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Megasthenes on the Military Livestock of Chandragupta and the Making of the First Indian Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2021

Thomas R. Trautmann
Thomas R. Trautmann*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
*
ttraut@umich.edu
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Abstract

Megasthenes was an eyewitness to the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, maker of the first India-wide empire (from ca. 321 BCE). The army with which he made that empire depended largely upon the supply of men, horses, elephants, and oxen, a sector which may be called military livestock. Megasthenes’ account of this large sector of government expense and the policies under which it operated gives important testimony about the causes of Chandragupta's success, namely the maintenance of a royal monopoly of horses, elephants, and arms, payment of the soldiers in peacetime and war, the demilitarization of the farmers, and the separation of the soldiers from the land. Over the long run of Indian history, from the Mauryan Empire to the present, the environmental roots of the political order lay in the complementary distribution of horse and elephant country, to the dry west and humid east of a line running down the middle of the Subcontinent; that is, respectively, the valleys of the Indus and the Ganga. The dominating power of India has always had its capital in elephant country, the valley of the Ganga, in cities from Pataliputra (Patna) to Kanauj to Delhi, in a position from which to control the eastward flow of horses and the westward flow of elephants to other states.

Keywords

MegasthenesChandraguptaMauryan EmpireAlexandermilitary livestockelephanthorse oxenvironmental historyIndia
Type
Empire and Ethnicity
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 339 - 365
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History

