Nearchus stated that among
certian Indian peoples a girl was put up as the prize of victory in a boxing
match ; the victor obtained her without paying a price.
certian Indian peoples a girl was put up as the prize of victory in a boxing
match ; the victor obtained her without paying a price.
Cambridge History of India - v1
But this seven classes may truly reflect the various
activities which a Greek resident at Pāšalip'ıra could see going on round
about him in the third century B. C.
The first class of Megasthenes consisted of 'philosophers,' under
which term, as has just been said, Brāhmans and ascetics were confused,
It was numerically the smallest class, but the highest in honour, immune
from labour and taxation. Its only business was to perform public sacrifice,
to direct the sacrifice of private individuals, and to divine. On the New
Year all the philosophers assembled at the king's doors and made
predictions with a view to guiding agriculture or politics. If any one's
prophecy was falsified by the event, he had to keep silence for the rest
of his life. These wise men pass their days naked, exposed in winter
to the cold and in summer to the sun, in the fields and the swamps and
under enormous trees. . . . . . They eat the fruits of the earth and the bark of
the trees, which is no less agreeable to the taste and no less nourishing
than dates. The second class cɔnsisted of the cultivators, and included the
majority of the Indian people. They never took any part in war, their
whole business being to cultivate the soil and pay taxes, to the kings or to
the free cities, as the case might be. Wars rolled past them. At the
very time when a battle was going on, the neighbouring cultivators might
be seen quietly pursuing their work of ploughing or digging, unmolested
All the land belonged to the king, and the cultivators paid one fourh
of the produce in addition to rent. The third class Megasthenes described
as herdsmen and hunters. They lived a nomad life in the jungle; and
on the hills, but brought a certain proportion of their cattle to the cities
as tribute. They also received in return for their services a grant of corn
from the king. It is easy to recognise in the description low-caste people,
who in ancient Pāšaliputra, as in a modern Indian city, were to be seen
performing certain services to the civilized community. The fourth class
consisted of the traders, artisans, and boatmen. They paid a tax on
the produce of their industry, except those who manufactured implements
of war and built ships. These, on the other hand, received a subsidy from
the royal exchequer. The fifth class was that of the fighters, the most
numerous class after the cultivators. They performed no work in the
1 Megasth. Frags. 35 and 36=Arr. Ind. 11f. ; Strabo XV, C. 703 V. inf. , Chapter
XIX.
## p. 369 (#407) ############################################
xvi]
PĀT ALI PUTRA
369
community except that of fighting. Members of the other classes supplied
them with weapons and waited upon them and kept their horses and
elephants. They received regular pay even in time of peace, so that when
not fighting they could live in a life of ease and maintain numbers of
dependents. The sixth and seventh classes of Megasthenes cannot have
formed castes in any sense. The sixth consists of thie government secret
inspectors, whose business it was to report to the king, or among the free
tribes, to the headmen, what went on among the people, and the seventh of
those constituting the council of the king or the tribal authorities. 'In
numbers this class is a small one, but it is distinguished for wisdom and
probity. For which reason there are chosen from among it the magistrates,
the chiefs of districts, the deputy governors, the keepers of the treasury.
the army superintendents, the admirals, the high stewards, and the over-
seers of agriculture. ' When Megasthenes, in talking about the fixity of
these classes, stated that the only exception to the law which forbade a
man changing his class was that any one might become a 'wise man', he
was saying something which was true only if by 'wise man' we understand
an ascetic, not a Brāhman. A sense of the difference between Brāhmans
living in the world and ascetics is implied in the statement of Nearchus
that Indian 'sophists' were divided into Brāhmans, who followed the king
as councillors, and the men who 'studied Nature'2.
We may see something of the aspect of the country, as Megasthenes
travelled through it, from his description of the towns built high above the
level floods. ‘All their towns which are down beside the rivers or the sea
are made of wood ; for towns built of brick’ (i. e. sun-dried mud bricks)
‘would never hold out for any length of time with the rains on the one
hand, and, on the other, the rivers which rise above their banks and spread
a sheet of water over the plains. But the towns which are built on elevated
places out of reach, these are made of brick and clay3. ' Of Pāțaliputra
itself Megasthenes left a summary description. Built at the confluence of
the Ganges and the Son, it formed an oblong, 80 stades by 15 stades (9}
miles by 1 m. 1270 yds. ) surrounded by a wooden palisade, with loop-
holes for the archers to shoot through, and outside the palisade a ditch,
30 cubits (about 60 feet) deep by 6 plethra (200 yards) wide, which served
both for defence and as a public sewer. Along the palisade were towers at
intervals, 570 in all, and 64 gates“. FIe also described the palace of the
great Indian king, no less sumptuous and magnificent than the palaces of
Susa and Ecbatana. Attached to it was a goodly park,
in which were tame peacocks and pheasants. . . There were shadygroves and trees set in
clumps and branches woven together by some special cunning of horticulture. And the
1 Frag. 35=Arr. Ind. 12, 9. 2 Nearchus, Frag. 7=Strabo XV, C. 716.
3 Megasth. Frag. 26=Arr. Ind. 10. 4 Megasth. Frag . 25=Strabo XV, C. 702.
## p. 370 (#408) ############################################
370
[CH.
INDIA IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE
more impressive thing about the beauty of that climate is that the trees themselves
are of the sort that are always green ; they never grow old and never shed their leaves.
Some of them are native, and some are brought from other lands with great care, and
these adorn the place and give it glory-only not the olive ; the olive does not grow
of itself in India, and, if it is transported there, it dies. Birds are there, free and un-
confined ; they come of their own accord and have their nests and roosting-places in
the branches, both birds of other kinds and parrots which are kept there and flock in
bevies about the king, . . . In this royal pleasance there are lovely tanks may by hand of
men, with fishes in them very large and gentle, and nobody made catch them except
the sons of thë king, when they are yet children. In this water, as tranquil and as
safe as any can be, they fish and play and learn to swim all at the sam
ime timel.
