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38-1192: [REDACTED] Look up indika in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Indika may refer to: An alternate name of Megasthenes' Indica Indika (video game) , an adventure video game developed by Odd-Meter People [ edit ] Indika Anuruddha , Sri Lankan politician Indika Bandaranayake (b. 1972), Sri Lankan politician Indika Basnayake (b. 1979), Sri Lankan cricketer Indika Batuwitarachchi (b. 1974), Sri Lankan cricketer Indika de Saram (b. 1972), Sri Lankan cricketer Indika Dissanayake (b. 1989), Sri Lankan weightlifter Indika Gallage (b. 1975), Sri Lankan cricketer Indika Gunawardena (1943–2015), Sri Lankan politician Indika Kankanange (b. 1974), Sri Lankan cricketer Indika Ruwanpura (b. 1980), Sri Lankan cricketer Damith Indika (b. 1984), Sri Lankan cricketer Iran Indika (b. 1989), Sri Lankan cricketer Nuwan Indika (b. 1985), Sri Lankan cricketer Wehella Kankanamge Indika , Sri Lankan politician See also [ edit ] Indica (disambiguation) Topics referred to by

76-445: A fountain of the same name. Everything cast into this river sinks down to the bottom – nothing floats in it. In addition, there are a large number of other rivers, supplying abundant water for agriculture. According to the native philosophers and natural scientists, this is because the bordering countries (Scythia, Bactria, and Ariana) are more elevated than India, so their waters run down to India. Some believe that in primitive times,

114-569: A powerful, impregnable nation. The later ruler — the Indian Herakles — is presented as a native of India, despite similarities with the Greek Heracles . This, according to Kosmin, is because now India is shown as unconquerable. Megasthenes emphasizes that no foreign army had been able to conquer India (since Dionysus) and Indians had not invaded a foreign country either. This representation of India as an isolated, invincible country

152-399: A reconstructed version of Indica in 1887. However, this reconstruction is not universally accepted. Schwanbeck and McCrindle attributed several fragments in the writings of the 1st century BCE writer Diodorus to Megasthenes. However, Diodorus does not mention Megasthenes even once, unlike Strabo, who explicitly mentions Megasthenes as one of his sources. There are several differences between

190-681: A report from Onesicritus . Historian Shireen Moosvi theorizes that slaves were outcastes, and were not considered members of the society at all. According to historian Romila Thapar , the lack of sharp distinction between slaves and others in the Indian society (unlike the Greek society ) may have confused Megasthenes: Indians did not use large-scale slavery as a means of production, and slaves in India could buy back their freedom or be released by their master. Megasthenes mentions seven castes in India, while

228-412: A variety of fruit trees. It also has many beautiful cultivated plains, which are irrigated by a large number of rivers. Most of the country is well-watered, and is able to produce two crops a year , since rain falls in both summer and winter. The major crops include wheat (crop of Demeter), millet, many great-quality pulses, rice, a crop called bosporos , fruits and other plants that are useful as food. At

266-530: A very small number of German Jews who initially supported Adolf Hitler . According to some witnesses, he even went so far as to make the startling comparison in 1933: As a Jew I find myself in a difficult position. But as a historian I have long learned not to view historical events from a private perspective. I have voted for Adolf Hitler since 1927 and I am happy that in the year of the National Rising I am allowed to lecture on Augustus, because Augustus

304-590: Is an attempt to vindicate Seleucus' peace treaty with the Indian emperor through which he abandoned territories he could never securely hold, stabilized the East, and obtained elephants with which he could turn his attention against his great western rival, Antigonus Monophthalmus. Megasthenes states that there were no slaves in India, but the Arthashastra attests to the existence of slavery in contemporary India; Strabo also counters Megasthenes's claim based on

