Indian Antiquary Vol 06

SR No.: 032498
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 458
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 21 MB

Page 171

May, 1877.]
THE INDIRA OF MEGASTHENES.
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Mount of Mother Dindumône, falls into the sea through Europe, can for a moment be compared. near the Æolian city of Smyrna. There is also Nay, the whole of these if combined all into the Lydian plain of the Kaüstros, named one are not equal even to the Indos, which is after that Lydian river; and another, that of the already a large river where it rises from its Kaikos, in Mysia; and one also in Karia, fountains, and which after receiving as tribn. that of the Maiandros, which extends even to taries fifteen rivers all greater than those of Miletos, which is an Ionian city. [As for Egypt, Asia, and bearing off from its rival the honour both the historians Herodotos and Hekataios (or of giving name to the country, falls at last into at any rate the author of the work on Egypt if the sea.* he was other than Hekataios) alike agree in de
FRAGM. III. claring it to be the gift of the Nile, so that that
Arr. Indica, II. 1.7. country was perhaps even called after the river;
Of the Boundaries of India.t for in early times Aiguptos was the name of (For this fragment see Indian Antiquary, vol. V. the river which now-a-days both the Egyptians p. 86, chap. II.) and other nations call the Nile, as the words
FRAGM. IV. of Homer clearly prove, when he says that
Strabo, XV. i. 11,--p. 689. Menelaos stationed his ships at the mouth of Of the Boundaries and Extent of India. the river Aiguptos. If, then, there is but a India is bounded on the north by the extresingle river in each plain, and these rivers, mities of Tauros, and from Ariana to the though by no means large, are capable of Eastern Sea by the mountains which are variously forming, as they flow to the sea, much new land, called by the natives of these regions Para paby carrying down silt from the uplands, where mis os, and Hem ôdos, and Himao s, and their sources are, it would be unreasonable to other names, but by the Macedonians Kaureject the belief in the case of India that a great kaso s. The boundary on the west is the part of it is a level plain, and that this plain is river Indus, but the southern and eastern sides, formed from the silt deposited by the rivers, which are both much greater than the others, seeing that the Hermos, and the Kaüstros, and run out into the Atlantic Ocean. The shape of the Kaikos, and the Maiandros, and all the many the country is thus rhomboïdal, since each of rivers of Asia which fall into the Mediterranean, the greater sides exceeds its opposite side by even if united, would not be fit to be compared 3000 stadia, which is the length of the proin volume of water with an ordinary Indian montory common to the south and the east river, and much less with the greatest of them coast, which projects equally in these two direcall, the Ganges, with which neither the Egyp- tions. [The length of the western side, measured tian Nile, nor the Danube which flows from the Kaukasian mountains to the southern
• Strabo, XV. 1. 82, p. 700.-(All the rivers mentioned tance in some places exceeds 30,000 stadia"! by which he (the last of which is the Hapanis) unite in one, the Indus. quite excludes Megasthenes from this opinion. And at They say that fifteen considerable rivers, in all, flow into it. p. 72, where he mentions the 30,000 stadia of Deimachos, t Cons. Epit. 1, and for notes on the same see vol. V. p.
he does not say a word of Megasthenes. But it must be 330.-ED.
certain that 16,000 stadia is the only measure Megastheni's I Conf. Epit. 1, 2. Pliny (Hist. Nat. VI. 31. 2) states that gave of the breadth of India. For not only Strabo (p. 669) India extends from north to south 28,150 thousand paces.
and Arrian (Ind. iii. 7) have not quoted a larger number This number, though it is not exactly equal to 22,300 stadia,
from Megasthenes, but Hipparchos also (Strabo, p. 69),but to 22,800, nevertheless approaches the number given by
where he shows that Patroklės is unworthy of confidence, Megasthenea nearer than any other. From the numbers
because he has given smaller dimensions for India than which both Arrian (Ind. iii. 8) and Strabo (pp. 68-69, 690)
Megasthenes-only mentions the measure of 16,000 stadia; give, Diodorus differs remarkably, for he says the breadth
where, for what Hipparchos wanted, the greatest number extends to 28,000, and the length to 32,000 stadia. It
was the most suitable for his proof. I think the numbers would be rash to deny that Megasthenés may also have were augmented because Megasthenes regarded as Indian, indicated the larger numbers of Diodorus, for Arrian
"Kabul and that part of Ariana which Chandragupta had (Ind. iij. 7-8) adds to the number the words " where
taken from Seleukos; and on the north the frontier nations shortest and where narrowest;" and Strabo (p. 689) Uttarakuras, which he mentions elsewhere. What Megas. has added to the expression of the breadth the words "at
thenés said about the breadth of India remained fixed the shortest," and, referring to Megasthenes and Deima
throughout the whole geography of the Greeks, so that not chor, says distinctly “who state that in some places the even Ptolemy, who says India extends 16,800 stadia, differs distance from the southern sea is 20,000 stadia, and in
much from it. But bis measure of length has either been others 30,000 (pp. 68-69). There can be no doubt, however, rejected by all, for fear of opposing the ancient opinion, that Megasthenes regarded the smaller, and Deimachos
that the torrid zone could not be inhabited, or (like Hipthe larger number correct; for the larger seemed to
parchus) erroneously carried it much too far to the northArrian unworthy of mention, and Strabo (p. 690) says Schwanbeck, pp. 29, 30, n. 24. decidedly, "Megasthenis and Deimachos incline to be $ Schmieder enggests Thaos in Arrian. more moderate in their estimate, for according to them ii.e. The Himála yas. the distance from the southern sea to Caucasus is over The world was anciently regarded as an island sur. 90,000 stadia: Deimachos, however, allows that the dis- rounded by the Atlantic Sea.