Megasthenes

Topic: The Mauryan Empire · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 5 "The Rise of Empires"; Class 7, Ch 6 "The Age of Reorganisation"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"

Meaning

Megasthenes was a Greek historian and diplomat. Seleucus I Nicator sent him as his ambassador to the court of Chandragupta Maurya at Pāṭaliputra around 302 BCE [3][4]. There he wrote the Indika, an account of India.

He matters because the Indika is the first written foreign account of India [4]. It gives an outsider's description of the Mauryan capital and its government. The original book is lost, so we know it only from passages quoted by later Greek writers [3][5].

Explanation

Background: why a Greek envoy came to India

• Alexander's empire breaks up. Alexander left India around 325 BCE and died in 323 BCE. His generals divided his empire among themselves.

• One general, Seleucus I Nicator, set up the Seleucid kingdom in Iran [3].

• War, then a treaty (305 BCE). Chandragupta Maurya fought Seleucus in 305 BCE. It ended quickly with a treaty [3]:

• Seleucus gave the Mauryas the trans-Indus provinces (the lands west of the Indus).

• Chandragupta gave Seleucus 500 elephants [3].

• Peace brings diplomacy. After the war the two sides stayed friendly and exchanged envoys (ambassadors) [3].

• Megasthenes was one of these envoys. Seleucus sent him to Chandragupta's court around 302 BCE [3][4].

The Indika: what kind of book it was

• Megasthenes wrote down what he saw and heard in India. He called the book Indika.
• Britannica describes it as a four-book work [4].
• It is the first written foreign account of India [4].
• The original is lost. It survives only as excerpts (short passages) quoted by later Greek writers such as Strabo and Arrian [3][5].
• So when we "read Megasthenes", we are really reading what other authors chose to copy from him.

What the surviving fragments describe

• Pāṭaliputra, which the Greeks called Palibothra (as quoted by Strabo and Arrian, and repeated by ASI) [3]:
• It stood where the Ganga met the Erannaboas river.
• It was about 14.5 km long and 2.4 km wide, shaped like a parallelogram (a long, rectangle-like shape).
• A wooden wall surrounded it, with 570 towers and 64 gates. The wall had loop-holes (narrow slits) for shooting arrows.

• A ditch about 182 m wide and 14 m deep guarded it.

• Officials and administration (the passages NCERT quotes in Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"):

• Some state officers measured the land. Others looked after the rivers and checked the sluices (gates that let water into channels), so that water for irrigation was shared fairly.
• A committee with six subcommittees ran military affairs. Each subcommittee looked after one part of the army: the navy, transport and provisions (food and supplies), foot soldiers, horses, chariots and elephants.

How his account reached us, and its results

• In the 19th century, Dr Schwanbeck collected the surviving fragments. An English translation was printed together with Arrian's Indika. A copy is held by the Library of Congress [5].
• Result: Megasthenes is one of the main sources for the Mauryan state, alongside Kautilya's Arthaśhāstra. His account is valuable, but it has to be read carefully, because it reaches us second-hand [3][5].

Time, place and evidence

• Period: Mauryan Empire, in the reign of Chandragupta Maurya (the founder, c. 321 BCE). Megasthenes arrived around 302 BCE [3][4].
• Place: Chandragupta's capital Pāṭaliputra (modern Patna, Bihar), called Palibothra by the Greeks [3].
• Key people:
• Seleucus I Nicator, the Greek ruler who sent him [3].
• Chandragupta Maurya, the king he visited.

• Strabo and Arrian, the later Greek writers who preserved his words [3][5].

• Evidence:

• Fragments of the Indika quoted by Strabo and Arrian [3][5].
• The Schwanbeck collection of fragments, held by the Library of Congress [5].
• The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) repeats Megasthenes' description of the city in its account of the Pāṭaliputra excavations [3].
• NCERT Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns" quotes his account of officials and the military committee.

Don't confuse with

• Kautilya's Arthaśhāstra: an Indian manual on how a state should be run, in 15 books, credited to Chandragupta's minister [2]. The Indika is a foreigner's description of what he saw. One is a guide to the ideal state; the other is an eyewitness report.
• Seleucus I Nicator: he sent the envoy. He was Alexander's general and fought Chandragupta in 305 BCE [3]. Megasthenes was his ambassador, not a ruler or general.
• Arrian's Indika: a later work with the same name, written by Arrian. It is one of the texts that preserves quotations from Megasthenes [5]. Do not treat Arrian as the author of Megasthenes' original Indika.
• Palibothra vs a separate city: Palibothra is not another city. It is simply the Greek name for Pāṭaliputra [3].

Prelims Hooks

• Megasthenes: ambassador of Seleucus I Nicator to Chandragupta Maurya, c. 302 BCE [3][4].
• Text and author: Indika, by Megasthenes, a four-book work and the first written foreign account of India [4].
• Trap: the Indika is lost. It survives only through quotations in Strabo and Arrian [3][5].
• Correct order: Alexander leaves India (c. 325 BCE) → Maurya Empire founded (c. 321 BCE) → treaty with Seleucus (305 BCE) → Megasthenes arrives (c. 302 BCE).
• Palibothra = Pāṭaliputra: about 14.5 km × 2.4 km, wooden wall, 570 towers, 64 gates, at the meeting of the Ganga and the Erannaboas [3].
• Military administration: one committee with six subcommittees (navy, transport and provisions, foot soldiers, horses, chariots, elephants), as quoted in NCERT Class 12.

Mains Points

• Diplomacy after war. Megasthenes' mission came out of the 305 BCE treaty, in which a war ended in fixed borders, an exchange of elephants for land, and an exchange of envoys [3]. This shows that the early Indian state dealt with Hellenistic kingdoms through settled agreements as well as through force.
• The problem with the source. The Indika is lost and survives only in quotations by later Greek writers [3][5].
• Those writers chose what to copy, and they may have shortened or changed it.
• Megasthenes saw India as a foreigner, so he may have misunderstood some things or tried to fit them into Greek ideas.

• A good answer reads him alongside the Arthaśhāstra and archaeology, not as plain fact.

• Checking text against the ground. ASI repeats his description of Pāṭaliputra's wooden wall, towers and gates in its excavation records [3]. This makes him a useful case for showing how historians test a literary account against archaeology to rebuild the Mauryan capital and its government.

Related concepts

• Mauryan empire
• Chandragupta Maurya
• Kautilya
• Seleucus-Chandragupta treaty
• Indika
• Deimachus
• Dionysius

Read more

• Chandragupta Maurya and Kautilya: founding the empire (c. 321 BCE)