342-467: Is creditworthy, and is an important source of information about the contemporary Indian society, administration and other topics. According to Paul J. Kosmin , Indica served a legitimizing purpose for Seleucus I and his actions in India. It depicts contemporary India as an unconquerable territory, arguing that Dionysus was able to conquer India, because before his invasion, India was a primitive rural society. Dionysus' urbanization of India makes India

380-571: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Megasthenes%27 Indica Indika (Greek: Ἰνδικά; Latin: Indica ) is an account of Mauryan India by the Greek writer Megasthenes . The original work is now lost, but its fragments have survived in later Greek and Latin works. The earliest of these works are those by Diodorus Siculus , Strabo ( Geographica ), Pliny , and Arrian ( Indica ). Megasthenes' Indica can be reconstructed using

418-508: Is likely that Strabo sourced the rest of the text from sources other than Megasthenes: that's why he attributes only three statements specifically to Megasthenes. Another example is the earliest confirmed description of Gandaridae , which appears in the writings of Diodorus. McCrindle believed that Diodorus' source for this description was the now-lost book of Megasthenes. However, according to A. B. Bosworth (1996), Diodorus obtained this information from Hieronymus of Cardia : Diodorus described

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456-416: Is placed upon it golden bowls, into which they first put rice, boiled as one would boil barley, and then they add many dainties prepared according to Indian receipts. Indian never drink wine except in sacrifice. 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

494-452: Is said to span 28,000 stades from west to east, and 32,000 from north to south. Because of its large size, India is "thought to encompass a larger stretch of the sun's course in summer than any other part of the world". In many of the extreme points of India, a gnomon of the sundial casts no shadow, and the Bears ( Ursa Major and Ursa Minor ) are not visible at night. In the furthest parts,

532-462: Is the only figure in world history that may be compared to Adolf Hitler. However, others doubt that this is true. In 1939, Jacoby fled to England, where he stayed at Oxford, continuing his work on the fragments of the Greek historians. He returned to Germany in 1956, and died in Berlin in 1959. He is best known among classicists for his highly important work Fragmente der griechischen Historiker ,

570-492: The pole star is not visible, and it is said that the shadows incline to the south. India has many large and navigable rivers, which rise in the northern mountains, and flow through the plains. Many of these rivers merge into the Ganges , which is 30 stadia wide at its source, and runs from north to south. The Ganges empties into the ocean that forms the southern boundary of Gandaridae (Gangadarai). The country of Gandaridae has

608-783: The Fragments I and II attributed to Megasthenes in McCrindle's edition cannot originate from the same source, because Fragment I describes the Nile as larger than the Indus, while Fragment II describes the Indus as longer than the Nile and the Danube combined. Schwanbeck's Fragment XXVII includes four paragraphs from Strabo, and Schwanbeck attributes these entire paragraphs to Megasthenes. However, Strabo cites Megasthenes as his source only for three isolated statements in three different paragraphs. It

646-512: The Ganges as 30 stadia (6 km, 4 miles) wide; it is well-attested by other sources that Megasthenes described the median or minimum width of the Ganges as 100 stadia (20 km, 12 miles). According to the text reconstructed by J. W. McCrindle (1877) and Richard Stoneman (2022), Megasthenes' Indica describes India as follows: India is a quadrilateral-shaped country, bounded by the Great Sea in

684-730: The Hylobioi are the physicians , since they are engaged in the study of the nature of man. Besides these there are diviners and sorcerers. Women pursue philosophy with some of them. Megasthenes also comments on the presence of pre-Socratic views among the Brahmans in India and Jews in Syria. Five centuries later Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromateis , may have misunderstood Megasthenes to be responding to claims of Greek primacy by admitting Greek views of physics were preceded by those of Jews and Indians. Megasthenes, like Numenius of Apamea ,

722-410: The Indian texts mention only four social classes ( varnas ). According to Thapar, Megasthenes' categorization appears to be based on economic divisions rather than the social divisions; this is understandable because the varnas originated as economic divisions. Thapar also speculates that he wrote his account some years after his visit to India, and at this time, he "arrived at the number seven, forgetting

