Megasthenes’ Indica

Indica is an account of Mauryan India written by Megasthenes, a Greek ethnographer and geographer. He was sent as an ambassador by the Hellenistic king Seleucus I Nicator to the court of Chandragupta Maurya (referred to in Greek sources as Sandrocottus) in Pataliputra.

Textual Transmission and Nature of the Work

• Survival of the Text: The original text of Indica is completely lost to history. Its contents survive exclusively through fragments quoted, paraphrased, and critiqued by later classical Greek and Roman historians, geographers, and writers, including Strabo, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny the Elder, and Justin.
• Historical Reconstruction: In the 19th century, German scholar E. A. Schwanbeck collected these scattered fragments, which were later translated into English by J.W. McCrindle.
• Significance: Despite its observational errors, Indica provides the earliest systematic external eyewitness account of a centralized Indian empire’s political, social, and municipal administration.

Municipal Administration of Pataliputra

Megasthenes provides a detailed description of Pataliputra (Greek: Palibothra), the capital city situated at the confluence of the Ganga and Son rivers. He described it as a vast city shaped like a parallelogram, protected by a massive wooden palisade with 570 towers and 64 gates.

The Six Municipal Boards

According to Indica, the administration of the capital city was managed by a general commission of 30 members, divided into six boards of five members each:

Military Administration

Megasthenes notes that the Mauryan army was immense, comprising 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, 9,000 war elephants, and thousands of chariots.

• The Military Committee: Parallel to the municipal setup, the war office was also governed by a commission of 30 members, divided into six boards of five members each.
• The Six Military Arms: The boards supervised the six key divisions of the Mauryan military machine:
  1. Admiralty: The navy and inland water transport.
  2. Transport & Logistics: Managing bullock carts, provisions, fodder, and military musicians.
  3. Infantry: The foot soldiers.
  4. Cavalry: The mounted horsemen.
  5. Chariots: The tactical chariot units.
  6. Elephants: The heavy war-elephant corps.

Classification of Indian Society (The Seven Castes)

One of the most distinctive features of Indica is Megasthenes’ division of the Indian population into seven occupational classes or castes. This classification was based on economic function rather than the traditional scriptural four-fold Varna system (Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra).

• 1. Philosophers: The smallest class but highest in social prestige. It included Brahmins and Shramanas (ascetics). They performed public sacrifices and offered seasonal predictions to the king regarding agriculture.
• 2. Husbandmen (Farmers): The most populous class. They were exempted from military service and could cultivate land peacefully even during active warfare. They paid a land tribute to the king.
• 3. Herdsmen and Hunters: Lived outside villages and cities, taming wild beasts, hunting pests, and raising livestock.
• 4. Artisans and Traders: Made weapons, built ships, and performed manual labor for the state. They were exempted from paying taxes and received maintenance from the royal treasury.
• 5. Soldiers (The Military): The second-largest group. They lived a life of leisure in times of peace, maintained entirely at the state’s expense.
• 6. Overseers (Inspectors/Superintendents): Acted as the eyes and ears of the king. They observed all happenings across the country and reported secretly to the monarch or magistrates.
• 7. Councilors and Assessors: The elite administrative class from whom the king chose his advisors, treasurers, judges, and provincial governors.

Crucial Anomalies and Distortions for Prelims

Megasthenes viewed Indian society through a Hellenistic lens, leading to several factual distortions that contradict contemporary indigenous sources like Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Ashoka’s edicts:

• Absence of Slavery: Megasthenes asserted that “all Indians are free, and not one of them is a slave.” In reality, Arthashastra mentions several categories of slaves (Dasas) and domestic servants (Karmakaras). Megasthenes likely missed this because Indian slavery was humane and lacked the brutal, institutionalized chattel features of Greek and Roman slavery.
• Absence of Famines: He claimed that famines never occurred in India due to abundant rainfall and double-cropping. This is contradicted by the Sohgaura Copper Plate and Mahasthan Inscription, which explicitly record emergency grain storage and state relief measures during famines under the Mauryas.
• Ignorance of Writing: He wrote that Indians did not know the art of writing and settled disputes based on memory and unwritten customs. This statement is directly falsified by the existence of highly developed Ashokan inscriptions and the detailed legal contracts mentioned in the Arthashastra.
• No Usury: He observed that Indians did not understand interest rates or lending. Conversely, the Arthashastra contains dedicated chapters regulating Vriddhi (legal interest rates on loans).
• Fanciful Myths: Megasthenes included fantastical accounts of “gold-digging ants” as large as foxes, people with ears large enough to sleep in, and one-eyed men, which undermined his credibility among later Roman historians like Strabo.