk on the lower Ganges). He next mentions the Andaræ (Andhras of Telingana) with thirty cities 100,000 foot 2000 horse and 1000 elephants. He then digresses to speak of the Dardæ (Dards of the Upper Indus) as rich in gold and the Setæ (of Mêwâr, Lassen) in silver, and next introduces the Prasi (Prâcyas) of Palibothra (Pâṭaliputra) as the most famous and powerful of all the tribes, having 600,000 foot 30,000 horse and 8000 elephants. Inland from these he names the Monædes (Muṇḍa of Singbhúm) and Suari (Śavaras of Central India) among whom is Mount Maleus (Mahendra Male?). Then after some account of the Iomanes (Yamunâ) running between Methora (Mathurâ) and Chrysobora (McCrindle reads Carisobora, Arrian Ind. VIII. Kleisobora = Kṛishṇapura?) he turns to the Indus, of some of whose nineteen tributaries he gives some account in chapter 20. He then digresses to give an account of the coast of India, starting from the mouth of the Ganges, whence to Point Calingon (Point Godâvari) and the city of Dandaguda (Cunningham’s Râja Mahendri, but more probably the Dhanakaṭaka or Dhenukâkaṭa of the Western cave inscriptions) he reckons 625 miles. The distance thence to Tropina (Tirupanatara near Kochin according to Burgess) is 1225 miles. Next at a distance of 750 miles is the cape of Perimula, where is the most famous mart of India. Further on in the same chapter is mentioned a city named Automula on the sea shore among the Arabastræ (or Salabastræ and Oratæ, McCrindle) a noble mart where five rivers together flow into the sea. There can hardly be a doubt that the two places are the same, the two names being taken from different authorities, and that the place meant is Chemula or Cheul (Ptolemy’s Simulla) the five rivers being those that flow into Bombay Harbour northward of Cheul. The distance from Perimula to the Island of Patala in the Indus is 620 miles. Pliny next enumerates as hill tribes between the Indus and Jamna, shut in a ring of mountains and deserts for a space of 625 miles, the Cæsi (the Kekiọi of Arr. Ind. IV. and Kêkayas of the Purâṇas, about the head waters of the Sutlej), the Cetriboni of the woods (… Vana?), the Megallæ (Mêkalas) with 500 elephants and unknown numbers of horse and foot, the Chrysei (Karûsha) Parasangæ (Pâraśava, corrupted by the likeness of its first three syllables to the word παρασαγγα, the Asmagi (Aśmaka of Varâha Mihira) with 30,000 foot 300 elephants and 800 horse. These are shut in by the Indus and surrounded by a circle of mountains and deserts for 625 miles. Next come the Dari and Suræ and then deserts again for 187 miles. Whether these are or are not correctly identified with the Dhars and Saurs of Sindh, they must be placed somewhere to the north of the Ran. Below them come five kingless tribes living in the hills along the sea-coast—the
Appendix VI.
Early Greeks and Romans.
Megasthenês. Maltecoræ, Singhæ, Marohæ, Rarungæ, and Moruni—none of whom are satisfactorily identified, but who may be placed in Kachh. Next follow the Nareæ, enclosed by Mount Capitalia (Âbu) the highest mountain in India, on the other side of which are mines of gold and silver. The identification of Capitalia with Âbu is probable enough, but the name given to the mountain must be connected with the Kapishṭhala of the Purâṇas, who have given their name to one of the recensions of the Yajur Veda, though Kaithal, their modern representative, lies far away from Âbu in the Karnâl district of the Panjâb, and Arrian places his καμβισθολοι (Ind. IV) about the head waters of the Hydraôtês (Râvî). After Capitalia and the Nareæ come the Oratæ with but ten elephants but numerous infantry. These must be the Aparântakas of the inscriptions and purâṇas, Megasthenês having learnt the name in a Prâkṛit form (Avarâta, Orâta). The name of the next tribe, who have no elephants but horse and foot only, is commonly read Suarataratæ (Nobbe) but the preferable reading is Varetatæ (McCrindle) which when corrected to Varelatæ represents Varalatta, the sixth of the seven Konkans in the purâṇic lists (Wilson As. Res. XV. 47), which occupied the centre of the Thána district and the country of the wild tribe of the Varlîs. Next are the Odonbæores, whose name is connected with the udumbara Ficus glomerata tree, and who are not the Audumbari Sâlvas of Pâṇini (IV. i. 173) but must be placed in Southern Thána. Next come the Arabastræ Oratæ (so read for Arabastræ Thorace of Nobbe, and Salabastræ Horatæ of McCrindle) or Arabastra division of the Oratæ or Koṅkaṇîs. Arabastra may be connected with the Ârava of Varâha-Mihira’s South-Western Division (Br. S. XIV. 17) where they are mentioned along with Barbara (the seventh