Since ancient times India witnessed visits from large number of travelers across the world. According to historian K.A.N Shastri foreign accounts give an important perspective of Indian society by outsiders and thus are an important source for historians. The Greek accounts of Megathenes, Strabo, Herodotus etc., Roman writers like Pliny and Chinese travelers like Fahien and HuenTsang are important foreign accounts for understanding the political, social, economic and geographical condition of Ancient India.
Importance of Greek accounts as a source of Indian history:
- The earliest references to India in Greek texts date from the 5th century BCE and their frequency increases thereafter.
- Magasthanese's Indica holds the most prominent place among all the Greek accounts as it elaborately describes the geography, polity, agriculture products and Society during Chandragupta Maurya reign.
- Arrian wrote a detailed account of the invasion of India by Alexander.
- Greek scholar Heredotus talks about the prosperity of India and mentions the bright economic situation of India's inhabitants.
- The Greek writers mention Sandrokottas , who is identified with Chandragupta Maurya and thus helps in reconstructing the Mauryan chronology.
- The Greek account, of an unknown writer, the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea gives us an idea of the maritime activities between India and the west by mentioning ports, harbors and merchandise and other great deals about Indo-Roman trade.
- Ptolemy wrote about the geography of India during the second century AD.
- Roman writer Pliny talks in vain about the tremendous outflow of gold from Rome to India in return for spices. We found hoards of Roman coins in Kerala establishing this fact. Pliny also gives an account of the Indian flora and fauna along with important minerals in the first century AD.
- The accounts of Plutarch and Strabo also provide us useful information regarding socio-economic life of their times
Importance of Chinese Accounts :
- Many Chinese monks made long and arduous overland journeys to India, crossing mountains, plateaux, and deserts, in order to collect authentic manuscripts of Buddhist texts, meet Indian monks, and visit places of Buddhist learning and pilgrimage.
- Chinese travelers Fa hien and Huen Tsang wrote a great deal about the social conditions India than their counterparts in Greece and Rome.
- The best known among those who wrote accounts of their Indian travels are Faxian (Fa Hien) and Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang).
- Faxian’s travels extended from 399 to 414 CE and were confined to northern India.
- Hiuen- Tsang is known as prince of pilgrimage. He left his home in 629 CE and spent over 10 years travelling the length and breadth of the country.He stayed in India for many years and also studied in the university of Nalanda. He was patronized by Harsha and his account is rightly considered as a Gazetteer of India.
- Fahien had detailed account on the plight of untouchables in Guptan period. Also the social discrimination on certain sections of society was mentioned. Huen Tsang also speaks in same detail as his predecessor but mainly concentrated on the royal affairs.
- Yijing, another 7th century Chinese traveller, lived for 10 years in the great monastery of Nalanda.
- I-Tsing visited India during the 7th century and he has left to us useful information about the social and religious conditions of India.
- The accounts written by these pilgrims throw light on the history of Buddhism and various other aspects of their time.
- The Chinese historical works contain numerous references to the movement and migration of nomadic tribes living on the borders of China and some of which eventually invaded India. These and other chronological references have been useful in building up the framework of Indian chronology
But these texts need be be studied with caution and have to be corroborated with other contemporary sources.
- Their knowledge of India may be defective. They may have not seen much of the country and might have restored to generalizations. Their ignorance of India languages might have affected their impression and knowledge about India.
- The writings seem to be influenced by Greek cultural prism, the case in point is the division of society into 7 classes by Megasthenes and his remark of slave free India is questionable as Arthasastra mentions about slave practice.
- A large part of Megasthenes's work is lost and information survives only in fragments in other greek sources
- Even many of them are based on hearsay or interaction with Indian traders rather than personal visit to India say the work of Herodotus and Arien is based on interaction with Indian traders and not on their own experience which make their work questionable.
- Even the ambassadors must have lived in capital cities thus could not provide the first hand information on popular culture of society.
- An example of a very unreliable account is the Indica of Ktesias (4th century BCE), which is full of bizarre stories about India and Indians, collected by the author while living in Persia as a royal physician.
- Historians have to distinguish between statements based on hearsay and those grounded in personal experience, between perceptive observations and cases where the writer got things completely wrong.
Thus, Foreign accounts need to be studied carefully and should look out for exaggerated versions and eulogies with any other contemporary sources. It is important to corroborate these accounts with other contemporary sources to understand ancient Indian history in totality but nevertheless the third person perspective in foreign accounts is an important historical source.
