Citation with stable link: Philip A. Harland, 'Indians: Megasthenes, Aristoboulos, Onesikritos, and Strabo on Indian customs and on Brahmans (fourth century BCE-early first century CE),' Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World, last modified August 6, 2024, https://philipharland.com/Blog/?p=21221.

authors: Megasthenes (late fourth century BCE), Indian Matters = FGrHist 715 F19b, 20b, 23b, 27b, 31-34a, 35a; Aristoboulos of Kassandreia (late fourth century BCE), FGrHist 139 F41-42; Onesikritos of Astypalaia (late fourth century BCE), FGrHist 134 F16a, 17a; Nearchos of Crete, FGrHist 133 F23 (late fourth century BCE); Artemidoros of Ephesos (early first century BCE), Geographical Descriptions = FGrHist 244 F109; Nikolaos of Damaskos (first century BCE), FGrHist 90 F100 (link to FGrHist), as discussed by Strabo (early first century CE), Geography 15.1.28, 34, 39-66, 68-73 (link).

Comments: In these passages, Strabo explains the customs and social structures of the Indians by drawing on accounts of Megasthenes and of others who had accompanied Alexander of Macedon on his campaigns, namely Aristoboulos, Onesikritos, and Nearchos. Central to the discussion are wise Indian sages, including Brahmans, Sarmanians and, in some accounts, Pramnians. These are what Greeks consider “wise barbarians” and there is considerable attention to accounts about specific naked sages, Kalanos and Mandanis in particular, with questions about who was wiser.

While Aristoboulos, Onesikritos, and Nearchos are said to have traveled with Alexander during his campaigns, ancient authors who used Megasthenes’ work (Arrian and Strabo) claim Megasthenes had spent time in Archosia (northwest of India) in connection with the satrap Sibyrtios and that he was a “companion” and perhaps ambassador of Seleukos Nikator to the Indian king Chandragupta Maurya around the turn of the third century BCE (FGrHist 715 T2a, T2c).

In his summary of Megasthenes’ account, Strabo closely follows his discussions of the seven classes (now often known as castes) in India while also outlining the lifestyle of the Indian populace generally. There is also a special focus on the ideologies and practices of the two types of sages, the Brahmans and the Sarmanians. The section on paradoxical peoples suggests that Megasthenes was working with highly speculative, imaginative material for some of his account of the Indians, despite the suggestion that he may have visited at least one area of India as an ambassador.

Finally, Strabo finishes off with a discussion of apparent contradictions and disagreements in a number of accounts. Some authors added Pramnians as another sub-group of Indian sages. Here Strabo also turns to Artemidoros of Ephesos and Nikolaos of Damaskos.

Works consulted: D.W. Roller, “Megasthenes (715),” in Jacoby Online. Brill’s New Jacoby – Second Edition, Part III, edited by Ian Worthington, Brill: Leiden, 2019; R. Stoneman, The Greek Experience of India: From Alexander to the Indo-Greeks (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).

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[For Strabo’s preceding discussion of Nysaians and Sibians among Indians, go to this link].

[Country around Taxila according to Onesikritos]

(15.28) Between the Indus river and the Hydaspes [Jhelum] river lies Taxila, a city which is large and has most excellent laws. The country around it is spacious and very fertile, immediately bordering also on the plains. Both the inhabitants and their king, Taxiles, received Alexander in a kindly way. They also obtained from Alexander more gifts than they themselves presented, so that the Macedonians were envious and said that it seemed like Alexander did not have anyone to grant benefactions until he crossed the Indus river. Some say that this country is larger than Egypt. Above this country in the mountains lies the country of Abisaros, who, according to the ambassadors that came from him, kept two serpents, one eighty cubits in length and another one hundred and forty, according to Onesikritos.

Onesikritos cannot appropriately be called only chief-pilot of Alexander, but even more chief-pilot of things that are unbelievable. Because even though all the followers of Alexander preferred to accept the marvellous rather than the true, Onesikritos seems to surpass all followers of Alexander in the telling of prodigies. However, he tells some things that are both plausible and worthy of mention, and therefore they are not passed by in silence even by one who disbelieves them. At any rate, others too speak of the serpents, saying that they are caught in the Emodi mountains and kept in caves. . . [omitted sections].

[People under king Mousikanos]

(15.1.34) Onesikritos also describes the country of king Mousikanos, praising the country at some length for things of which some are reported as common also to other Indians. For example, he praises their length of life, which is thirty years beyond one hundred (and in fact some say that the Serians [Silk-people, Chinese] live still longer than this); their healthfulness; and their simple diet, even though their country has an abundance of everything. Peculiar to them is the fact that they have a kind of Lakonian common banqueting hall, where they eat in public and use as food the meat of animals taken in the chase. He says that they do not use gold or silver, although they have mines. Instead of slaves they use young men in the vigour of life, as the Kretans use the Aphamiotians and the Lakonians use the Helots.