Megasthenes noted down a variety of points which struck
him in the manners and customs of the people. A noble simplicity seemed
to him the predominant characteristicº. Nearchus seems to have described
the dress of the people in the Indus region. They wore clothes of cotton,
and this linen from the trees is of a more shining white than any other linen, unless it
be that the people themselves being dark make the linen appear all the whiter. They have
a tunic of tree-linen down to the middle of their shins, and two other pieces of stuff,
one thrown about their shoulders and one twisted round their heads. And the Indians
wear ear. rings of ivory, those that are very well-off. . . Also they dye their beards diffe.
rent colours, some so as to make them appear as white as white may be, and some
dyeing them blue black; others make them crimson, and others purple, and others
green. In the summer they protect themselves with umbrellas, those of the Indians
that is to say, who are not too low to be considered. They wear shoes of white leather
very elaborately worked ; and the soles of the shoes are variegated, and high-heeled
so as to make the wearer seem taller3.
Megasthenes observed at Pāțaliputra that in dress the Indians, for
all their general simplicity, indulged a love of richness and bright colours,
wearing ornaments of gold and gems and flowered muslins, with umbrellas
carried after them.
Nearchus described their guise in war. The foot-soldiers carried a
bow as long as the body. To shoot, they rested one end of it on the ground
and set their left foot against it. They had to draw the string far back,
since the arrows in use were six feet long. In their left hands they carried
long narrow shields of raw hide, nearly co-extensive with the body. Some
had javelins instead of bows. All carried long two-handed swords with a
broad blade. The horsemen had two javelins and a shield smaller than the
foot soldiers".
Their diet was distinguished from the Greek by the absence of wine,
which they drank only in religious ceremonies; but rice-beer was generally
1 Aelian, Nat. Anim. XIII, 18.
2 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 709.
3 Nearchus, Frags. 9 and 10= Arr. Ind. 16.
4 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C, 709.
5 Nearchus, Frag. 7=Arr. Ind. 16 ; Strabo XV, C, 716,
.
## p. 371 (#409) ############################################
XVI]
LAWS AND CUSTOMS
371
drunk. Their staple food was pulpy rice (öpvča podrá). Each man took
his food by himself when be felt inclined ; for they had no fixed times for
common meals'. When a man would sup, a table was placed beside him
and a gold dish set upon it, in which first was put the rice, boiled after the
manner of the Greek chondros ( gruel ), and then on the top of it seasoned
meats, done up in the Indian way? . Their system of gymnastic exercise
differed from that of the Greeks : it consisted principally of massage, and
they used smooth rollers of ebony for shaping their bodies.
Megasthenes, ignorant as he was of Indian languages, could say little.
of the literature and thought of the country. He only observed the much
greater part played by oral tradition and memory, as compared with written
documents, than was the case in the Greek world, though he cannot have
asserted that writing was unknown, as Strabo would seem to imply-since in
one passage he refers to written inscriptions". In the sphere of morals it is
interesting to notice that the salient characteristic of the Indian people
seemed to this early European observer to be a high level of veraeity and
honesty. Any Indian has never been convicted of lying', he wrote in one
passage, and in another pointed to the rarity of law-suits as evidence of
their frank dealing. They are not litigious. Witnesses and seals are
unnecessary when a man makes a deposit ; he acts in trust. Their houses
are usually unguarded'. During the time that Megasthenes was on
Chandragupta's camp, out of a multitude of 400,000 men there were no
convictions for thefts of any sums exceeding 200 drachmas ( about £8). In
Sind, Onesicritus said, no legal action could be taken, except for murder
and assault. "We cannot help being murdered or assaulted, whereas it is
our fault if we give our confidence and are swindled. We ought to be
more circumspect at the outset and not fill the city with litigation. '
The laws, Nearchus said, were preserved by oral tradition, not in
books' - a statement only relatively true. According to Megasthenes many
of them were sufficiently severe. A man convicted of giving false witness
suffered mutilation. In the case of bodily harm being inflicted, not only
was the principle of an eye for an eye observed, but the hand was cut off
as well. To cause a craftsman the loss of his eye or hand was an offence
punished by death. 10
1 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 709.
2 Megasth. Frag. 28=Athenaeus IV, 153 D.
3 Frag. 27.
4 Megasth. Frags. 26, 27=Arr. Ind. 10; Strabo XV, C. 709; cf. Rhys Davids,
Buddhist India, p. 109 f.
5 For the use of writing at this period see Chapter XIX.
Megasth. Frag. 35=Arr. Ind. 12, 5. Cf, Max Müller, India, what can it teach
us ? pp. 34 f.
7 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 709.
8 Strabo XV, C. 702.
9 Nearchus, Frag. 7=Strabo XV, C. 716.
10 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 710,
6
## p. 372 (#410) ############################################
372
[CH.
INDIA IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE
The cultivation of lands by a whole kinship working in association
was noted by Nearchus. Each individual at the ingathering took as much
.
as was calculated to support him for a year, and the remainder of the
common stock was destroyed, so as not to encourage idleness? .
The customs would naturally differ considerably from one region to
another in India, then as row. Among the Kshatriyas of the Punjab
(Cathaeans) and their neighbours of the principality of Saubhūti (the region
of Gurdāspur and Amritsar ? ), according to Onesicritus, personal beauty
was held in such estimation that kings were chosen for this quality, and a
child two months after birth, if it did not reach a certain standard of
comeliness, was exposed. The dyeing of beards which Nearchus described
in the passage already quoted was especially a custom in this part? .
Of the marriage system in India Megasthenes only understood that
it was polygamous, and that brides were purchased from their parents for
a yoke of oxen'. He seems also to have asserted that, where conjugal
infidelity in a wife was due to a husband's omission to exercise vigorous
control, it was condoned by public opinion' At Takshaçilā, according to
Aristobulus, a man unable to get his daughter married on account of
poverty would sell her in the market-place”.
