The Historical Setting of Megasthenes' Indica

Abstract

T HE INDICA OF is justly famous.1 It contained the first eyewitness description of the Gangetic plain by any Westerner and documented a diplomatic meeting with Chandragupta, the founder of the Mauryan Empire.2 According to the traditional view, that meeting took place in 304/3 B.C., when Chandragupta's power was at its zenith; was the emissary of Seleucus Nicator, and helped negotiate the famous exchange of provinces for elephants that preceded the campaign of Ipsus.3 However, it is my contention that Megasthenes' diplomacy took place more than ten years previously, in the period 320-18, before Chandragupta's power extended to the Indus valley. At that time the Mauryan Empire did not exist. The India visited was still a variegated mosaic of polities. Independent peoples coexisted with minor princedoms. Two dynasts then stood head and shoulders above the rest, Porus on the Indus and Chandragupta on the Ganges, but neither could claim supremacy. One text is of crucial importance. It attests the meeting with Chandragupta, and also associates with Porus, the great dynast of the Punjab, who governed the Indus plains for Alexander and died around 318 B.C. Arrian (Ind. 5.3) states that went further than Alexander and his men and claimed to have visited Chandragupta. As the text is generally printed, it reads Megasthenes states that he met Sandracottus, the greatest king of the Indians, one who was still greater than Porus. On this reading Chandragupta is represented as the great empire builder, surpassing