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References

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Scullard, H. H. 1974. The elephant in the Greek and Roman world. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Sherratt, Andrew. 1980. Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution. In Hodder, Ian, Isaac, Glynn, and Hammond, Norman, eds., Patterns of the past: studies in honour of David Clarke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 261–304.Google Scholar
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Sujato, Bhikkhu and Brahmali, Bhikku. 2014. The authenticity of the early Buddhist texts. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.Google Scholar
Sukumar, Raman. 2011. The story of Asia's elephants. Mumbai: Marg.Google Scholar
Thapar, Romila. 1961. Asóka and the decline of the Mauryas. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thapar, Romila. 1984. The Mauryas revisited. Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar Lectures on Indian History. Calcutta: Published for Centre for Studies in Social Sciences by K. P. Bagchi & Co.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 1971a. Kauṭilya and the Arthaśāstra: a statistical investigation of the authorship and evolution of the text. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 1971b. Alexander and Nandrus in Justin15.4.16. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 60: 240–42.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 1982. Elephants and the Mauryans. In Muckerjee, S. N., ed., India: history and thought: essays in honour of A. L. Basham. Calcutta: Subarnarekha, 254–81.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 2009. Finding India's place: locational projects of the longue durée. In The clash of chronologies: ancient India in the modern world. New Delhi: Yoda, 157–88.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 2015. Elephants and kings: an environmental history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogelsang, Willem. 1990. The Achaemenids and India. In Achaemenid history IV: centre and periphery. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 93–110.Google Scholar
Vogelsang, W. J. 1992. The rise and organisation of the Achaemenid Empire: the Eastern Iranian evidence. Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 3. Leiden and New York: Brill.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Francis. 1987. The jungle and the aroma of meats: an ecological theme in Hindu medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
ArrianGoogle Scholar
Brunt, P. A. 1976. Arrian. Rev. text and translation. Loeb Classical Library; 236, 269. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
ArthashastraGoogle Scholar
The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra. 1969. 2d ed. University of Bombay Studies: Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Pali, nos. 1–2. Bombay: University of Bombay.Google Scholar
Olivelle, Patrick. 2013. King, governance, and law in ancient India: Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashoka = Inscriptions of AshokaGoogle Scholar
Hultzsch, E., ed. 1969. Inscriptions of Aśoka. New ed. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. 1. Delhi: Indological Book House.Google Scholar
Ashoka, Kandahar InscriptionGoogle Scholar
Giorgio Levi della Vida, Giovanni Pugliese Caratelli 1958. Un Editto bilingue greco-aramaico di Aśoka: La prima iscrizione greca scoperta in Afghanistan. Roma: n.p.Google Scholar
Schlumberger, D., Robert, L., Dupont-Sommer, A., and Benveniste, E.. 1958. Un Bilingue Grēco-Araméenne d'Ashoka. Journal Asiatique 246: 1–48.Google Scholar
CtesiasGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Andrew. 2008. The complete fragments of Ctesias of Cnidus: translation and commentary with an introduction. PhD diss., University of Florida.Google Scholar
DiodorusGoogle Scholar
Siculus, Diodorus. 1961. Diodorus of Sicily. Oldfather, Charles Henry, trans. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press and W. Heineman.Google Scholar
DPPN = Dictionary of Pali proper namesGoogle Scholar
Malalasekera, G. P. 1960. Dictionary of Pali proper names. London: Published for the Pali Text Society by Luzac & Co.Google Scholar
EBT = Early Buddhist Texts.Google Scholar
See below, Sujato and Brahmali n.d.Google Scholar
GajagrahaṇaprakāraGoogle Scholar
Gajagrahaṇaprakāra of Nārāyaṇa Dīkṣita. 1968. Sreekrishna Sarma, E. R., ed. S.V.U.O. Journal, Texts and Studies, offprint no. 1. Tirupati: Sri Venkateswara University Oriental Research Institute.Google Scholar
MatangalilaGoogle Scholar
Nīlakaṇṭha, . 1910. The Mātaṅgalīlā of Nīlakaṇṭha. Śāstrī, T. Gaṇapati, ed. Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, no. X. Trivandrum: Government of HH the Maharajah of Travancore.Google Scholar
Edgerton, Franklin. 1931. The elephant-lore of the Hindus: the elephant-sport (Matanga-Lila) of Nilakantha. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
MegasthenesGoogle Scholar
Roller, Duane W. 2019. Megasthenes, Indian history 715. Worthington, Ian and Jacoby, Felix, eds. Brill's New Jacoby. 2d ed. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Jacoby, Felix. 1958. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, dritter Teil C. Leiden: Brill. Megasthenes = 715.Google Scholar
NearchusGoogle Scholar
Jacoby, Felix. 1929. Fragmente, zweiter Berlin, Teil B., Wiedmann. Nearchus = 133.Google Scholar
StraboGoogle Scholar
Strabo, . 1966. The geography of Strabo. Jones, Horace Leonard and Sterrett, John Robert Sitlington, trans. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bosworth, A. B. 1995. A historical commentary on Arrian's History of Alexander. Vol. II. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bosworth, A. B. 1996. The historical setting of Megasthenes’ Indica. Classical Philology 91, 2: 113–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burstein, Stanley M. 2008. Elephants for Ptolemy II: Ptolemaic policy in Nubia in the third century BC. In McKechnie, Paul and Guillaume, Philippe, eds., Ptolemy II Philadelphus and His World. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 135–47.Google Scholar
