Question

Who was Megasthenes?

Answer 1

Hint: Megasthenes (350 BC— 290 BC) was an ancient Greek historian and diplomat who wrote the Indica, a four-volume chronicle of India. He was an Ionian who was sent on diplomatic missions to the Mauryan emperor Chandragupta by the Hellenistic monarch Seleucus I.

Complete answer:
 During the Hellenistic period, Megasthenes was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat, Indian ethnographer, and explorer. He is known for his work “Indica” which gives an account of administration and cultures in India. There were legends in the Indika about tribes of people with no mouths, unicorns and other mythological animals, and gold-digging ants, among other things.

During the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, Megasthenes visited India. The precise dates of his trip to India, as well as the length of his stay, are unknown. In the form of Indika, Megasthenes collated information on India.

Megasthenes presented a detailed account of Chandragupta Maurya's personal life. He lived a very opulent life, and his palace was one of a kind in terms of its magnificence. Megasthenes was the first person from the Western world to describe India in writing. He had also written on the splendour and magnificence of Pataliputra's capital city.

Note: Following the creation of good relations between Chandragupta and Seleucus, the latter sent Megasthenes to Chandragupta's court as an ambassador. His well-known work "Indica" is the earliest surviving and most thorough depiction of Ancient India by a foreign visitor—the first in a long line of travellers to the country.