Indica of Arrian
Also called: Indike · Topic: Studying Indian History: Sources, Dating and Historiography · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Indica (Indike) is an account of India written in Greek by Arrian, a Greek writer of the 2nd century CE. Arrian never lived in India. He drew on older writers, mainly Megasthenes, a Greek envoy at Chandragupta Maurya's court, and Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander's fleet. Megasthenes' own book is lost, so works like Arrian's are among the main ways we know what Megasthenes wrote.
Example
Arrian's Indica repeats Megasthenes' description of Indian society divided into seven groups, such as philosophers, farmers and soldiers. Historians use it to learn about Mauryan India, but they treat it carefully because it is a foreign, second-hand account.
Don't confuse with
- Megasthenes' Indica: the original book, written c. 300 BCE at the Mauryan court. It survives only through quotations in later writers like Arrian.
Related concepts
- Sources of history
- Archaeology
- Numismatics
- Archaeo-botany
- Underwater archaeology
- Literary sources
- Oral tradition
- Hagiography
- Kalhana
- Rajatarangini