page_title: Megasthenes
section_title: As an ambassador
hierarchical_section_title: Megasthenes / Biography / As an ambassador
caption_attribution_description: Reference for Arachosia boundaries [1]. The factual accuracy of this description or the file name is disputed.Reason: No source is provided for the boundaries of ancient Arachosia. See P. M. Fraser and other scholarly books on the disputes regarding Arachosia.English: Embassy of Megasthenes
context_page_description: Megasthenes was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat and Indian ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book Indika, which is now lost, but has been partially reconstructed from literary fragments found in later authors.
context_section_description: Megasthenes was a Greek ambassador of Seleucus I Nicator in the court of Chandragupta Maurya. Arrian explains that Megasthenes lived in Arachosia, with the satrap Sibyrtius, from where he visited India:
  Megasthenes lived with Sibyrtius, satrap of Arachosia, and often speaks of his visiting Sandracottus, the king of the Indians." Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri 
  Megasthenes visited India sometime between c. 302 and 288 BCE, during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya. The exact dates of his visit to India, and the duration of his stay in India are not certain. Modern scholars generally assume that Seleucus sent him to India immediately after the treaty with Chandragupta. Arrian claims that Megasthenes met Porus: this claim seems to be an erroneous one, unless we assume that Megasthenes accompanied Alexander the Great during the Greek invasion of India.
  Megasthenes visited the Maurya capital Pataliputra, but it is not certain which other parts of India he visited. He appears to have passed through the Punjab region in north-western India, as he provides a detailed account of the rivers in this area. He must have then traveled to Pataliputra along the Yamuna and the Ganga rivers.
  Megasthenes compiled information about India in form of Indika, which is now a lost work, but survives in form of quotations by the later writers.
  Other Greek envoys to the Indian court are known after Megasthenes: Deimachus as ambassador to Bindusara, and Dionysius, as ambassador to Ashoka.
caption: According to Arrian, Megasthenes lived in Arachosia and travelled to Pataliputra.[2][3][4][5]
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