Onesikritos says that they do not accurately study of the bodies of knowledge [known to us] except that of medicine because they regard too much training in some of them as wickedness, such as military knowledge and the like. They have no process at law except for murder and outrage, because it is not in one’s power to avoid suffering these. Whereas the content of contracts is in the power of each man himself, so that he is required to endure it if anyone breaks faith with him, and also to consider carefully who should be trusted and not to fill the city with lawsuits. This is the account of those who made the expedition with Alexander. . . [omitted sections].

[Social classes among the Indians]

[1. Pursuers of wisdom]

(15.1.39) Megasthenes says, then, that the population (plēthos) of India is divided into seven classes (merē): The first class, which is most important in honor but the fewest in number, consists of the pursuers of wisdom (philosophoi). They are employed by individuals to make sacrifice to the gods or making offerings to the dead, but they are employed communally by the kings at the “great gathering,” as it is called. At this gathering at the beginning of the new year, the pursuers of wisdom all come together at the doors of the king. Whatever each man has drawn up in writing or observed as useful with reference to the prosperity of either fruits, living things, or communal organization, he brings forward in front of others. Anyone who is found false three times is required by law to keep silence for life, whereas he who has proved correct is considered exempt from tribute and taxes.

[2. Farmers]

(15.1.40) Megasthenes says that the second class is that of the farmers. They are not only the most numerous, but also the most highly respected, because of their exemption from military service and right of freedom in their farming. They do not approach a city, either because of a public disturbance or on any other business. Anyways, he says, it often happens that at the same time and place some are in battle array and are risking their lives against the enemy, while the farmers are ploughing or digging without risk, because the farmers having the former as defenders. The whole countryside is under royal ownership, and the farmers cultivate it for a rental in addition to paying a fourth part of the produce.

[3. Shepherds and hunters]

(15.1.41) The third class is that of the shepherds and hunters. They alone are permitted to hunt, to breed cattle, and to sell or hire out beasts of burden. In return for freeing the land from wild beasts and seed-picking birds, they receive proportionate allowances of grain from the king, leading, as they do, a wandering and tent-dwelling life. No private person is permitted to keep a horse or elephant. The possession of either is a royal privilege, and there are men to take care of them. . . [omitted extensive discussion of elephants drawing on various other sources].

(15.1.45) . . . Now let me return to Megasthenes and continue his account from the point where I left off.

[4. Artisans, traders, and labourers]

(15.1.46) After the hunters and the shepherds, he says, follows the fourth class: artisans, traders, and the day-labourers. Among these, some pay tribute, whereas those who make armour and the ship-builders receive wages and provisions, at a published scale, from the king, because they work for him alone. Weapons are supplied to the soldiers by the commander-in-chief, whereas the ships are let out for hire to sailors and merchants by the admiral.

[5. Warriors]

(15.1.47) The fifth class is that of the warriors. When they are not in service, they spend their lives in idleness and in drinking contests, being maintained at the expense of the royal treasury. They are maintained in this way so that they make their expeditions quickly when the need arises, since they bring nothing else of their own but their bodies.

[6. Inspectors]

(15.1.48) The sixth is that of the overseers (ephoroi), who are in charge of inspecting what is being done and reporting secretly to the king. They use the prostitutes as colleagues, the city overseers using the city prostitutes and the camp overseers using the camp prostitutes. Now the best and most trustworthy men are appointed to this office.

[7. Advisers and counsellors of the king]

(15.1.49) The seventh is that of the advisers and counsellors of the king. They hold the chief leadership positions, the roles of justice, and the administration of everything. It is not legal for a man either to marry a wife from another class or to change one’s pursuit of work from one to another role. Nor is it legal for the same man to engage in several roles, except in the case of the pursuers of wisdom because, Megasthenes says, a pursuer of wisdom is permitted to do so on account of his superiority.

[Leaders]

[City and market leaders]

(15.1.50) Among the leaders, some are market-leaders, others are city-leaders, and others are in charge of the soldiers. Among these, the first keep the rivers improved and the land remeasured, as in Egypt, and inspect the closed canals from which the water is distributed into the conduits, so that everyone may have equal access to it. The same men are also in charge of the hunters and are authorized to reward or punish those who deserve either. They also collect the taxes and superintend the crafts connected with the land, crafts including those of wood-cutters, carpenters, workers in brass, and miners. And they make roads and at every ten stadium-lengths place pillars showing the by-roads and the distances.