Nearchus stated that among
certian Indian peoples a girl was put up as the prize of victory in a boxing
match ; the victor obtained her without paying a price. The custom by
which the virtuous wife (suttee, sati) was burnt with her husband's body on
the funeral pyre naturally struck the Greeks. Onesicritus spoke of it as
specially a custom of the Kshatriyas (Cathaeans)? Aristobulus was told
that the widow sometimes followed her husband to the pyre of her own de-
sire, and that those who refused to do so lived under general contempts. In
the year 316 F. C. the leader of an Indian contingent which had gone
to fight under Eumenes in Iran was killed in battle. He had with him his
two wives. There was immediately a con petition between them as to which
was to be the sati. The question was brought before the Macedonian and
Greek generals, and they decided in favour of the younger, the elder being
with child. At this the elder woman
1 Nearchus, Frag. 7=Strabo XV, C. 716.
2 Onesicr. Frag. 18=Strabo XV, C. 699. Cf. Diod. XVII, 91.
3 Cf. Chapter X, p. 209.
4 The sentence is somewhat obscure- ει δε μη σωφρουειυ αυαγκασαλευ,
El
To pueuel Etectl, Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 709.
5 Aristob. Frag. 34= Strabo IV, C. 714.
6 Nearch. Frag. 7=Strabo XV, C. 716. This may refer to the Kshatriya institu-
tion svayamvara or ‘self-choice. ' A princess chose her husband from among the assem.
bled suitors of her on free will or as the result of a contest in the use of war-like arms.
7 Strabo XV, C. 700.
8 Aristob. Frag. 34=Strabo XV, C. 714
1
## p. 373 (#411) ############################################
XVI]
THE KING
373
а
went away lamenting, with the band about her head rent, and tearing her hair as if
tidings of some great disaster has been brought her; and the other departed, exultant at
her victory, to the pyre crowned with fillets by the worden who belonged to her and deck-
ed out splendidly as for a wedding. She was escorted by her kinsfolk who chanted a
song in praise of her virtue. When she came near to the pyre, she took off her adornments
and distributed them to her familiars and friends, leaving a memorial of herself, as it were,
to those who had loved her. Her adornments consisted of a multitude of rings on her
hands set with precious gems of diverse colours, about her head golden stars not a few,
variegated with different sorts of stones, and about her neck a multitude of necklaces,
each a little larger than the one above it. In conclusion, she said farewell to her familiars
and was helped by her brother onto the pyre, and there to the admiration of the crowd
which had gathered together for the spectacle she ended her life in heroic fashion. Before
the pyre was kindled, the whole army in battle array marched round it thrice. She mean.
while lay down beside her husband, and as the fire seized her no sound of wtakess escaped
her lips. The spectators were moved, some to pity and some to exuberant praise. But
some of the Greeks present found fault with such customs as savage and inhumanel.
The Greeks, we find, had a theory to account for the custom, whether of
their own invention or suggested to them by Indian informants we cannot
say. The theory was that once upon a time wives had been so apt to get
rid of their husbands by poison that the law had to be introduced which
compelled a widow to be burnt with her dead husband? .
As to the disposal of the dead, the absence of funeral display and of
imposing monuments seemed strange to the Greeks. The virtus of the
dead-so they understood the Indians to say, were sufficient monument
and the songs which were sung over them. When the Greeks tell us that
the dead were exposed to vultures, we can only understand it of certain
people near the frontier who had influenced by the customs of Irān“.
The assertion of the Greeks that slavery was unknown in India-or,
according to Onesicritus, was unknown in the kingdom of Musicanus
(Upper Sind). - is curious. That slavery was a regular institution in India
is certain. Indian slavery must have looked so different to a Greek
observer from the slavery he knew at home that de did not recognise it
for what it was.
As to the government, the king himself is, of course, the prominent
figure. He took the field with his army in war : in peace his publio
appearances were of three kinds. In the first place, he spent a considerable
part of the day in hearing the cases brought to him for judgment. Even at
his hour for undergoing the massage with ebony rollers he did not retire, but
went on listening to the pleadings whilst four masseurs plied their art upon
1 Diod. XIX, 34. This description contains many resemblances to the account
of the Sati in the Harshacharita of Bāņa (trans. Cowell and Thomas, pp. 150 f. )
2 Strabo XV, C. 700; Diod. XIX, 33.
3 Megasth. Frags. 26, 27=Arr. Ind. 10 ; Strabo XV, C. 710.
4 Aristobulus seems to have attributed the custom to Takshaçilā, Frag. 34-
Strabo XV, C. 714.
Megasth. Frags. 26, 27; Onesic. Frag. 20=Arr. Ind. 10; Strabo XV, C. 710.
## p. 374 (#412) ############################################
374
[CH,
INDIA IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE
him. In the second place, he came forth to perform sacrifice, and in the
third place to go a-hunting. His going forth to the chase was like the
processions of Dionysus. The road of the royal cortege was roped off from
common spectators. There was the king surrounded by a crowd of his
women, theniselves carrying weapons, in chariots, on horses, on el phants,
the body-guard enclosing them all in a larger circle, and a band with drums
and bells going on in front. Sometimes the king shot from a platform de-
fended by a stockade, sometimes from the back of an elephant. Within
the doors of the place, the king's person was tended by the women of his
zenana, bought for a price from their fathers. But he was not beyond
the reach of danger. A stern custom ordained that should he become in-
toxicated, any of his women who killed him should receive special kon-
our. And even though he remained sober, he had, like the late Sultan
Abdul Hamid, to be continually changing the place where he lay at night,
in order to evade conspirators.
Nearches (? ) had already noted that Indian kings were not saluted,
as Persian kings were, by postration, but by the persons approaching
them raising their hands -- the Greek attitude in prayer? . A great cccasion
at court, according to one source before Strabo, was when the king
washed his hair. Everyone then tried to outdo his fellows by the magnifi-
cence of his presents? Clitarchus- a questionable authority-described
the pageantry of a court festival -- the elephants be dizened with gold and
silver chariots drawn by horses, and ox-waggons, the army in full array
the display of previous vessels of gold and silver, many of them studded with
gems. Co'lections of animals of all kinds were also a great feature, panthers
and lions. There were great waggons carrying whole trees to which a variety
of birds bright in plumage or lovely in song were attached'. Animals, ac-
cording to another source, were a useful form of offering to bring to the
king. "The Indians do not think lightly of any animal, tame or wild. ' And
the king apparently accepted all kinds, not rare ones only, but cranes and
geese and ducks and pigeons. Or one might bring wild ones, deer and
antelopes or rhinoceroses”. On one great annual festival amusement took
the form of butting matches between rams or wild bulls or rhinoceroses,
or fights between elephants. Races provoked great excitement. They
usually took place between chariots to each of which one horse between
two oxen was harnessed. There was very heavy betting on these ccca-
sions, in which the king himself and his nobles led the way. And their
example was followed on a humbler scale by the crowd of spectators". The
1 Megasth. Frag, 17=Strabo XV, C, 710.
2 Strabo XV, C. 717.
3 Strabo XV, C. 718.
4 Clitarch. Frag. 17=Strabo XV, C. 718.
5 Aelian, Nat. Anim. XII, 25; compare the list of presents sent to the king in
the Harshncharita (trans Cowell and Thomas, pp. 213-5).
