# Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian/Frag. XXVII.

Fragm. XXVII.
Strab. XV. i. 53-56,—pp. 709-10.
Of the Manners of the Indians.
The Indians all live frugally, especially when in camp. They dislike a great undisciplined multitude, and consequently they observe good order. Theft is of very rare occurrence. Megasthenês says that those who were in the camp of Sandrakottos, wherein lay 400,000 men, found that the thefts reported on any one day did not exceed the value of two hundred drachme, and this among a people who have no written laws, but are ignorant of writing, and must therefore in all the business of life trust to memory. They live, nevertheless, happily enough, being simple in their manners and frugal. They never drink wine except at sacrifices. Their beverage is a liquor composed from rice instead of barley, and their food is principally a rice-pottage. The simplicity of their laws and their contracts is ​proved by the fact that they seldom go to law. They have no suits about pledges or deposits, nor do they require either seals or witnesses, but make their deposits and confide in each other. Their houses and property they generally leave unguarded. These things indicate that they possess good, sober sense; but other things they do which one cannot approve: for instance, that they eat always alone, and that they have no fixed hours when meals are to be taken by all in common, but each one eats when he feels inclined. The contrary custom would be better for the ends of social and civil life.
Their favourite mode of exercising the body is by friction, applied in various ways, but especially by passing smooth ebony rollers over the skin. Their tombs are plain, and the mounds raised over the dead lowly. In contrast to the general simplicity of their style, they love finery and ornament. Their robes are worked in gold, and ornamented with precious stones, and they wear also flowered garments made of the finest muslin. Attendants walking behind hold up umbrellas over them: for they have a high regard for beauty, and avail themselves of vice to improve their looks. Truth and virtue they hold alike in esteem. Hence they accord no special privileges to the old unless they possess superior wisdom. They marry many wives, whom they buy from their parents, giving every ​in exchange a yoke of oxen. Some they marry hoping to find in them willing helpmates; and others for pleasure and to fill their houses with children. The wives prostitute themselves unless they are compelled to be chaste. No one wears a crown at a sacrifice or libation, and they do not stab the victim, but strangle it, so that nothing mutilated, but only what is entire, may be presented to the deity.
A person convicted of bearing false witness suffers mutilation of his extremities. He who maims any one not only suffers in return the loss of the same limb, but his hand also is cut off. If he causes an artizan to lose his hand or his eye, he is put to death. The same writer says that none of the Indians employ slaves; [but Onesikritos says that this was peculiar to that part of the country over which Musikanos ruled.]
The care of the king's person is entrusted to women, who also are bought from their parents. The guards and the rest of the soldiery attend outside the gates. A woman who kills the king when drunk becomes the wife of his successor. The sons succeed the father. The king may not sleep during the daytime, and by night he is obliged to change his couch from ​time to time, with a view to defeat plots against his life.
The king leaves his palace not only in time of war, but also for the purpose of judging causes. He then remains in court for the whole day, without allowing the business to be interrupted, even though the hour arrives when he must needs attend to his person,—that is, when he is to be rubbed with cylinders of wood. He continues hearing cases while the friction, which is performed by four attendants, is still proceeding. Another purpose for which he leaves his palace is to offer sacrifice; a third is to go to the chase, for which he departs in Bacchanalian fashion. Crowds of women surround him, and outside of this circle spearmen are ranged. The road is marked off with ropes, and it is death, for man and woman alike, to pass within the ropes. Men with drums and gongs lead the procession. The king hunts in the enclosures and shoots arrows from a platform. At his side stand two or three armed women. If he hunts in the open grounds he shoots from the back of an elephant. Of the women, some are in chariots, some on horses, and some even on elephants, and they are equipped with weapons ​of every kind, as if they were going on a campaign.
[These customs are very strange when compared with our own, bnt the following are still more so;] for Megasthenês states that the tribes inhabiting the Kaukasos have intercourse with women in public, and eat the bodies of their relatives, and that there are monkeys which roll down stones, &c. (Fragm. XV. follows, and then Fragm. XXIX.)
* ↑ This wine was probably Soma juice.
* ↑ Curry and rice, no doubt.
* ↑ His kingdom lay in Sindhu, along the banks of the Indus, and his capital was probably near Bakkar.
* ↑ This was not unknown in native courts of later times. Conf. Idrisi's account of the Balhara king.
* ↑ "The present king of Ava, who evidently belongs to the Indo-Chinese type, although he claims a Kshatriya origin, leads a life of seclnsion very similar to that of Sandrokottos. He changes his bedroom every night, as a safeguard against sudden treachery." (Wheeler's Hist. of India, vol. III. p. 182, note.)
* ↑ In the drama of Śakuntalâ, Râja Dushyanta is represented as attended in the chase by Yavana women, with bows in their hands, and wearing garlands of wild flowers.
* ↑ Herodotus (bk. iii. 38, 99, 101) has noted the existence of both practices among certain Indian tribes.