(15.1.51) The city-leaders are divided into six groups of five each. One group looks after the skills of the craftsmen. Another group entertains strangers, for they assign them lodgings, follow closely their behavior, giving them attendants, and either escort them forth or forward the property of those who die. They also take care of them when they are sick and bury them when they die. The third group is that of those who scrutinize births and deaths, when and how they take place, both for the sake of taxes and in order that births and deaths, whether better or worse, may not be unknown. The fourth group is that which has to do with sales and barter. These officials look after measures and the fruits of the season, so that the latter may be sold by stamp. But the same man cannot barter more than one thing without paying double taxes. The fifth group is that of those who have charge of the works made by artisans and sell these by stamp, the new apart from the old. A man who mixes different types of work is fined. The sixth and last group is that of those who collect ten per cent of the price of the things sold. Death is the penalty for the man who steals. These are the special duties performed by each group, but they all take care jointly of matters both private and public and of the repairs of public works, of prices, market-places, harbours, and temples.

[Military leaders]

(15.1.52) After the city-leaders, there is a third joint administration, in charge of military affairs, which is also divided into six groups of five each. Of these groups, one is stationed with the admiral; another with the man in charge of the ox-teams, by which are transported instruments of war and food for both man and beast and all other requisites of the army. These also furnish the menials, I mean drum-beaters, gong-carriers, as also grooms and machinists and their assistants They send out the foragers to the sound of bells, and effect speed and safety by means of reward and punishment. The third group consists of those in charge of the foot-soldiers; the fourth, of those in charge of the horses; the fifth, of those in charge of the chariots; and, the sixth, of those in charge of the elephants.

The stalls for both horses and beasts are royal, and the armoury is also royal. The soldier returns the equipment to the armoury, the horse to the royal horse-stable, and likewise the beast. They use the animals without bridles. The chariots are drawn on the march by oxen. But the horses are led by halter, in order that their legs may not be chafed by harness, and also that the spirit they have when drawing chariots may not be dulled. There are two combatants in each chariot in addition to the charioteer; but the elephant carries four persons, the driver and three bowmen, and these three shoot arrows from the elephant’s back.

[Customs of the Indian populace]

[Mostly simple lifestyle]

(15.1.53) All Indians live a simple life, and especially when they are on military expeditions. And they do not enjoy useless disturbances. For this reason, they behave in an orderly manner. But their greatest self-restraint pertains to theft. Anyways, Megasthenes says that when he was in the camp of Sandrokottos [i.e. Chandragupta Maurya], although the number in camp was forty thousand, he never saw reports of stolen articles that were worth more than two hundred drachmas. That is the case even though this is a people who use unwritten laws only. For, he continues, they have no knowledge of written letters, and regulate every single thing from memory. But still, they are happy, because of their simplicity and their frugality. In fact, they do not drink wine, except at sacrifices. Instead, they drink a beverage which they make from rice instead of barley. Their food consists for the most part of rice porridge. Their simplicity is also proven in their laws and contracts, which arises from the fact that they are not litigious. They do not have lawsuits over either pledges or deposits, or have need of witnesses or seals. Instead, they trust persons with whom they stake their interests. Furthermore, they generally leave unguarded what they have at their homes. Now these practices tend to sobriety. However, no person could approve those other habits of theirs: namely, of always eating alone and of not having one common hour for all for dinner and breakfast instead of eating as each one likes. For eating in the other way is more conducive to a communal and civic life.

(15.1.54) For exercise they approve most of all of rubbing. Among other things, they smooth out their bodies through means of smooth sticks of ebony. Their funerals are simple and their mounds small.

[Focus on beauty and clothing]

However, contrary to their simplicity in general, they like to dress themselves up. They wear clothing embroidered with gold, use ornaments set with precious stones, wear flowered linen garments, and have sun-shades. Since they esteem beauty, they practice everything that can beautify their appearance.

[Familial customs]

Furthermore, they respect both virtue and truth. Therefore, they give no precedence even to the age of old men, unless these are also superior in wisdom. They marry many wives, whom they purchase from their parents, and they get them in exchange for a yoke of oxen. They marry some of them for the sake of prompt obedience and the others for the sake of pleasure and numerous offspring. However, if the husband does not force them to be chaste, they are permitted to prostitute themselves.

[Customs related to ritual and punishments]

No one wears a garland when he makes sacrifice or burns incense or pours out a libation. Neither do they cut the throat of the victim, but strangle it, in order that it may be given to the god in its entirety and not mutilated. Anyone caught guilty of false-witness has his hands and feet cut off, and anyone who maims a person not only suffers in return the same thing but also has his hands cut off. If someone causes the loss of a hand or an eye of a craftsman, he is put to death. But although Megasthenes says that no Indian uses slaves, Onesikritos [of Astypalaia] declares that slavery is peculiar to the Indians in the land of Mousikanos, and tells what a success it is there, just as he mentions many other successes of this land, speaking of it as excellently governed [link].