Aelian, Nat. Anim. XV, 15. 7 Aelian, Nat. Anim. XV, 24,
3
## p. 375 (#413) ############################################
XVI]
OFFICIALS
375
king-jf Megasthenes is the source, we may understand Chandragupta --
had a guard of twenty-four elephants. When he went forth to do justice,
the first elephant was trained to do obeisance. At a word from the
driver and a touch with the goad, it gave some military salute as the king
passed".
The predecessors of Chandragupta, whose line he supplanted, had
borne, Megasthenes said, beside their personal names, the royal name
Pataliputra, and Chandragupta had assumed it also when he seized the
throne.
The account which Megasthenes gave of the various officials points to
a highly organised bureaucracy. They were, he said, of three kinds : (1)
Agronomio[surely à ypououou should be read for a'yopavouo. ), district officials;
(2) astynomoi, town officials ; and (3) members of the War Office. The
duties of the first kind were to supervise (1) irrigation and land-measure-
ment, (2) hunting, (3) the various industries connected with agriculture,
forestry, work in timber, metal-foundries, and mines, and they had (4) to
maintain the roads and see that at every ten stadia ( the sixth part of a
yojana? ) there was a milestone, indicating the distancest (this is the passage
which proves that Megasthenes did not mean to assert a general ignorance
of the art of writing in India). The second kind, the town officials, were
divided into six Boards of Five. Their respective functions were (1) super-
vision of factories, (2) care of strangers, including control of the inns, pro-
vision of assistants, taking charge of sick persons, burying the dead, (3)
the registration of births and deaths, (4) the control of the market, inspec-
tion of weights and measures, (5) the inspection of manufactured goods,
provision for their sale with accurate distinction of new and second-hand
articles, (6) collection of the tax of 10 per cent, charged on sales. The six
Boards acting together exercised a general superintendence over public
works, prices, harbours, and temples. The third kind of officials consti-
tuted the War Office, and were also divided into six Boards of Five. The
departments of the six were (1) the admiralty, (2) transport and commis-
sariat, (3) the infantry, (4) the cavalry, (5) the chariots, (6) the elephants.
Connected with the army were the royal stables for horses and elephants,
and the royal arsenal. A soldier's weapons and horse were not his own
property, but the king's and they went back to the arsenal and the royal
stables at the conclusion of a campaign'.
As to industries, it is curious that these early European observers
should tax Indians with being backward in the scientific development of
the resources of their country. They had for instance, good mines of gold and
1 Aelian, Nat. Anim. XIII, 22. Cf. Chapter XIX.
2 Megasth. Frag. 25= Strabo XV, C. 702.
3 Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, p. 265
4 Cf. Strabo XV, C. 689.
5 Megasth. Frag. 36A=Strabo XV, C. 707.
a
## p. 376 (#414) ############################################
376
[CH.
INDIA IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE
silver, yet the Indians, inexperienced in the arts of mining and smelting,
do not even know their own resources, but set about the business in too
primitive a way'l. They do not pursue accurate knowledge in any line,
except that of medicire ; in the case of some arts, it is even accounted
vicious to carry their study far, the art of war, for instance? . ' On the other
hand, Nearchus spoke of the cleverness of the Indian craftsmen. They saw
sponges used for the first time by the Macedonians and immediately
manufactured imitations of them with fine thread and wool, dyeing them to
look the same. Other Greek articles, such as the scrapers and oil-fiasks
used by athletes they quickly learnt to make. For writing letters, they used
some species of fine tissue closely woven. They also used only cast bronze,
but not hammered, so that their vessels broke like earthenware, if they fells.
About the Indian ‘philosophers' Megasthenes had a good deal to say.
They might be divided on
one principle according as they dwelt in
the mountains and worshipped Dionysus (Çiva) or in the plains and
worshipped Heracles (Kțishņa), but the more significant division was that
into Brāhmans, and 'Sarmanes. '
The Brāhmans have the greatest prestige, since they have a m ra consistent
dogmatic system. As soon as th y are conceived in the wo nb, min of learning take
charge of them. These go to the mother and ostensibly sing a charm te ding to make
the birth happy for mother and child, but in reality convey certain virtuo is counsels
and suggestions; the women who listen most willingly are held to be the most fortunate
in child-bearing. After birth, the boys pass from one set of teachers to another ia
succession, the standard of teachers rising with the age of the boy. The philosophers
spend their days in a grove near the city, under the cover of an enclosure of due size, on
bed of leaves and skins, living sparely, practising celibacy and abstinence from flesh.
food, listening to grave discourse, and adinitting such others to the discussion as may
wish to take part. He who listens is forbidden to speak, or even to clear his throat or
spit, on pain of being ejected from the company that very day, as incontinent. When
each Biābman has lived in this fashion thirty-seven years, he departs to his own pro.
perty, and lives now in greater freedom and luxury, wearing muslin robes and some de-
cent ornaments of gold on his hands and ears, eating flesh, so long as it is not the flesh
of di mestic animals, but abstaining from pungent and highly-seasoned food. They marry
as many wives as possible, to secure good progeny; for the large number of wives,
the larger number of good childern is likely to be ; and since they have no slaves,
they depend all the more upon the ministrations of their childern, as the nearest subs-
titute. The Bıābrans do not admit their wives to their philosophy; if the wives are
wanton, they might divulge mysteries to the profane; if they are good, they might leave
their husbands, since no one who has learnt to look with contempt upon pleasure and
pain, upon life and death, will care to be under another's control. The chief subject
on which the Brālmans talk is death ; for this present life, they hold, is like the sea.
son passed in the womb, and death for those who have cultivated philosophy is the
birth into the real, the happy life. For this reason they follow an extensive dis-
cipline to make them ready for death. None of the accidents, they say, which befall
1 Strabo XV, C.
activities which a Greek resident at Pāšalip'ıra could see going on round
about him in the third century B. C.
