Eternal India Encyclopedia

ETERNAL INDIA encyclopedia

A GREAT DESTINATION

EARLY TRAVELLERS

Chandragupta's rule was considered tyrannous and oppressive. Megasthenes says he was obliged to dwell amid strict seclusion. He was in constant fear of assassination and changed his bedroom every night. He had tunnels dug under the palace walls. He was surrounded by a bodyguard of women who cooked his food, served his wine and carried him to his apartment and lulled him to sleep with Indian music. In the day he sat in the Hall of Justice, hearing complaints, while his attendants massaged him with wooden rollers, rubbed scented ointment on his feet and combed and dressed his long hair. On rare occasions when the monarch left the seclusion of the royal palace, to offer sacrifice or go hunting, he was surrounded by his Amazonian guard. One or two women heavily armed rode in the chariot, while others were mounted on horses or elephants. The road used by the monarch was cordoned off with ropes and no one was allowed to come near. The women bodyguards were foreigners, mostly Greek women. Being foreign mercenaries they were likely to be loyal to their employer and not participate in plots against him. Megasthenes divided Indian society into seven castes. He mixes up the traditional four castes of Hindu society with the official bodies created by Chandragupta. First, in order in the catalogue of Megasthenes came the Philosophers employed in literary, scientific or religious pursuits — the Brahmins. Next came the Husbandman, who was exempted from military service, took no part in war and politics, lived and worked on his farm, rarely going to the city. Often, say Megasthenes, you might see him calmly ploughing while two armies were fighting a battle a little distance off. The third class consisted of Herdsmen, and included shepherds and hunters. They were mostly members of aboriginal tribes and as such belonged to the Sudras, the lowest stratum of Hindu society. They cleared the fields of the tigers, boars and other wild animals which molested the flocks, herds and crops of the villagers. They caught and tamed the elephants which played an important part in the army of Chandragupta. In return for their services they received an allowance of corn from the Royal Exchequer. The fourth consisted of Artisans. These were Vaisyas like the Agriculturists and included Armourers and Shipwrights. The fifth caste was the Military caste, the Kshatriyas, who were employed in the immense standing army of Chandragupta. Sixth came the Overseers or Inspectors, a branch of the civil service specially maintained by Chandragupta. These officials travelled round inspecting the work of the government officials and furnishing confidential reports to the Emperor on their conduct. The seventh and last caste was that of the Royal Councillors, the ministers who formed the Privy Council of the Emperor. Apart from these seven castes there was the civil service proper — the body of officials who looked after the repair of roads, collected taxes, superintended irrigation and the construction of irrigation works, kept an eye on the woodcutters and saw to it that they did not indulge in any unauthorised cutting of trees. Slavery, a universal custom in Graeco - Roman times, was un- known in India. Megasthenes notes this with admiration. Polyg- amy was common among the upper classes but women enjpyed

The first authentic description of India by a foreign observer is that of Megasthenes, the Greek Ambassador at the Court of Chan- dragupta Maurya in Pataliputra (circa 305 B.C.). Megasthenes wrote a detailed account of India but only fragments have survived through numerous citations by Roman and Greek authors like Strabo, Pliny, Arrian, Diodorus and others. The first thing which struck Megasthenes on entering India was the road from the frontier to Pataliputra (Patna) down which the envoy must have travelled to the capital. It was constructed in eight stages and ran from the frontier town of Peukelaotis, the capital of Gandhara, the region around Peshwar and Rawalpindi in Pakistan, to Taxila, from Taxila across the Indus to the Jhelum, then to the Beas and the Sutlej, from the Sutlej to the Jamuna and from the Jamuna to the Ganges. From the Ganges the road ran to Kanauj and Prayag and from Prayag to Pataliputra. At regular distances along the road were milestones. The road was of immense commercial and strategic value. It enabled troops to be moved to the farthest confines of the empire and facilitated the movement of goods to and from India. The prosperity of the foreign trade is attested by the elaborate regulations made by Chandragupta, as described by Megasthenes, for the entertain- ment of foreign merchants. There was a special board or municipal commission to look after their interests. Megasthenes remarks on the hugeness of the animals — ele- phants, pythons, tigers and hunting - hounds — and the curious plants and trees — the "reed" (the palmyra) out of which boats could be made, the banyan with its spreading branches, the "vege- table wool" or cotton, the "honey - bearing reed" or sugar-cane and the ubiquitous rice plant. Megasthenes wrote that the Emperor Chandragupta lived in a magnificent palace at Pataliputra (Patna) which was built of wood and unburnt brick and surrounded by a wide moat. It was the custom, says Megasthenes, to use wood where floods were com- mon, and brick and mud when the buildings were on elevated ground.