[Customs of Indian kings]

(15.1.55) Now the care of the king’s person is committed to women, who also are purchased from their fathers. The bodyguards and the rest of the military force are stationed outside the gates. And a woman who kills a king when he is drunk receives as her reward the privilege of consorting with his successor, and their children succeed to the throne. Again, the king does not sleep in daytime. Even at night, he is forced to change his bed from time to time because of the plots against him. Among the non-military departures he makes from his palace, are those to the courts, where he spends the whole day hearing cases to the end, even if the hour comes for the care of his body. This care of his body consists of his being rubbed with sticks of wood. For while he is hearing the cases through, he is also rubbed by four men who stand around him and rub him.

A second departure is that to the sacrifices. A third is that to a kind of Bacchic chase wherein he is surrounded by women and, outside them, by the spear-bearers. The road is lined with ropes. Death is the penalty for anyone who passes inside the ropes to the women, and they are preceded by drum-beaters and gong-carriers. The king hunts in the fenced enclosures, shooting arrows from a platform in his chariot (two or three armed women stand beside him), and also in the unfenced hunting-grounds from an elephant. The women ride partly in chariots, partly on horses, and partly on elephants. They are equipped with all kinds of weapons, as they are when they go on military expeditions with the men.

(15.1.56) Now these customs are very novel as compared with our own, but the following are still more novel. For example, Megasthenes says that the men who inhabit the Caucasus range [another Caucasus in India] have intercourse with the women in the open and that they eat the bodies of their kinsmen. The monkeys are stone-rollers, and, haunting precipices, roll stones down upon their pursuers. Most of the animals which are tame in our country are wild in theirs. And Megasthenes mentions horses with one horn and the head of a deer. He also mentions reeds that go straight up and are thirty fathoms in length, and others lying flat on the ground fifty fathoms, and so large that some are three cubits and others six in diameter.

[Paradoxical peoples]

(15.1.57) But Megasthenes, going beyond all bounds to the realm of myth, speaks of people five hand-spans long and three hand-spans long, some without nostrils, having instead merely two breathing orifices above their mouths. He says that it is the people three hand-spans long that carry on war with the cranes (the war to which Homer [Iliad 3.1-9] refers)  and with the partridges, which are as large as geese. He says that these people pick out and destroy the eggs of the cranes, which, he adds, lay eggs there. It is on this account that neither eggs nor, of course, young cranes are anywhere to be found. Very often a crane escapes from the fights there with a bronze arrow-point in its body.

Similar to this are the stories of the people that sleep in their ears (enōtokotai), the savages (agrioi), and other monstrosities. Now the savages, he continues, could not be brought to Sandrokottos, for they would starve themselves to death. They have their heels in front, with toes and flat of the foot behind.

However, a certain mouthless people were brought to Megasthenes, a gentle people (hēmeroi). They live around the sources of the Ganges river, and they sustain themselves by means of vapours from roasted meats and odours from fruits and flowers since instead of mouths they have only breathing orifices. They suffer pain when they breathe bad odours and, for this reason, they can hardly survive, particularly in a camp. He says that the others were described to him by the pursuers of wisdom, who reported the Swift-footed people (Okypodai), who run away faster than horses and the men who sleep in their ears (Enotokoitai), who have ears that extend to their feet, so that they can sleep in them. They are strong enough to pluck up trees and to break bowstrings. Another people, the one-eyed people (Monommatoi), with dog’s ears, with the eye in the middle of the forehead, with hair standing up, and with shaggy chests. The people without noses (Amykterai) eat everything, including raw meat, and live but a short time, dying before old age. Their upper lip protrudes much more than the lower. Concerning the Hyperboreans who live a thousand years, Megasthenes says the same things as Simonides, Pindar and other myth-tellers. The statement of Timagenes [of Alexandria] is also a myth, that brass rained down from the sky in brazen drops and was swept down. But Megasthenes is nearer the truth when he says that the rivers [in India] carry down gold dust and that part of it is paid as a tax to the king. This is also the case in Iberia.

[Customs of the pursuers of wisdom, including practices supposedly associated with Dionysos and Herakles]

(15.1.58) Speaking of those who pursue wisdom, Megasthenes says that those who inhabit the mountains hymn the praises of Dionysos and point out as evidence the wild grape-vine, which grows only for them, and the ivy, laurel, myrtle, box-tree, and other evergreens. None of these is found on the far side of the Euphrates except a few in parks, which can be kept alive only with great care. He says that the custom of wearing linen garments, mitres, and bright-coloured garments, and for the king to be attended by gong-carriers and drum-beaters on his departures from the palace, are also Dionysiac. But the pursuers of wisdom in the plains worship Herakles.

Now these statements of Megasthenes are mythical and refuted by many writers, and particularly those statements about the vine and wine. For much of Armenia, and the whole of Mesopotamia, and the part of Media next thereafter, extending as far as Persis and Karmania, are on the far side of the Euphrates, and the majority of each of these peoples (ethnē) is said to have good vines and good wine.