760-707: The Indians lived on fruits and wore clothes made of animal skin, just like the Greeks. They claim that Dionysus invaded India, and conquered it. When his army was unable to bear the excessive heat, he led his soldiers to the mountains called Meros for recovery; this led to the Greek legend about Dionysus being bred in his father's thigh ( meros in Greek). Dionysus taught Indians several things including how to grow plants, make wine and worship. He founded several large cities, introduced laws and established courts. For this reason, he

798-427: The accounts of Megasthenes and Diodorus: for example, Diodorus describes India as 28,000 stadia (roughly 5,000 km, 3,000 miles) long from east to west; Megasthenes gives this number as 16,000 (3,000 km, 2,000 miles). Diodorus states that the Indus may be the world's largest river after the Nile; Megasthenes (as quoted by Arrian) states that the Ganges is much larger than the Nile. Historian R. C. Majumdar points out that

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836-672: The east and the south, Indus River in the west, and Emodus mountain in the north ("Emodus" (or "Hemodus") refers to the Hindu Kush , Pamir , and the Himalayas taken as a single mountain range; the word is derived from the Indian term Haimavata , meaning "covered with snow". ) Beyond the Emodus lies the Sacae -inhabited part of Scythia . Besides Scythia, the countries of Bactria and Ariana border India. India's northern border reaches

874-684: The extremities of the Tauros . From Ariana to the Eastern Sea, it is bound by mountains that are called the Kaukasos by the Macedonians. The various native names for these mountains include Parapamisos , Hemodus (or Emodus) and Himaos. and the southern extremities of India as the Pandya country "occupying the portion of India which lies southward and extends to the sea". The area of India

912-505: The facts as given to him". Alternatively, it is possible that the later authors misquoted him, trying to find similarities with the Egyptian society, which according to Herodotus was divided into seven social classes. Megasthenes claims that before Alexander, no foreign power had invaded or conquered Indians, with the exception of the mythical heroes Hercules and Dionysus. However, it is known from earlier sources – such as Herodotus and

950-709: The finest muslin. Some have attendants walking behind hold up umbrellas over them: for they have a high regard for beauty, and avail themselves of every device to improve their looks. Because of its large size, India is inhabited by many diverse races, all of which are indigenous. India has no foreign colony, and Indians have not established any colonies outside India. Like its animals, the humans of India are also "exceptional in stature and bulk" because of abundance of crops. They are also technically accomplished, because of pure air and clean water. They are well-skilled in art. A law, prescribed by ancient Indian philosophers, bans slavery. The law treats everyone equally, but allows

988-411: The highest number and the largest elephants in India, because of which other nations are afraid of its strength, and no foreign king has been able to conquer it. Even Alexander of Macedon , who subdued all of Asia and defeated all the other Indians, refrained from making war against Gandaridae when he learned that they had 4,000 war elephants. The Indus also runs from north to south, and empties into

1026-742: The inscriptions of Darius the Great – that the Achaemenid Empire included parts of north-western part of India (present-day Pakistan). It is possible that the Achaemenid control did not extend much beyond the Indus River, which Megasthenes considered to be the border of India. Another possibility is that Megasthenes intended to understate the power of the Achaemenid Empire, a rival of the Greeks. Felix Jacoby Jacoby

1064-564: The ocean. It has several navigable tributaries, the most notable ones being Hypanis, the Hydaspes , and the Acesines. (According to a passage of Diodorus traced to Megasthenes, Indus is the world's largest river after Nile. However, according to Arrian, Megasthenes as well as other writers wrote that Ganges is much larger than Indus. ) One peculiar river is the Sillas , which originates from

1102-518: The portions preserved by later writers as direct quotations or paraphrase. The parts that belonged to the original text can be identified from the later works based on similar content, vocabulary and phrasing, even when the content has not been explicitly attributed to Megasthenes. Felix Jacoby 's Fragmente der griechischen Historiker contains 36 pages of content traced to Megasthenes. E. A. Schwanbeck traced several fragments to Megasthenes, and based on his collection, John Watson McCrindle published