The first class of Megasthenes consisted of 'philosophers,' under
which term, as has just been said, Brāhmans and ascetics were confused,
It was numerically the smallest class, but the highest in honour, immune
from labour and taxation. Its only business was to perform public sacrifice,
to direct the sacrifice of private individuals, and to divine. On the New
Year all the philosophers assembled at the king's doors and made
predictions with a view to guiding agriculture or politics. If any one's
prophecy was falsified by the event, he had to keep silence for the rest
of his life. These wise men pass their days naked, exposed in winter
to the cold and in summer to the sun, in the fields and the swamps and
under enormous trees. . . . . . They eat the fruits of the earth and the bark of
the trees, which is no less agreeable to the taste and no less nourishing
than dates. The second class cɔnsisted of the cultivators, and included the
majority of the Indian people. They never took any part in war, their
whole business being to cultivate the soil and pay taxes, to the kings or to
the free cities, as the case might be. Wars rolled past them. At the
very time when a battle was going on, the neighbouring cultivators might
be seen quietly pursuing their work of ploughing or digging, unmolested
All the land belonged to the king, and the cultivators paid one fourh
of the produce in addition to rent. The third class Megasthenes described
as herdsmen and hunters. They lived a nomad life in the jungle; and
on the hills, but brought a certain proportion of their cattle to the cities
as tribute. They also received in return for their services a grant of corn
from the king. It is easy to recognise in the description low-caste people,
who in ancient Pāšaliputra, as in a modern Indian city, were to be seen
performing certain services to the civilized community. The fourth class
consisted of the traders, artisans, and boatmen. They paid a tax on
the produce of their industry, except those who manufactured implements
of war and built ships. These, on the other hand, received a subsidy from
the royal exchequer. The fifth class was that of the fighters, the most
numerous class after the cultivators. They performed no work in the
1 Megasth. Frags. 35 and 36=Arr. Ind. 11f. ; Strabo XV, C. 703 V. inf. , Chapter
XIX.
## p. 369 (#407) ############################################
xvi]
PĀT ALI PUTRA
369
community except that of fighting. Members of the other classes supplied
them with weapons and waited upon them and kept their horses and
elephants. They received regular pay even in time of peace, so that when
not fighting they could live in a life of ease and maintain numbers of
dependents. The sixth and seventh classes of Megasthenes cannot have
formed castes in any sense. The sixth consists of thie government secret
inspectors, whose business it was to report to the king, or among the free
tribes, to the headmen, what went on among the people, and the seventh of
those constituting the council of the king or the tribal authorities. 'In
numbers this class is a small one, but it is distinguished for wisdom and
probity. For which reason there are chosen from among it the magistrates,
the chiefs of districts, the deputy governors, the keepers of the treasury.
the army superintendents, the admirals, the high stewards, and the over-
seers of agriculture. ' When Megasthenes, in talking about the fixity of
these classes, stated that the only exception to the law which forbade a
man changing his class was that any one might become a 'wise man', he
was saying something which was true only if by 'wise man' we understand
an ascetic, not a Brāhman. A sense of the difference between Brāhmans
living in the world and ascetics is implied in the statement of Nearchus
that Indian 'sophists' were divided into Brāhmans, who followed the king
as councillors, and the men who 'studied Nature'2.
We may see something of the aspect of the country, as Megasthenes
travelled through it, from his description of the towns built high above the
level floods. ‘All their towns which are down beside the rivers or the sea
are made of wood ; for towns built of brick’ (i. e. sun-dried mud bricks)
‘would never hold out for any length of time with the rains on the one
hand, and, on the other, the rivers which rise above their banks and spread
a sheet of water over the plains. But the towns which are built on elevated
places out of reach, these are made of brick and clay3. ' Of Pāțaliputra
itself Megasthenes left a summary description. Built at the confluence of
the Ganges and the Son, it formed an oblong, 80 stades by 15 stades (9}
miles by 1 m. 1270 yds. ) surrounded by a wooden palisade, with loop-
holes for the archers to shoot through, and outside the palisade a ditch,
30 cubits (about 60 feet) deep by 6 plethra (200 yards) wide, which served
both for defence and as a public sewer. Along the palisade were towers at
intervals, 570 in all, and 64 gates“. FIe also described the palace of the
great Indian king, no less sumptuous and magnificent than the palaces of
Susa and Ecbatana. Attached to it was a goodly park,
in which were tame peacocks and pheasants. . . There were shadygroves and trees set in
clumps and branches woven together by some special cunning of horticulture. And the
1 Frag. 35=Arr. Ind. 12, 9. 2 Nearchus, Frag. 7=Strabo XV, C. 716.
3 Megasth. Frag. 26=Arr. Ind. 10. 4 Megasth. Frag . 25=Strabo XV, C. 702.
## p. 370 (#408) ############################################
370
[CH.
INDIA IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE
more impressive thing about the beauty of that climate is that the trees themselves
are of the sort that are always green ; they never grow old and never shed their leaves.
Some of them are native, and some are brought from other lands with great care, and
these adorn the place and give it glory-only not the olive ; the olive does not grow
of itself in India, and, if it is transported there, it dies. Birds are there, free and un-
confined ; they come of their own accord and have their nests and roosting-places in
the branches, both birds of other kinds and parrots which are kept there and flock in
bevies about the king, . . . In this royal pleasance there are lovely tanks may by hand of
men, with fishes in them very large and gentle, and nobody made catch them except
the sons of thë king, when they are yet children. In this water, as tranquil and as
safe as any can be, they fish and play and learn to swim all at the sam
ime timel.