[Two types of wise men and their customs and ideologies]

[Brahmans]

(15.1.59) Megasthenes makes another division in his discussion of the philosophers, asserting that there are two kinds of them, one kind called Brahmans and the other Sarmanians (Garmanai). However, the Brahmans enjoy better reputations, for they are more in agreement in their teachings.  He says that from conception, while in the womb, the children are under the care of learned men, who ostensibly go to the mother and the unborn child and chant in order to effect a happy birth. But, in actuality, they go to give prudent suggestions and advice. The women who hear them with the greatest pleasure are believed to be the most fortunate in their offspring. After the birth of children different persons, one after another, succeed to the care for them, the children always getting more accomplished teachers as they advance in years.

He says that the pursuers of wisdom spend time in a grove in front of the city in an enclosure merely commensurate with their needs, leading a frugal life, lying on straw mattresses and skins, abstaining from animal food and the delights of love, paying attention only to enlightening words, and communicating also with anyone who wishes to hear them. The hearer is forbidden either to talk, cough, or even spit. If he does any of these things, he is banished from association with them for that day as a man who has no control over himself.

Megasthenes says that, after having lived in this way for thirty-seven years, they retire, each man to his own possessions, where they live more freely and under less restraint, wearing linen garments, ornaments of gold in moderation on their ears and on their hands. They eat meats of animals that are of no help to man in his work, but abstain from pungent and seasoned food. They marry as many wives as possible, in order to have numerous children, because there are more earnest children from many wives.

Since they have no servants, it is necessary for them to use children to provide service, the service that is nearest at hand. But Megasthenes says that the Brahmans do not share their wisdom with their wives for two reasons: first, because their wives might tell some forbidden secret to an impure person if they are unenlightened; and, second, because their wives might desert them if they became enlightened, for no person who has contempt for pleasure and toil, and likewise for life and death, is willing to be subject to another. He says that the enlightened man and the enlightened woman are such persons who have contempt for those things.

Megasthenes says that they converse more about death than anything else because they believe that the life here is, as it were, that of a babe still in the womb, and that death, to those who have devoted themselves to pursuing wisdom, is birth into the true life, that is, the happy life. So they discipline themselves most of all to be ready for death. They believe that nothing that happens to humankind is good or bad, for otherwise some would not be grieved and others delighted by the same things, both having dream-like notions. They believe that the same persons cannot at one time be grieved and then in turn change and be delighted by the same things.

On the opinions of the Brahmans about the natural world, Megasthenes says that some of their opinions indicate mental simplicity, for the Brahmans are better in actions than in words since they confirm most of their beliefs through the use of myths. They are of the same opinion as the Greeks about many things. For example, their opinion that the universe was created and is destructible, as also the Greeks assert; that it is spherical in shape, and that the god who made it and regulates it pervades the whole of it; that the primal elements of all things else are different, but that water was the primal element of all creation; that, in addition to the four elements, there is a fifth natural element from which the heavens and the heavenly bodies are composed; and, that the earth is situated in the center of the universe. Authors also mention similar opinions of the Brahmans about the seed and the soul, as well as several other opinions of theirs. Those authors also weave in myths, like Plato, about the immortality of the soul and the judgments in Hades and other things of this kind. So much for his account of the Brahmans.

[Sarmanians]

(15.1.60) As for the Sarmanians, Megasthenes says that the most honourable of them are named Hylobians (“forest-dwellers”). They live in forests, subsisting on leaves and wild fruits, clothing themselves with the bark of trees, and abstaining from wine and sex. They communicate with the kings, who through messengers inquire about the causes of things and through the Hylobians worship and supplicate the deity.

Megasthenes says that, after the Hylobians, the healers are second in honour, and that they are, as it were, pursuers of wisdom regarding the human being. They are men who are of frugal habits but do not live out of doors, and subsist upon rice and barley-groats. That food is given to them by everyone from whom they beg or who offers them hospitality. Through potions they can cause people to have numerous offspring, and to have either male or female children. They cure diseases mostly through means of cereals, and not through means of potions. Among their potions, their ointments and their poultices are most respected, but the rest of their remedies have much in them that is bad.

Megasthenes says that both this class and the other practise such endurance, both in toils and in perseverance, that they stay in one posture all day long without moving. There are also diviners and chanters, who are skilled both in the rites and in the customs pertaining to the deceased, and go about begging alms from village to village and from city to city. There are others more accomplished and refined than these, but that even these themselves do not abstain from the common talk about Hades, insofar as it is thought to be conducive to piety and holiness. The women, as well as men, pursue the study of wisdom with some of them, and the women likewise abstain from sex.

[Aristoboulos on a young sage and an old sage]

(15.61-62) Aristoboulus says that he saw two of the sages (sophistai) at Taxila, both Brahmans, with the older one having a shaved head but the younger one having long hair. He says that both were followed by disciples, and that when not busy with something else they spent their time in the market-place. They were honoured as counsellors and were authorized to take as a gift any merchandise they wanted. He says that anyone whom they accosted poured over them sesame oil, in such profusion that it flowed down over their eyes, and that since quantities of honey and sesame were put out for sale, they made cakes of it and subsisted free of charge. He says that they came up to the table of Alexander, ate dinner standing, and taught him a lesson in endurance by retiring to a place near by, where the elder fell to the ground on his back and endured the sun’s rays and the rains (for it was now raining, since the spring of the year had begun). Aristoboulos also says that the younger stood on one leg holding aloft in both hands a log about three cubits in length, and when one leg tired he changed the support to the other and kept this up all day long. Also the younger showed a far greater self-mastery than the older man, because even though the younger one followed the king a short distance, he soon turned back again towards home. Then when the king went after him, the man called him to come himself if he wanted anything from him. But the older one accompanied the king to the end, and when he was with him changed his dress and mode of life. When the older one was reproached by someone, he said that he had completed the forty years of discipline which he had promised to observe. Alexander gave his children a present.

[Sexual customs at Taxila]

Aristoboulos mentions some novel and unusual customs at Taxila. Those who are so poor that they are unable to marry off their daughters lead them out to the market-place in the flower of their age to the sound of both trumpets and drums (precisely the instruments used to signal the time to bale hay). So they assemble a crowd in that way. To any man who comes forward they first expose her rear parts up to the shoulders and then her front parts, and if she pleases him, and at the same time allows herself to be persuaded, on approved terms, he marries her. The dead are thrown out to be devoured by vultures. To have several wives is a custom common also to others. Aristoboulos further says that he heard that wives were glad to be burned up along with their deceased husbands, and that those who would not submit to it were held in disgrace. This custom is also mentioned by other writers.

[Onesikritos on the naked sages]

(15.63) Onesikritos says that he himself was sent to converse with these sages.  Alexander had heard that the people always went naked and devoted themselves to endurance, and that they were held in very great honour. He also heard that they did not visit other people when invited, but called them to visit them if they wished to participate in anything they did or said. Therefore, such being the case, since to Alexander it did not seem fitting either to visit them or to force them against their will to do anything contrary to their ancestral customs, he himself was sent. Alexander found fifteen men at a distance of twenty stadium-lengths from the city, who were in different postures, standing or sitting or lying naked and motionless until evening. They then returned to the city. It was very hard to endure the sun, which was so hot that at noon no one else could easily endure walking on the ground with bare feet.

[Kalanos the sage and his instruction to Onesikritos]

(15.64) Onesikritos says that he conversed with one of these sages, named Kalanos. Kalanos accompanied the king [Alexander] as far as Persis and died in accordance with the ancestral custom, being placed upon a pyre and burned up. He says that Kalanos happened to be lying on stones when Onesikritos first saw Kalanos. So he approached him, greeted him, and told him that he had been sent by the king to learn the wisdom of the sages and report it to Alexander. He said that, if there was no objection, he was ready to hear Kalanos’ teachings.

When Kalanos saw the mantle and broad-brimmed hat and boots Onesikritos wore, Kalanos laughed at him and said:

“In the old days the world was full of barley and wheat, but no full of dust. The fountains then flowed, some with water, others with both milk and honey. Others flowed with wine, and some with olive oil. However, due to human gluttony and luxury, man fell into arrogance beyond bounds. But Zeus, hating this state of things, destroyed everything and appointed for man a life of toil. When self-control and the other virtues in general reappeared, there came again an abundance of blessings. But the condition of man is already close to satiety and arrogance, and there is danger of destruction of everything in existence.”

[Mandanis the sage joins the conversation]

Onesikritos adds that Kalanos, after saying this, told him, if he wished to learn, to take off his clothes, to lie down naked on the same stones, and so to hear his teachings. While he was hesitating what to do, Mandanis, who was the oldest and wisest of the sages, rebuked Kalanos as a man of arrogance, and that too after censuring arrogance himself. Mandanis called him and said that he commended the king [Alexander] because, although busy governing so great an empire, he was desirous of wisdom. For the king was the only philosopher with weapons that he ever saw. Mandanis said that it was the most useful thing in the world if those men were wise who have the power of persuading the willing, and forcing the unwilling, to learn self-control. However, he said that he might be pardoned if, conversing through three interpreters, who, with the exception of language, knew no more than the masses, he should be unable to present anything in his philosophy that would be useful. For that, he added, would be like expecting water to flow pure through mud!

(15.65) Anyways, all Mandanis said (according to Onesikritos), tended toward this: that the best teaching is that which removes pleasure and pain from the soul. He said that pain and toil differ, for the former is inimical to man and the latter friendly, since man trains the body for toil in order that his opinions may be strengthened, whereby he may put a stop to dissensions and be ready to give good advice to everyone, both in public and in private. Furthermore, Mandanis said he had now advised Taxiles to receive Alexander, for if he received a man better than himself he would be well treated, but if inferior, he would improve him.