or northernmost Koṅkaṇ). This tribe had a fine city in a marsh infested by crocodiles and also the great mart of Automula (Cheul) at the confluence of five rivers, and the king had 1600 elephants 150,000 foot and 5000 horse, and must therefore have held a large part of the Dakhan as well as of the sea coast. Next to this kingdom is that of the Charmæ, whose forces are small, and next to them the Pandæ (Pâṇḍya of Travancor) with 300 cities 150,000 foot and 500 elephants. Next follows a list of thirteen tribes, some of which St. Martin has identified with modern Râjput tribes about the Indus, because the last name of the thirteen is Orostræ, “who reach to the island of Patala,” and may be confidently identified with the Saurâshṭra of Kâthiâvâḍa. We must however assume that Megasthenês after naming the tribes of the west coast enumerates the inland tribes of the Dakhan until he arrives at the point from which he started. But the only identification that seems plausible is that of the Derangæ with the Telingas or Telugus. Next to the Orostræ follows a list of tribes on the east of the Indus from south to north—the Mathoæ (compare Mânthava, a Bâhîka town Pân. IV. ii. 117), Bolingæ (Bhâulingi, a Sâlva tribe Pân. IV. i. 173), Gallitalutæ (perhaps a corruption of Tâilakhali, another Sâlva tribe, ib.), Dimuri, Megari, Ardabæ, Mesæ (Matsya of Jaipur?), Abi, Suri, (v. 1. Abhis Uri), Silæ, and then deserts for 250 miles. Next come three more tribes and then again deserts, then four or five (according to the reading) more tribes, and the Asini whose capital is Bucephala (Jalâlpur) (Cunningham Anc. Geog. 177). Megasthenês then gives two mountain tribes and ten beyond the Indus including the Orsi (Uraśâ) Taxilæ (Takshaśilâ) and Peucolitæ (people of Pushkâlavatî). Of the work of Dêïmachos, who went on an embassy to Allitrochadês (Bindusâra) son of Candragupta, nothing is known except that it was in two books and was reckoned the most untrustworthy of all accounts of India (Strabo, II. i. 9).
Appendix VI.
Early Greeks and Romans.
Ptolemy II. Ptolemy II.Ptolemy II. Philadelphos (died 247 b.c.) interested himself in the trade with India and opened a caravan road from Koptos on the Nile to Berenikê on the Red Sea (Strabo, XVII. i. 45) and for centuries the Indian trade resorted either to this port or to the neighbouring Myos Hormos. He also sent to India (apparently to Aśoka) an envoy named Dionysius, who is said by Pliny (VI. 17) to have written an account of things Indian of which no certain fragments appear to remain. But we know from the fragments of
Agatharkhides.Agatharkhides (born c. 250 a.d.) who wrote in old age an account of the Red Sea of which we have considerable extracts in Diodôros (III. 12–48) and Phôtios (Müller’s Geogr. Gr. Min. I. 111ff), states that in his time the Indian trade with Potana (Patala) was in the hands of the Sabæans of Yemen. (Müller, I. 191.) In fact it was not until the voyages of Eudoxos (see below) that any direct trade sprang up between India and Egypt. The mention of Patala as the mart resorted to by the Arabs shows that we are still in Pliny’s first period (see below).
The Baktrian Greeks.The Baktrian Greeks extended their power into India after the fall of the Mâurya empire (c. 180 b.c.) their leader being Dêmêtrios son of Euthydêmos, whose conquests are referred to by Justin (XLI. 6) and Strabo (XI. ii. 1). But the most extensive conquests to the east and south were made by Menandros (c. 110 b.c.) who advanced to the Jumna and conquered the whole coast from Pattalênê (lower Sindh) to the kingdoms of Saraostos (Surâshṭra) and Sigertis (Pliny’s Sigerus?) (Strabo, XI. ii. 1). These statements of Strabo are confirmed by the author of the Periplus (c. 250 a.d.) who says that in his time drakhmai with Greek inscriptions of Menandros and Apollodotos were still current at Barygaza (Per. 47). Apollodotos is now generally thought to have been the successor of Menandros (C. 100 b.c.) (Brit. Museum Cat. of Bactrian Coins page xxxiii.). Plutarch (Reip. Ger. Princ.) tells us that Menandros’ rule was so mild, that on his death his towns disputed the possession of his ashes and finally divided them.
Eudoxos of Cyzicus.Eudoxos of Cyzicus (c. 117 b.c.) made in company with others two very successful voyages to India, in the first of which the company were guided by an Indian who had been shipwrecked on the Egyptian coast. Strabo (II. iii. 4), in quoting the story of his doings from Poseidônios, lays more stress upon his attempt to circumnavigate Africa than upon these two Indian voyages, but they are of very great importance as the beginnings of the direct trade with India.