Megasthenes noted down a variety of points which struck
him in the manners and customs of the people. A noble simplicity seemed
to him the predominant characteristicº. Nearchus seems to have described
the dress of the people in the Indus region. They wore clothes of cotton,
and this linen from the trees is of a more shining white than any other linen, unless it
be that the people themselves being dark make the linen appear all the whiter. They have
a tunic of tree-linen down to the middle of their shins, and two other pieces of stuff,
one thrown about their shoulders and one twisted round their heads. And the Indians
wear ear. rings of ivory, those that are very well-off. . . Also they dye their beards diffe.
rent colours, some so as to make them appear as white as white may be, and some
dyeing them blue black; others make them crimson, and others purple, and others
green. In the summer they protect themselves with umbrellas, those of the Indians
that is to say, who are not too low to be considered. They wear shoes of white leather
very elaborately worked ; and the soles of the shoes are variegated, and high-heeled
so as to make the wearer seem taller3.
Megasthenes observed at Pāțaliputra that in dress the Indians, for
all their general simplicity, indulged a love of richness and bright colours,
wearing ornaments of gold and gems and flowered muslins, with umbrellas
carried after them.
Nearchus described their guise in war. The foot-soldiers carried a
bow as long as the body. To shoot, they rested one end of it on the ground
and set their left foot against it. They had to draw the string far back,
since the arrows in use were six feet long. In their left hands they carried
long narrow shields of raw hide, nearly co-extensive with the body. Some
had javelins instead of bows. All carried long two-handed swords with a
broad blade. The horsemen had two javelins and a shield smaller than the
foot soldiers".
Their diet was distinguished from the Greek by the absence of wine,
which they drank only in religious ceremonies; but rice-beer was generally
1 Aelian, Nat. Anim. XIII, 18.
2 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 709.
3 Nearchus, Frags. 9 and 10= Arr. Ind. 16.
4 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C, 709.
5 Nearchus, Frag. 7=Arr. Ind. 16 ; Strabo XV, C, 716,
.
## p. 371 (#409) ############################################
XVI]
LAWS AND CUSTOMS
371
drunk. Their staple food was pulpy rice (öpvča podrá). Each man took
his food by himself when be felt inclined ; for they had no fixed times for
common meals'. When a man would sup, a table was placed beside him
and a gold dish set upon it, in which first was put the rice, boiled after the
manner of the Greek chondros ( gruel ), and then on the top of it seasoned
meats, done up in the Indian way? . Their system of gymnastic exercise
differed from that of the Greeks : it consisted principally of massage, and
they used smooth rollers of ebony for shaping their bodies.
Megasthenes, ignorant as he was of Indian languages, could say little.
of the literature and thought of the country. He only observed the much
greater part played by oral tradition and memory, as compared with written
documents, than was the case in the Greek world, though he cannot have
asserted that writing was unknown, as Strabo would seem to imply-since in
one passage he refers to written inscriptions". In the sphere of morals it is
interesting to notice that the salient characteristic of the Indian people
seemed to this early European observer to be a high level of veraeity and
honesty. Any Indian has never been convicted of lying', he wrote in one
passage, and in another pointed to the rarity of law-suits as evidence of
their frank dealing. They are not litigious. Witnesses and seals are
unnecessary when a man makes a deposit ; he acts in trust. Their houses
are usually unguarded'. During the time that Megasthenes was on
Chandragupta's camp, out of a multitude of 400,000 men there were no
convictions for thefts of any sums exceeding 200 drachmas ( about £8). In
Sind, Onesicritus said, no legal action could be taken, except for murder
and assault. "We cannot help being murdered or assaulted, whereas it is
our fault if we give our confidence and are swindled. We ought to be
more circumspect at the outset and not fill the city with litigation. '
The laws, Nearchus said, were preserved by oral tradition, not in
books' - a statement only relatively true. According to Megasthenes many
of them were sufficiently severe. A man convicted of giving false witness
suffered mutilation. In the case of bodily harm being inflicted, not only
was the principle of an eye for an eye observed, but the hand was cut off
as well. To cause a craftsman the loss of his eye or hand was an offence
punished by death. 10
1 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 709.
2 Megasth. Frag. 28=Athenaeus IV, 153 D.
3 Frag. 27.
4 Megasth. Frags. 26, 27=Arr. Ind. 10; Strabo XV, C. 709; cf. Rhys Davids,
Buddhist India, p. 109 f.
5 For the use of writing at this period see Chapter XIX.
Megasth. Frag. 35=Arr. Ind. 12, 5. Cf, Max Müller, India, what can it teach
us ? pp. 34 f.
7 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 709.
8 Strabo XV, C. 702.
9 Nearchus, Frag. 7=Strabo XV, C. 716.
10 Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 710,
6
## p. 372 (#410) ############################################
372
[CH.
INDIA IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE
The cultivation of lands by a whole kinship working in association
was noted by Nearchus. Each individual at the ingathering took as much
.
as was calculated to support him for a year, and the remainder of the
common stock was destroyed, so as not to encourage idleness? .
The customs would naturally differ considerably from one region to
another in India, then as row. Among the Kshatriyas of the Punjab
(Cathaeans) and their neighbours of the principality of Saubhūti (the region
of Gurdāspur and Amritsar ? ), according to Onesicritus, personal beauty
was held in such estimation that kings were chosen for this quality, and a
child two months after birth, if it did not reach a certain standard of
comeliness, was exposed. The dyeing of beards which Nearchus described
in the passage already quoted was especially a custom in this part? .
Of the marriage system in India Megasthenes only understood that
it was polygamous, and that brides were purchased from their parents for
a yoke of oxen'. He seems also to have asserted that, where conjugal
infidelity in a wife was due to a husband's omission to exercise vigorous
control, it was condoned by public opinion' At Takshaçilā, according to
Aristobulus, a man unable to get his daughter married on account of
poverty would sell her in the market-place”.
Nearchus stated that among
certian Indian peoples a girl was put up as the prize of victory in a boxing
match ; the victor obtained her without paying a price. The custom by
which the virtuous wife (suttee, sati) was burnt with her husband's body on
the funeral pyre naturally struck the Greeks. Onesicritus spoke of it as
specially a custom of the Kshatriyas (Cathaeans)? Aristobulus was told
that the widow sometimes followed her husband to the pyre of her own de-
sire, and that those who refused to do so lived under general contempts. In
the year 316 F. C. the leader of an Indian contingent which had gone
to fight under Eumenes in Iran was killed in battle. He had with him his
two wives. There was immediately a con petition between them as to which
was to be the sati. The question was brought before the Macedonian and
Greek generals, and they decided in favour of the younger, the elder being
with child. At this the elder woman
1 Nearchus, Frag. 7=Strabo XV, C. 716.
2 Onesicr. Frag. 18=Strabo XV, C. 699. Cf. Diod. XVII, 91.
3 Cf. Chapter X, p. 209.
4 The sentence is somewhat obscure- ει δε μη σωφρουειυ αυαγκασαλευ,
El
To pueuel Etectl, Megasth. Frag. 27=Strabo XV, C. 709.