Casson, Lionel. 1993. Ptolemy II and the hunting of African elephants. Transactions of the American Philological Association 123: 247–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deloche, Jean. 1993. Transport and communications in India, prior to steam locomotion. 2 vols. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Digby, Simon. 1971. War-horse and elephant in the Dehli Sultanate: a study of military supplies. Oxford: Orient Monographs.Google Scholar
Gommans, Jos J. L. 2002. Mughal warfare: Indian frontiers and highroads to empire, 1500–1700. London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goukowsky, Paul. 1972. Le roi Pôros, son éléphant et quelques autres. Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 96, 1: 473–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gowers, William. 1947. The African elephant in warfare. African affairs 46, 182 (Jan.): 42–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gowers, William. 1948. African elephants and ancient authors. African affairs 47, 188 (July): 173–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goyal, Shriram. 1985. Kautilya and Megasthenes. Meerut: Kusumanjali Prakashan.Google Scholar
Goyal, Shriram. 2000. The Indica of Megasthenes: its contents and reliability. Jodhpur: Kusumanjali Book World.Google Scholar
Kane, Pandurang Vaman. 1973. History of Dharmaśāstra. Vol. 3 (rājadharma, etc.). 2d ed. Poona: Bandharkar Oriental Research Institute.Google Scholar
Kolff, D.H.A. 1990. Naukar, Rajput, and sepoy: the ethnohistory of the military labour market in Hindustan, 1450–1850. University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, no. 43. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kosmin, Paul J. 2014. The land of the elephant kings: space, territory, and ideology in the Seleucid Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lainé, Nicholas. 2016. Pratiques vocales et dressage animal: les mélodies huchées des Khamtis à leurs éléphants. In Bénard, N. and Poulet, C., eds., Chant pensé, chant vécu, temps chanté: formes, usages et représentations des pratiques vocales. Paris: Éditions Delatour, 187–205.Google Scholar
Lefebvre des Noëttes, Richard. 1931. L'attelage: le cheval de selle à travers les âges. 2 vols. Paris: A. Picard.Google Scholar
McClish, Mark. 2019. The history of the Arthaśāstra: sovereignty and sacred law in ancient India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moyer, Ian S. 2011. Egypt and the limits of Hellenism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, Grant Richard. 2008. The making of Roman India. Greek Culture in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Romm, James S. 1992. The edges of the earth in ancient thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, Kaushik. 2004. From Hydaspes to Kargil: a history of warfare in India from 326 BC to AD 1999. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors.Google Scholar
Schlumberger, D., Robert, L., Dupont-Sommer, A., and Benveniste, E.. 1958. Un Bilingue Grēco-Araméenne d'Asoka. Journal asiatique 246: 1–48.Google Scholar
Schwanbeck, E. A. 1846. Indica: fragmenta collegit, commentationem et indices addidit E. A. Schwanbeck. Bonnae: Sumptibus Pleimesii, bibliopolae.Google Scholar
Scullard, H. H. 1974. The elephant in the Greek and Roman world. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Sherratt, Andrew. 1980. Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution. In Hodder, Ian, Isaac, Glynn, and Hammond, Norman, eds., Patterns of the past: studies in honour of David Clarke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 261–304.Google Scholar
Sherratt, Andrew. 1983. The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World. World Archaeology 15, 1: 90–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sujato, Bhikkhu and Brahmali, Bhikku. 2014. The authenticity of the early Buddhist texts. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.Google Scholar
Sukumar, Raman. 2011. The story of Asia's elephants. Mumbai: Marg.Google Scholar
Thapar, Romila. 1961. Asóka and the decline of the Mauryas. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thapar, Romila. 1984. The Mauryas revisited. Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar Lectures on Indian History. Calcutta: Published for Centre for Studies in Social Sciences by K. P. Bagchi & Co.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 1971a. Kauṭilya and the Arthaśāstra: a statistical investigation of the authorship and evolution of the text. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 1971b. Alexander and Nandrus in Justin15.4.16. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 60: 240–42.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 1982. Elephants and the Mauryans. In Muckerjee, S. N., ed., India: history and thought: essays in honour of A. L. Basham. Calcutta: Subarnarekha, 254–81.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 2009. Finding India's place: locational projects of the longue durée. In The clash of chronologies: ancient India in the modern world. New Delhi: Yoda, 157–88.Google Scholar
Trautmann, Thomas R. 2015. Elephants and kings: an environmental history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogelsang, Willem. 1990. The Achaemenids and India. In Achaemenid history IV: centre and periphery. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 93–110.Google Scholar
Vogelsang, W. J. 1992. The rise and organisation of the Achaemenid Empire: the Eastern Iranian evidence. Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 3. Leiden and New York: Brill.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Francis. 1987. The jungle and the aroma of meats: an ecological theme in Hindu medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar