Chapter XLIV: Appendix: VI

WESTERN INDIA AS KNOWN TO THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. [1466]

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