Dr.Arvind Sharma
The
Greek accounts of India have proved a useful resource of enhancing
our knowledge of ancient India. They, however, also pose a problem.
They contain elements which are frankly mythical. Examples: women
who bear children at the age of six,[1] men without mouths or
noses,[2] men with ears large enough to sleep in[3] or with only
one leg[4] or eye, or rivers in which nothing floats,[5] and so
on.
The
way that these cases are handled by historians seems to indicate
that the politics of representation perhaps inadvertently comes
into play. This is suggested by a comparison of the way in which
such examples are handled by a European and an Indian historian.
One
European historian who addresses this issue at various points,
in his discussion of these accounts, is E.R. Bevan. A review of
this material yields the following points: (1) he connects the
ancient Greeks with modern Europeans as their predecessors on
the basis of rationalism;[6] (2) he clearly acknowledges the mythical
elements of the most blatant examples, even accusing some sources
of being “creatively mendacious”.[7] This is one way
in which he deals with such material – by using modern rationalism
on it. (3) Nevertheless, he presents such material, whenever possible,
within the framework of Greek rationalism. Thus he writes:
Perhaps
what Herodotus says is less remarkable than what he does not say.
For of the monstrous races which Scylax and Hetataeus before him,
which Casias and Megasthenes after him, made an essential part
of the Indian world, Herodotus says not a word. Hellenic rationalism
took in him the form of good sense.[8]
Heracles
the Greeks seemed to themselves discover in Krishna. It was an
accidental variation that the Greek legend represented him as
having been born in Thebes and the Indians claimed him as sprung
from the Indian earth. ‘This Heracles,’ according to
Megathenes, ‘was especially worshipped by the Suraseni, an
Indian people (the Surasenas), where there are two great cities,
Methora (Mathura, Muttra) and Clisbora (Krishnapura), and a navigable
river, the Jobanes (Jumna), flows through their country. The garb
worn by this Heracles was the same as that of the Theban Heracles,
as the Indians themselves narrate; a great number of male children
were born to him in India (for this Heracles also married many
women) and one only daughter. Her name was Pandaea, and the country
where she was born and which Heracles gave her to rule is called
Pandaea after her [the Pandya kingdom in South India] She had
by her father’s gift five hundred elephants, four thousand
horsemen, and 130,000 foot-soldiers….and the Indians tell
a story that when Heracles knew his end was near, and had no one
worthy to whom he might give his daughter in marriage, he wedded
her himself, though she was only seven years old, so that a line
of Indian kings might be left of their issue. Heracles then bestowed
on her miraculous maturity, and from this act it comes that all
the race over whom Pandaea ruled, has this characteristic by grace
of Heracles.’ Our Greek author tells the story with some
disgust and observes impatiently that, if Heracles could do as
much as this, he might presumably prolonge his own life a little.
All this mythology, we may notice, the more critical Greeks, such
as Eratosthenes and Strabo, were as prompt as any modern European
rationalist to regard as unhistorical.[9]
(4)
In some case he offers creative suggestions as to how the statements
might make sense after all. Two examples may be cited:
Of
the gods worshipped by the Indians the Greeks learnt little. One
writer cited by Strabo (Clitarchus?) had asserted that they worshipped
Zeus Ombrios (Zeus of the Rain Storms), the river Ganges, and
local demons. As we have seen, Siva and Krishna are to be discerned
through the Greek names Dionysus and Heracles in some of the statements
of our sources. One member of Alexander’s suite, his chief
usher (e?sa??e?e?s), Chares of Mytilene, is quoted as saying the
Indians worshipped a god Soaroadeios, whose name being interpreted
meant ‘maker of wine’. It is recognized that the Indian
name which Chares must have heard was Suryadeva, ‘Sun-god.’