5 Aristob. Frag. 34= Strabo IV, C. 714.
6 Nearch. Frag. 7=Strabo XV, C. 716. This may refer to the Kshatriya institu-
tion svayamvara or ‘self-choice. ' A princess chose her husband from among the assem.
bled suitors of her on free will or as the result of a contest in the use of war-like arms.
7 Strabo XV, C. 700.
8 Aristob. Frag. 34=Strabo XV, C. 714
1
## p. 373 (#411) ############################################
XVI]
THE KING
373
а
went away lamenting, with the band about her head rent, and tearing her hair as if
tidings of some great disaster has been brought her; and the other departed, exultant at
her victory, to the pyre crowned with fillets by the worden who belonged to her and deck-
ed out splendidly as for a wedding. She was escorted by her kinsfolk who chanted a
song in praise of her virtue. When she came near to the pyre, she took off her adornments
and distributed them to her familiars and friends, leaving a memorial of herself, as it were,
to those who had loved her. Her adornments consisted of a multitude of rings on her
hands set with precious gems of diverse colours, about her head golden stars not a few,
variegated with different sorts of stones, and about her neck a multitude of necklaces,
each a little larger than the one above it. In conclusion, she said farewell to her familiars
and was helped by her brother onto the pyre, and there to the admiration of the crowd
which had gathered together for the spectacle she ended her life in heroic fashion. Before
the pyre was kindled, the whole army in battle array marched round it thrice. She mean.
while lay down beside her husband, and as the fire seized her no sound of wtakess escaped
her lips. The spectators were moved, some to pity and some to exuberant praise. But
some of the Greeks present found fault with such customs as savage and inhumanel.
The Greeks, we find, had a theory to account for the custom, whether of
their own invention or suggested to them by Indian informants we cannot
say. The theory was that once upon a time wives had been so apt to get
rid of their husbands by poison that the law had to be introduced which
compelled a widow to be burnt with her dead husband? .
As to the disposal of the dead, the absence of funeral display and of
imposing monuments seemed strange to the Greeks. The virtus of the
dead-so they understood the Indians to say, were sufficient monument
and the songs which were sung over them. When the Greeks tell us that
the dead were exposed to vultures, we can only understand it of certain
people near the frontier who had influenced by the customs of Irān“.
The assertion of the Greeks that slavery was unknown in India-or,
according to Onesicritus, was unknown in the kingdom of Musicanus
(Upper Sind). - is curious. That slavery was a regular institution in India
is certain. Indian slavery must have looked so different to a Greek
observer from the slavery he knew at home that de did not recognise it
for what it was.
As to the government, the king himself is, of course, the prominent
figure. He took the field with his army in war : in peace his publio
appearances were of three kinds. In the first place, he spent a considerable
part of the day in hearing the cases brought to him for judgment. Even at
his hour for undergoing the massage with ebony rollers he did not retire, but
went on listening to the pleadings whilst four masseurs plied their art upon
1 Diod. XIX, 34. This description contains many resemblances to the account
of the Sati in the Harshacharita of Bāņa (trans. Cowell and Thomas, pp. 150 f. )
2 Strabo XV, C. 700; Diod. XIX, 33.
3 Megasth. Frags. 26, 27=Arr. Ind. 10 ; Strabo XV, C. 710.
4 Aristobulus seems to have attributed the custom to Takshaçilā, Frag. 34-
Strabo XV, C. 714.
Megasth. Frags. 26, 27; Onesic. Frag. 20=Arr. Ind. 10; Strabo XV, C. 710.
## p. 374 (#412) ############################################
374
[CH,
INDIA IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE
him. In the second place, he came forth to perform sacrifice, and in the
third place to go a-hunting. His going forth to the chase was like the
processions of Dionysus. The road of the royal cortege was roped off from
common spectators. There was the king surrounded by a crowd of his
women, theniselves carrying weapons, in chariots, on horses, on el phants,
the body-guard enclosing them all in a larger circle, and a band with drums
and bells going on in front. Sometimes the king shot from a platform de-
fended by a stockade, sometimes from the back of an elephant. Within
the doors of the place, the king's person was tended by the women of his
zenana, bought for a price from their fathers. But he was not beyond
the reach of danger. A stern custom ordained that should he become in-
toxicated, any of his women who killed him should receive special kon-
our. And even though he remained sober, he had, like the late Sultan
Abdul Hamid, to be continually changing the place where he lay at night,
in order to evade conspirators.
Nearches (? ) had already noted that Indian kings were not saluted,
as Persian kings were, by postration, but by the persons approaching
them raising their hands -- the Greek attitude in prayer? . A great cccasion
at court, according to one source before Strabo, was when the king
washed his hair. Everyone then tried to outdo his fellows by the magnifi-
cence of his presents? Clitarchus- a questionable authority-described
the pageantry of a court festival -- the elephants be dizened with gold and
silver chariots drawn by horses, and ox-waggons, the army in full array
the display of previous vessels of gold and silver, many of them studded with
gems. Co'lections of animals of all kinds were also a great feature, panthers
and lions. There were great waggons carrying whole trees to which a variety
of birds bright in plumage or lovely in song were attached'. Animals, ac-
cording to another source, were a useful form of offering to bring to the
king. "The Indians do not think lightly of any animal, tame or wild. ' And
the king apparently accepted all kinds, not rare ones only, but cranes and
geese and ducks and pigeons. Or one might bring wild ones, deer and
antelopes or rhinoceroses”. On one great annual festival amusement took
the form of butting matches between rams or wild bulls or rhinoceroses,
or fights between elephants. Races provoked great excitement. They
usually took place between chariots to each of which one horse between
two oxen was harnessed. There was very heavy betting on these ccca-
sions, in which the king himself and his nobles led the way. And their
example was followed on a humbler scale by the crowd of spectators". The
1 Megasth. Frag, 17=Strabo XV, C, 710.
2 Strabo XV, C. 717.
3 Strabo XV, C. 718.
4 Clitarch. Frag. 17=Strabo XV, C. 718.
5 Aelian, Nat. Anim. XII, 25; compare the list of presents sent to the king in
the Harshncharita (trans Cowell and Thomas, pp. 213-5).
Aelian, Nat. Anim. XV, 15. 7 Aelian, Nat. Anim. XV, 24,
3
## p. 375 (#413) ############################################
XVI]
OFFICIALS
375
king-jf Megasthenes is the source, we may understand Chandragupta --
had a guard of twenty-four elephants. When he went forth to do justice,
the first elephant was trained to do obeisance. At a word from the
driver and a touch with the goad, it gave some military salute as the king
passed".
The predecessors of Chandragupta, whose line he supplanted, had
borne, Megasthenes said, beside their personal names, the royal name
Pataliputra, and Chandragupta had assumed it also when he seized the
throne.
The account which Megasthenes gave of the various officials points to
a highly organised bureaucracy. They were, he said, of three kinds : (1)
Agronomio[surely à ypououou should be read for a'yopavouo. ), district officials;
(2) astynomoi, town officials ; and (3) members of the War Office. The
duties of the first kind were to supervise (1) irrigation and land-measure-
ment, (2) hunting, (3) the various industries connected with agriculture,
forestry, work in timber, metal-foundries, and mines, and they had (4) to
maintain the roads and see that at every ten stadia ( the sixth part of a
yojana? ) there was a milestone, indicating the distancest (this is the passage
which proves that Megasthenes did not mean to assert a general ignorance
of the art of writing in India). The second kind, the town officials, were
divided into six Boards of Five. Their respective functions were (1) super-
vision of factories, (2) care of strangers, including control of the inns, pro-
vision of assistants, taking charge of sick persons, burying the dead, (3)
the registration of births and deaths, (4) the control of the market, inspec-
tion of weights and measures, (5) the inspection of manufactured goods,
provision for their sale with accurate distinction of new and second-hand
articles, (6) collection of the tax of 10 per cent, charged on sales. The six
Boards acting together exercised a general superintendence over public
works, prices, harbours, and temples. The third kind of officials consti-
tuted the War Office, and were also divided into six Boards of Five. The
departments of the six were (1) the admiralty, (2) transport and commis-
sariat, (3) the infantry, (4) the cavalry, (5) the chariots, (6) the elephants.
Connected with the army were the royal stables for horses and elephants,
and the royal arsenal. A soldier's weapons and horse were not his own
property, but the king's and they went back to the arsenal and the royal
stables at the conclusion of a campaign'.
As to industries, it is curious that these early European observers
should tax Indians with being backward in the scientific development of
the resources of their country. They had for instance, good mines of gold and
1 Aelian, Nat. Anim. XIII, 22. Cf. Chapter XIX.
2 Megasth. Frag. 25= Strabo XV, C. 702.
3 Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, p. 265
4 Cf. Strabo XV, C. 689.
5 Megasth. Frag. 36A=Strabo XV, C. 707.
a
## p. 376 (#414) ############################################
376
[CH.
INDIA IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE
silver, yet the Indians, inexperienced in the arts of mining and smelting,
do not even know their own resources, but set about the business in too
primitive a way'l. They do not pursue accurate knowledge in any line,
except that of medicire ; in the case of some arts, it is even accounted
vicious to carry their study far, the art of war, for instance? . ' On the other
hand, Nearchus spoke of the cleverness of the Indian craftsmen. They saw
sponges used for the first time by the Macedonians and immediately
manufactured imitations of them with fine thread and wool, dyeing them to
look the same. Other Greek articles, such as the scrapers and oil-fiasks
used by athletes they quickly learnt to make. For writing letters, they used
some species of fine tissue closely woven. They also used only cast bronze,
but not hammered, so that their vessels broke like earthenware, if they fells.
About the Indian ‘philosophers' Megasthenes had a good deal to say.
They might be divided on
one principle according as they dwelt in
the mountains and worshipped Dionysus (Çiva) or in the plains and
worshipped Heracles (Kțishņa), but the more significant division was that
into Brāhmans, and 'Sarmanes. '
The Brāhmans have the greatest prestige, since they have a m ra consistent
dogmatic system. As soon as th y are conceived in the wo nb, min of learning take
charge of them. These go to the mother and ostensibly sing a charm te ding to make
the birth happy for mother and child, but in reality convey certain virtuo is counsels
and suggestions; the women who listen most willingly are held to be the most fortunate
in child-bearing. After birth, the boys pass from one set of teachers to another ia
succession, the standard of teachers rising with the age of the boy. The philosophers
spend their days in a grove near the city, under the cover of an enclosure of due size, on
bed of leaves and skins, living sparely, practising celibacy and abstinence from flesh.
food, listening to grave discourse, and adinitting such others to the discussion as may
wish to take part. He who listens is forbidden to speak, or even to clear his throat or
spit, on pain of being ejected from the company that very day, as incontinent. When
each Biābman has lived in this fashion thirty-seven years, he departs to his own pro.
perty, and lives now in greater freedom and luxury, wearing muslin robes and some de-
cent ornaments of gold on his hands and ears, eating flesh, so long as it is not the flesh
of di mestic animals, but abstaining from pungent and highly-seasoned food. They marry
as many wives as possible, to secure good progeny; for the large number of wives,
the larger number of good childern is likely to be ; and since they have no slaves,
they depend all the more upon the ministrations of their childern, as the nearest subs-
titute. The Bıābrans do not admit their wives to their philosophy; if the wives are
wanton, they might divulge mysteries to the profane; if they are good, they might leave
their husbands, since no one who has learnt to look with contempt upon pleasure and
pain, upon life and death, will care to be under another's control. The chief subject
on which the Brālmans talk is death ; for this present life, they hold, is like the sea.
son passed in the womb, and death for those who have cultivated philosophy is the
birth into the real, the happy life. For this reason they follow an extensive dis-
cipline to make them ready for death. None of the accidents, they say, which befall
1 Strabo XV, C.
