How is “Indica” an important source of information of India? Give an example of information we got from it?
Answers
Answer:
Indika is an account of Mauryan India by the Greek writer Megasthenes. The original book is now lost, but its fragments have survived in later Greek and Latin works. The earliest of these works are those by Diodorus Siculus, Strabo (Geographica), Pliny, and Arrian
Explanation:
A. Schwanbeck traced several fragments to Megasthenes, and based on his collection, John Watson McCrindle published a reconstructed version of Indica in 1887. However, this reconstruction is not universally accepted. Schwanbeck and McCrindle attributed several fragments in the writings of the 1st century BCE writer Diodorus to Megasthenes. However, Diodorus does not mention Megasthenes even once, unlike Strabo, who explicitly mentions Megasthenes as one of his sources. There are several differences between the accounts of Megasthenes and Diodorus: for example, Diodorus describes India as 28,000 stadia long from east to west; Megasthenes gives this number as 16,000. Diodorus states that Indus may be the world's largest river after Nile; Megasthenes