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D. D. KOSAMBI.
regard as truly admirable. For the law ordains that no one among them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave, but that, enjoying freedom, they shall respect the equal right to it which all possess; for those (they thought) who have learned neither to domineer over nor to cringe to others will attain the life best adapted for all vicissitudes of lot. For it is but fair and reasonable to institute laws which bind all equally, but allow property to be unevenly distributed” (Diodorus Siculus ii. 39 end, M 38; my italics). The trouble here is not with Megasthenes, but with the sentimental and idealizing embroidery of Diodorus, proved by the utopian island which he reports as visited by one Iamboulos (ii. 55-60), at the end of the very same book; which may be a traveller's tale based upon the name of the island of Socotra, derived from sukha-dhārā, the land of bliss. There is no such concept of equality in what survives of Megasthenes nor in any Indian source. The case is made much worse by misleading translation, which I have italicized. The last sentence in C. Müller's Latin conveys exactly the opposite sense, namely that it would be the act of a simpleton to promulgate equal laws for all with unequal status and opportunity (between slave and free). The Greek euēthes and exousias anomalous are surely better represented by 'stultum' and 'inaequalitatem facultatum', than by the English phrases above.
The Greeks could not recognize slavery in India. “All the Indians are free, and not one of them a slave. The Lakedemonians and Indians here so far agree. The Lakedemonians, however, held the Helots as slaves and these Helots do servile labour; but the Indians do not even use aliens as slaves, and much less a countryman of their own" (Arrian, M 210-213). This is not to be doubted. The Greek doulos originally meant a slave by birth, to be distinguished from andrapodon13 the captive (taken in war or kidnapped) sold into slavery. Such war-prisoners were a legitimate and most valuable part of the booty in Greek and Roman campaigns. If the Indians had any such type of slavery, Megasthenes would certainly have known of it; he was the ambassador of Seleukos, who had just lost a war against Candragupta. We have already examined the tradition in India as regards slavery. The Arthasāstra forbids the sale of any one, even a sūdra, who lives as a free man and does not belong to some (obviously unimportant) recognized category of slaves. Inasmuch as the Greeks saw a parallel between Sparta and India, we have only to consider what Lakedemonian helotage had been originally, before approximating to slavery in a powerful slave-holding and slave-trading environment. “The Lakedemonians held the Helots as state-slaves in a way, having assigned to them certain settlements to live in and special services to perform” (Strabo, 8. 5.4; trans. Loeb Classics, H. L. Jones, 4.135). The
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13 The Arthaśāstra has a corresponding word, dripada=biped, grouped with the catuspada (Greek tetrapodon) as two-legged and four-legged animals for sale (-4 3.15). There is no doubt that some human beings were sold, as the context shows this to refer to humans, not poultry. But the main consideration is that they were unimportant as a source of labour, and A 3.13 shows mainly contract labourers whose rights are carefully protected, though they are däsas.