Some ill-educated interpreter must have been mislead by the resemblance
of surya ‘sun’ to sura ‘wine.’[10] Even Megasthenes
depended, of course, mainly upon his Indian informants for knowledge
of the peoples on the borders of the Indian world, and he therefore
repeated the fables as to the monstrous races with one leg, with
ears reaching to their feet and so on, which had long been current
in India and had already been communicated to the Greeks by Scylax
and Hacataeus and Ctesias. One would however like to know the
fact which lies behind this story that members of one tribe, living
near the sources of he Ganges, had been brought to the camp of
Chandragupta – ‘men of gentler manners – but without
a mouth! They lived on the fumes of roast meat and the smell of
fruits and flowers. And since nostrils with them took the place
of mouths, they suffered terribly from evil odours, and it was
difficult to keep them alive, especially in a camp!’ Does
the notice reflect some sect, who, like the Jains abstained from
all animal food and kept their mouths covered lest they should
breathe in minute insects?[11]
One
may now turn to the Indian side of the equation. The Indian historian
feels no need to presuppose Greek rationalism and to filter what
he sees through that prism. Thus while discussing the account
of Megasthenes, R.C. Majumdar notes that Megasthenes “Indika
or the collection of Fragments preserved in late writings, has
long enjoyed the reputation of being a rich mine of useful and
authentic information about India”,[12] but devotes an appendix
to an examination of these fragments and concludes:
It
would appear from what has been said there that the adverse comments
against Megasthenes by ancient writers like Strabo, Pliny and
Arrian are fully justified, and modern scholars have no right
or reason to ignore them. On the whole it is easy to distinguish
critical writers like Strabo and Arrian from the host of others
who preceded them and were justly condemned by them as credulous
and uncritical. The remarks of Strabo and Pliny, particularly
those quoted on pp. 246 ff., cannot be lightly dismissed, and
a modern historian should not accept any statement of the early
classical writers as true without corroborative evidence. This
also applies to the later writers who seem to have derived much
of their information from older sources. The unreliable character
of the classical accounts is best shown by the mutually contradictory
and palpably wrong statements about he absence of slavery, ignorance
of writing, etc., and the many absurd tales of men and beasts,
and unnatural phenomena solemnly reported by them.[13]
As
for the Greek accounts in general, R.C. Majumdar remarks:
In
the light of these observations what reliance can be placed on
those statements which appear to be unnatural or absurd on the
very face of them? Typical examples of such statements are furnished
by what Megasthenes says about the men and women of the Caucasus
(271), the statement of Aristoblulus about customs at Taxila (276),
the two statements, recorded by Strabo, namely ‘that the
women are permitted to prostitute themselves if the husbands do
not force them to be chaste’ (270) and ‘that a woman
who kills a King when he is drunk receives as her reward the privilege
of consorting with his successor’ (271); the statement of
Megasthenes that the women of the Pandaian realm bear children
at the age of six (455), and those seven years old are of marriageable
age (222), that the Pandaean nation is governed by females (458),
that the men who live the longest die at forty (223); that no
private person is permitted to keep a horse or elephant (264)
which is contradicted by another equally absurd statement of Nearchus
(266); that there is no remedy at law for recovering loan or deposit
(455), and the oft-repeated stories of gold-digging ants (2, 266).[14]
He
then goes on to say:
It
may be argued that some of these statements, however incredible
it might appear to us today, might well be true in those days.
Arrian, for example, had tried to show that the girls might be
marriageable at the age of seven (223). Even if we accept it,
the question arises, how far we are justified in believing in
them merely on the strength of assertions of persons whose credulity
and lack of critical sense have been proved beyond doubt. Writers
like Megasthenes, who could accept, as true stories of men without
any mouths or noses, or with ears large enough to sleep in (272),
of gold-digging ants (266), and of river Silas on which nothing
floats (219, 234) would easily believe in the stories of women
in Causasus and Pandai without any question. Those who can swallow
a camel would hardly strain at a gnat. It is interesting to note
that the classical writers themselves accuse each other of falsehood
and exaggeration.[15]