Onesikritos says that, after saying this, Mandanis inquired whether such teachings were taught among the Greeks. When Onesikritos answered that Pythagoras taught such teachings, and also called people to abstain from meat, as did also Socrates and Diogenes, and that he himself had been a pupil of Diogenes, Mandanis replied that he regarded the Greeks as sound-minded. However, they were wrong in one respect, in that they preferred custom to nature. For otherwise, Mandanis said, they would not be ashamed to go naked, like himself, and live on basic food, for, he added, the best house is that which requires the least repairs.

[Customs of the naked sages]

Onesikritos goes on to say that they [the sages] inquire into numerous natural phenomena, including foreknowledge, rains, droughts, and diseases. When they leave for the city they scatter to the different market-places. Wherever they happen upon anyone carrying figs or bunches of grapes, they get fruit from that person as a free offering. But if it is oil, it is poured down over them and they are anointed with it. A wealthy home is completely open to them, even to the women’s apartments. They enter and share in meals and conversation. They regard disease of the body as a most disgraceful thing. Any of them who suspects disease in his own body commits suicide through means of fire, piling a funeral pyre. He anoints himself, sits down on the pyre, orders it to be lighted, and burns without any motion.

[Nearchos on customs the sages and of the rest of the Indians]

(15.66) Nearchos speaks of the sages as follows: The Brahmans engaged in communal affairs and attend the kings as counsellors. But other sages investigate natural phenomena, and Kalanos is one of these. Their wives join them in the pursuit of wisdom. The modes of life of all of them are severe.

As for the customs of the rest of the Indians, he declares as follows: That their laws, some public and some private, are unwritten, and that they contain customs that are strange as compared with those of others. For example, among some the virgins are presented as a prize for the man who wins the victory in a fist-fight, so that they may marry the victor without a dowry. Among others different groups cultivate the crops in common on the basis of kinship. Wwhen they collect the produce, they each carry off a load sufficient for sustenance during the year, but burn the remainder in order to have work to do afterwards and not be idle. Their weapons, he says, consist of bow and arrows (the latter three cubits long), or a javelin, and a small shield and a broad sword three cubits long. Instead of bridles they use nosebands, which differ only slightly from a muzzle. The lips of their horses have holes pierced through them by spikes. . . [omitted section].

[Disagreements about the sages Kalanos and Mandanis]

(15.1.68) As an example of the lack of agreement among authors, let us compare their accounts of Kalanos. They all agree that he went with Alexander and that he voluntarily died by fire in Alexander’s presence. However, they differ in their accounts of how he was burned up and in the cause of this action.

[Kalanos mode of death]

Some state it like this: They say that he went along with the king to give praising speeches outside the boundaries of India, contrary to the common custom of the pursuers of wisdom (philosophoi) there. For the pursuers of wisdom attend the kings only within India, guiding them in their relations with the gods, just like the Magians attend the Persian kings. However, at Pasargadai he became sick, the first illness of his life and despatched himself during his seventy-third year, paying no attention to the entreaties of the king. The pyre was made and a golden couch placed on it, and he laid himself upon it, covered himself up, and was burned to death.

However, others state it like this: They say that a wooden house was built, and that it was filled with leaves and that a pyre was built on its roof. Being shut in as he had requested, after the procession which he had accompanied, he flung himself upon the pyre and, like a beam of timber, was burned up along with the house.

[Megasthenes’ opinions]

But Megasthenes says that suicide is not a principle among these pursuers of wisdom, and that those who commit suicide are judged guilty of the impetuosity of youth. He says that some who are by nature hardy rush to meet a blow or run over precipices. Whereas others, who shrink from suffering, plunge into deep waters. Others who are suffering a lot, hang themselves. Others, who have a fiery temperament, fling themselves into fire. Megasthenes says that Kalanos, a man who was without self-control and a slave to the table of Alexander was one of those. Therefore, Kalanos is censured, whereas Mandanis is commended. Alexander’s messengers summoned Mandanis to visit the son of Zeus and promised that he would receive gifts if he obeyed, but punishment if he disobeyed. When they did this, Mandanis replied that, in the first place, Alexander was not the son of Zeus, inasmuch as he was not ruler over even a very small part of the earth. Secondly, he replied that he had no need of gifts from Alexander, of which there was no satiety. Thirdly, he replied that he had no fear of threats, since India would supply him with food while he was alive, and when he died he would be released from the flesh wasted by old age and be translated to a better and purer life. Megasthenes says the result was that Alexander commended Mandanis and acquiesced.