1140-584: The property to be unevenly distributed. The population of India is divided into 7 endogamous and hereditary castes: Megasthenes makes a different division of the philosophers, saying that they are of two kinds - one of which he calls the Brachmanes , and the other the Sarmanes . Of the Sarmanes he tells us that those who are held in most honour are called the Hylobioi ( Gymnosophist ). Next in honour to

1178-400: The royal rule was replaced by democratic city states, although there existed a few kings when Alexander invaded India. India has a variety of animals, many of which are exceptionally large and strong. India has the highest number of domesticated elephants, and Indians hunt and trained them for warfare . Because of availability of a great amount of food, the Indian elephants are the largest in

Indika - Misplaced Pages Continue

1216-638: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Indika . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indika&oldid=1231540164 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Disambiguation pages with given-name-holder lists Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists Surnames of Sinhalese origin Sinhalese unisex given names Hidden categories: Short description

1254-399: The time of summer solstice, the following crops are sown: rice, bosporos , sesame , and millet. During winter, wheat is sown, as in other countries. No famines have ever occurred in India because of the following reasons: Indian beverage is a liquor composed from rice instead of barley. When the Indians are at supper, a table is placed before each person, this being like a tripod. There

1292-485: The world, and stronger than the Libyan elephants . The gestation period of the elephants ranges from 16 to 18 months, and the oldest of the elephants live up to 200 years. The land of India produces every kind of metal suitable for adornment, military requipment and other use. It has a great amount of silver and gold, a substantial amount of bronze and iron, and also tin and other metals. India has several mountains with

1330-468: Was a powerful man who subjugated evil beasts. He had several sons and one daughter, who became rulers in different parts of his dominion. He founded several cities, the greatest of which was Palibothra ( Pataliputra ). Herakles built several places in this city, fortified it with water-filled trenches and settled a number of people in the city. His descendants ruled India for several generations, but never launched an expedition beyond India. After several years,

1368-666: Was born in Magdeburg to Jewish parents. There he attended the grammar school at the monastery of Unser Lieben Frauen (Our Dear Lady) in Magdeburg and was baptised a Protestant in St John's Church at the age of 11. From 1906 to 1934, he was professor of Classics at Kiel . Though he was later expelled from the University of Kiel during the Gleichschaltung of Nazi Germany , Jacoby is said by some to have been one of

1406-406: Was regarded as a deity by the Indians. He ruled entire India for 52 years, before dying of old age. His descendants ruled India for several generations, before being dethroned and replaced by democratic city-states. The Indians who inhabit the hill country also claim that Herakles was one of them. Like the Greeks, they characterize him with the club and the lion's skin. According to them, Herakles

1444-1266: Was simply comparing the ideas of the different ancient cultures. The foreigners are treated well. Special officers are appointed to ensure that no foreigner is harmed, and judges hand out harsh punishment to those who take unfair advantage of the foreigners. Sick foreigners are attended by physicians and taken care of. Foreigners who die in India are buried, and their property is delivered to their relatives. Later writers such as Arrian , Strabo , Diodorus , and Pliny refer to Indika in their works. Of these writers, Arrian speaks most highly of Megasthenes, while Strabo and Pliny treat him with less respect. The first century Greek writer Strabo called both Megasthenes and his succeeding ambassador Deimachus liars, and stated that "no faith whatever" could be placed in their writings. The Indika contained numerous fantastical stories, such as those about tribes of people with no mouths, unicorns and other mythical animals, and gold-digging ants . Strabo directly contradicted these descriptions, assuring his readers that Megasthenes' stories, along with his recounting of India’s founding by Hercules and Dionysus, were mythical with little to no basis in reality. Despite such shortcomings, some authors believe that Indika

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