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THE DISCOVERY OF INDIA BY THE GREEKS
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servations during his stay in the capital. In general it agrees with Indian texts with a few exceptions. No Indian source tells us that a woman who kills the king when drunk becomes the wife of his successor. This, of course, is something which Megasthenes cannot have observed himself, but must be based on oral information which was probably misunderstood. Other typical details, however, as for instance the fact that the king was rubbed with cylinders of wood while he is acting as judge, must have been witnessed by Megasthenes. Although they are not confirmed by Indian sources, there is no reason to doubt their reliability. One of the problems in checking the truthfulness of Megasthenes' information is connected with the fact that there are no Indian texts of which it can be said with certainty that they describe Indian society at the time of Megasthenes. Much information on Indian society is found in the dharmasastras, but their usefulness is diminished by the fact that they give an ideal image of society. Moreover, although they contain older elements, they belong to a later period. One extremely important source on ancient Indian society is a work which was discovered only in 1909, the Arthaśastra. This work is attributed to Kautilya or Canakya or Viṣṇugupta, the minister of king Candragupta. When this work was first discovered, it was considered to be of great importance for a better knowledge of Indian society in Mauryan times. Soon, howdoubts were raised concerning the attribution of this work to the minister of Candragupta. Several scholars, especially Otto Stein (Megasthenes und Kautilya, Wien, 1921) and Bernhard Breloer (Das Grundeigentum, in Indien, Bonn, 1927; Altindisches Privatrecht bei Megasthenes und Kautalya, Bonn, 1928; Finanzverwaltung und Wirtschaftsführung, Leipzig, 1934) have carefully compared Megasthenes' work with the Arthaśāstra. The considerable differences between these two works have been explained as being due to Megasthenes' misrepresentations of Indian facts. However, other scholars tried to prove that the Arthaśāstra was not written 300 B. C., but much later and that, in the second place, it does not describe the actual state of affairs even at a lat
ever,