[Disagreements about Indian deities and rituals]

(15.1.69) The following statements are also made by the historians: They say that the Indians worship Zeus, the Ganges river, and the local deities. And when the king washes his hair, they celebrate a great festival and bring big presents, each man making rivalry in display of his own wealth. And they say that some of the ants that mine gold​ have wings, and that gold-dust is brought down by the rivers, as by the rivers in Iberia [Spain].​

And in the processions at the time of festivals many elephants are paraded, all adorned with gold and silver, as also many four-horse chariots and ox-teams. Then the army follows, all in military uniform and then golden vessels consisting of large basins and bowls a fathom in width, as well as tables, high chairs, drinking-cups, and bath-tubs, all of which are made of Indian copper and most of them are set with precious stones, including emeralds, beryls, and Indian anthraces. The army also wears variegated garments spangled with gold, and there are tame bisons, leopards, and lions, and numbers of variegated and sweet-voiced birds.

Kleitarchos speaks about four-wheeled carriages on which large-leaved trees are carried, and of different kinds of tamed birds that cling to these trees, and states that among these birds the orion has the sweetest voice, but that the “katreus,” as it is called, has the most splendid appearance and the most variegated plumage. Its appearance approaches nearest that of the peacock. But one must get the rest of the description from Kleitarchos.

[Disagreements on categorizing sages: Especially Pramnians]

(15.1.70) In classifying the pursuers of wisdom (philosophoi), writers oppose Pramnians (Pramnai) to the Brahmans, the former being a contentious and argumentative sect. They say that the Brahmans study nature and the stars, but that the Pramnians laugh at the Brahmans as though they are quacks and stupid. They say that, of these, some are called “mountain” Pramnians, others “naked” Pramnians, and others “city” Pramnians or “neighbouring” Pramnians. The “mountain” Pramnians wear deer-skins, and carry wallets full of roots and drugs, pretending to cure people with these, along with howling of chants, songs and amulets. They say that the “naked” Pramnians, as their name implies, live naked, for the most part in the open air, practising endurance, as I have said before, for thirty-seven years. Women associate with them but do not have sex with them. These philosophers are held in exceptional esteem.

(15.1.71) They say that the “city” Pramnians wear linen garments and live in the city, or else out in the country, and go clad in the skins of fawns or gazelle. However, in general, the Indians wear white clothing, white linen or cotton garments, contrary to the accounts of those who say that they wear highly coloured garments. They say that they all wear long hair and long beards, and that they braid their hair and surround it with a head-band.

[Artemidoros’ views]

(15.1.72) Artemidoros says that the Ganges river flows down from the Emoda mountains towards the south, and that when it arrives at the city Ganges it turns towards the east to Palibothra and its outlet into the sea. And he calls one of its tributaries Oidanes, saying that it breeds both crocodiles and dolphins. And he goes on to mention certain other things, but in such a confused and careless manner that they are not to be considered. But one might add to the accounts here given that of Nikolaos of Damaskos.

[Nikolaos of Damaskos and the Indian ambassadors]

(15.1.73) Nikolaos of Damaskos says that at Antioch, near Daphne, he chanced to meet the Indian ambassadors who had been despatched to Caesar Augustus. He says that the letter plainly indicated more than three ambassadors, but that only three had survived (whom he says he saw). However, the rest had died, mostly because of the long journeys. He says that the letter was written in Greek on a skin; that it plainly showed that [king] Poros was the writer; and that, although he was ruler of six hundred kings, still he was anxious to be a friend to Caesar Augustus. He was ready, not only to allow Caesar Augustus a passage through his country, wherever he wished to go, but also to co-operate with him in anything that was honourable. Nikolaos says that this was the content of the letter to Caesar Augustus, and that the gifts carried to Caesar Augustus were presented by eight naked servants, who were clad only in loin-cloths sprinkled with sweet-smelling odours. The gifts consisted of the Hermes,​ a man who was born without arms, whom I myself have seen; large vipers; a serpent of ten cubits in length; a river tortoise three cubits in length; and, a partridge larger than a vulture.

According to Nikolaos, they were also accompanied by the man who burned himself up at Athens. Whereas some commit suicide when they suffer adversity, seeking release from the ills at hand, others do so when their lot is happy, as was the case with that man. For, Nikolaos adds, although that man had fared as he wished up to that time, he thought it necessary then to depart this life, in case something undesirable might happen to him if he stayed here. Therefore, that man leaped upon the pyre with a laugh, his naked body anointed, wearing only a loin-cloth. The following words were inscribed on his tomb: “Here lies Zarmanochegas, an Indian from Bargosa, who immortalised himself in accordance with the ancestral customs of Indians.”

[For Diodoros’ subsequent discussion of Fish-eaters near Ariana and Gedrosia, go to this link].

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Source of translation: H.L. Jones, Strabo, 8 volumes, LCL (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1917-28), public domain (passed away in 1932), adapted by Justin Nadeau and Harland.