Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian/Frag. XLVI.

by Megasthenes

BOOK IV.

Fragm. XLVI.

Strab. XV. I. 6-8,—pp. 686-688.

That the Indians had never been attacked by others, nor had themselves attacked others.

(Cf. Epit. 23.)

6. But what just reliance can we place on the accounts of India from such expeditions as those of Kyros and Semiramis?^[1] Megasthenês concurs in this view, and recommends his readers to put no faith in the ancient history of India. Its people, he says, never sent an expedition abroad, nor was their country ever invaded and conquered except by Hêrakles and Dionysos in old times, and by the Makedonians in our own. Yet Sesôstris the Egyptian^[2] and Tearkôn the Ethiopian advanced as far as Europe. And Nabukodrosor,^[3] who is more renowned among the Chaldeans than even Hêrakles among the Greeks, carried his arms to the Pillars,^[4] which Tearkôn also reached, while Sesôstris penetrated from Ibêria even into Thrace and Pontos. Besides these there was Idanthyrsos the Skythian, who overran Asia as far as Egypt.^[5] But not one of these great conquerors approached India, and Semiramis, who meditated its conquest, died before the necessary preparations were undertaken. The Persians indeed summoned the Hydrakai^[6] from India to serve as mercenaries, but they did not lead an army into the country, and only approached its borders when Kyros marched against the Massagetai.

Of Dionysos and Hêrakles.

7. The accounts about Hêrakles and Dionysos, Megasthenês and some few authors with him consider entitled to credit, [but the majority, among whom is Eratosthenês, consider them incredible and fabulous, like the stories current among the Greeks. . . . . . .]

8. On such grounds they called a particular race of people Nyssaians, and their city Nyssa,^[7] which Dionysos had founded, and the mountain which rose above the city Mêron, assigning as their reason for bestowing these names that ivy grows there, and also the vine, although its fruit does not come to perfection, as the clusters, on account of the heaviness of the rains, fall off the trees before ripening. They further called the Oxydrakai descendants of Dionysos, because the vine grew in their country, and their processions were conducted with great pomp, and their kings on going forth to war and on other occasions marched in Bacchic fashion, with drums beating, while they were dressed in gay-coloured robes, which is also a custom among other Indians. Again, when Alexander had captured at the first assault the rock called Aornos, the base of which is washed by the Indus near its source, his followers, magnifying the affair, affirmed that Herakles had thrice assaulted the same rock and had been thrice repulsed.^[8] They said also that the Sibae were descended from those who accompanied Hêrakles on his expedition, and that they preserved badges of their descent, for they wore skins like Hêrakles, and carried clubs, and branded the mark of a cudgel on their oxen and mules.^[9] In support of this story they turn to account the legends regarding Kaukasos and Promêtheus by transferring them hither from Pontos, which they did on the slight pretext that they had seen a sacred cave among the Paropamisadae. This they declared was the prison of Promêtheus, whither Hêrakles had come to effect his deliverance, and that this was the Kaukasos, to which the Greeks represent Promêtheus as having been bound.^[10]

