Greek accounts ll Accounts of Foreigners ll History of India

 

 Megasthenes

 

He was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat and Indian ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book Indika, which is now lost. At the time of treaty between the Greek ruler Seleucus I Nicator and the Indian ruler Chandragupta Maurya in c. 303 BCE, he appears to have been serving as an officer under Sibyrtius, who was Seleucus's satrap of Arachosia. Pandyan state of South-India is mentioned in the Indika or Indica.

 

 

 

Megasthenes visited India sometime between c. 302 and 288 BCE, during the reign of   Chandragupta   Maurya.   Megasthenes   visited   the   Maurya   capital Pataliputra, but it is not certain which other parts of India he visited. He appears to have passed through the Punjab region in north-western India, as he provides a detailed account of the rivers in this area. He must have then traveled to Pataliputra along the Yamuna and the Ganga rivers. Megasthenes compiled information about India in form of Indika, which is now a lost work, but survives in form of quotations by the later writers.

Other Greek envoys to the Indian court are known after Megasthenes, Deimachus as   ambassador   to Bindusara,   and Dionysius,    as    ambassador to Ashoka. Scylax of Caryanda Greek Explorers is considered to have left the earliest account of India.