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1. "The expedition of Semiramis as described by Diodorus Siculus (II. 16-19), who followed the Assyriaka of Ktêsias, has almost the character of a legend abounding with puerilities, and is entirely destitute of those geographical details which stamp events with reality. If this expedition is real, as on other grounds we may believe it to be, some traces will assuredly be found of it in the cuneiform inscriptions of Nineveh, which are destined to throw so much unexpected light on the ancient history of Asia. It has already been believed possible to draw from these inscriptions the foundations of a positive chronology which will fully confirm the indications given by Herodotus as to the epoch of Semiramis, in fixing the epoch of this celebrated queen in the 8th century of our era—an epoch which is quite in harmony with the data which we possess from other sources regarding the condition of the North-West of India after the Vedic times.
   "Kyros, towards the middle of the 6th century of our era, must also have carried his arms even to the Indus. Historical tradition attributed to him the destruction of Kapisa, an important city in the upper region of the Kôphês (Plin. VI. 23); and in the lower region the Assakenians and the Astakenians, indigenous tribes of Gandara, are reckoned among his tributaries (Arrian, Indika, I. 3). Tradition further recounted that, in returning from his expedition into India, Kyros had seen his whole army perish in the deserts of Gedrosia (Arr. Anab. VI. 24. 2). The Persian domination in these districts has left more than one trace in the geographical nomenclature. It is sufficient to recall the name of the Khoaspês, one of the great affluents of the Kôphês.
   "Whatever be the real historical character of the expeditions of Semiramis and Kyros, it is certain that their conquests on the Indus were only temporary acquisitions, since at the epoch when Dareios Hystaspês mounted the throne the eastern frontier of the empire did not go beyond Arakhosia (the Haraqaiti of the Zend texts, the Haraouvatis of the cuneiform inscriptions, the Arrokhadj of Musalmân geography, the provinces of Kandahâr and of Ghazni of existing geography)—that is to say, the parts of Afghanistân which lie east of the Suliman chain of mountains. This fact is established by the great trilingual inscription of Bisoutoun, which indicates the last eastern countries to which Dareios had carried his arms at the epoch when the monument was erected. This was before he had achieved his well-known conquest of the valley of the Indus."—St. Martin, E'tude sur la Géographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, pp. 14 seqq.
2. Sesostris (called Sesọôsis by Diodorus) has generally been identified with Ramses the third king of the 19th dynasty of Ṃanetho, the son of Seti, and the father of Menephthah the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Lepsius, however, from a study of the Tablet of Rameses II. found at Abydos in Egypt, and now in the British Museum, has been led to identify him with the Sesortasen or Osirtasen of the great 12th dynasty.—See Report of the Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Orientalists, p. 44.
3. V.1. Ναβοκοδρόσορον.
4. Called by Ptolemy the "Pillars of Alexander," above Albania and Iberia at the commencement of the Asiatic Sarmatia.
5. Herodotus mentions an invasion of Skythians which was led by Madyas. As Idanthyrsos may have been a common appellative of the Skythian kings, Strabo may here be referring to that invasion.
6. The Hydrakai are called also Oxydrakai. The name, according to Lassen, represents the Sanskṛit Kshudraka. It is variously written Sydrakai, Syrakusai, Sabagræ, and Sygambri.
7. V. II. Νυσαίους, Νύσαυ.
8. This celebrated rock has been identified by General Cunningham with the mined fortress of Râṇîgat, situated immediately above the small village of Nogrâm, which lies about sixteen miles north by west from Ohind, which he takes to be the Embolima of the ancients. "Râṇîgat," he says, "or the Queen's rock, is a large upright block on the north edge of the fort, on which Râja Vara's râṇî is said to have seated herself daily. The fort itself is attributed to Râa Vara, and some ruins at the foot of the hill are called Râja Vara's stables . . . I think, therefore, that the hill-fort of Aornos most probably derived its name from Râna vara, and that the ruined fortress of Râṇîgat has a better claim to be identified with the Aornos of Alexander than either the Mahâban hill of General Abbott, or the castle of Râa Hodi proposed by Greneral Court and Mr. Loewenthal." See Grote's History of India, vol. VIII. pp. 487-8, footnote.
9. According to Curtius, the Sibae, whom he calls Sobii, occupied the country between the Hydaspês and the Akesinês. They may have derived their name from the god Śiva.
10. "No writer before Alexander's time mentions the Indian gods. The Makedonians, when they came into India, in accordance with the invariable practice of the Greeks, considered the gods of the country to be the same as their own. Śiva they were led to identify with Bacchus on their observing the unbridled license and somewhat Bacchic fashion of his worship, and because they traced some slight resemblance between the attributes of the two deities, and between the names belonging to the mythic conception of each. Nor was anything easier, after Euripides had originated the fiction that Dionysos had roamed over the East, than to suppose that the god of luxuriant fecundity had made his way to India, a country so remarkable for its fertility. To confirm this opinion they made use of a slight and accidental agreement in names. Thus Mount Mêru seemed an indication of the god who sprang from the thigh of Zeus (ὲκ διὸς μήρου). Thus they thought the Kydrakæ (Oxydrukai) the offspring of Dionysos because the vine grew in their country, and they saw that their kings displayed great pomp in their processions. On equally slight grounds they identified Kṛishṇa, another god whom they saw worshipped, with Hêrakles; and whenever, as among the Sibae, they saw the skins of wild beasts, or clubs, or the like, they assumed that Hêrakles had at some time or other dwelt there."—Schwanb. p. 43.