Ancient Geography of India The first text in Greek devoted entirely to India was written by Ctesias in
the fourth century BC. Only fragments of it survive. Yet he was probably the most
widely quoted author on India, although Aristotle treated him with contempt.
However, soon after Aristotle drew upon Ctesias’ writings, as did Plato,
Xenophon and Plutarch. From all these account India became a happy land, a
kind of utopia. Pliny (AD 24-79) put forth the age-old notion that India covered
one-third of the surface of the earth. Indian kings from Father Tiber to
Alexander had reigned 6451 years and three months. Anaximander of Miletus, born in 610 BC, was the first Greek to draw a
map of the earth. It was shown there that the earth was shaped like two half
moons of land. The one on the north was Europe and the southern one consisted
of Asia and Africa. Together these two half moons enclosed an inland sea – the
Mediterranean, truly meaning the middle (medi) of the land (terra). Herodotus
drew upon such an authority of the past and put forth his idea of the inhabited
world – oikoumene. His notion of the earth was an oblong one, running from west
to east. This was divided into three continents – Europe, Asia and Libya. He
inform in one place in his writings that the boundaries of Europe were unknown
and there was not a man who could say whether any sea girdled it round either to
the north or to the east. He thought the farthest settled land in this world reached
out to the Persian province of Punjab. Aristotle added that between the Pillars of
Hercules (modern
Gibraltar) and India
there was nothing but
ocean. World Map of Herodotus This was the sum
of knowledge when
Alexander began his
conquests from
Macedon, the tiny kingdom in distant Greece. With all the details given by the
advanced parties through marches before the great expedition began across
Europe, Alexander believed India to be a peninsula of no great depth, which just
jutted eastward to the sea, and which on its northern flank was bordered by the
chain of mountains. North of this, at no great distance beyond the River Jaxartes
was the ocean. To Alexander India meant the land of the Indus River. Whether
that mighty river was the source of the Nile or whether it flowed into the ocean
was beyond his interest. He must have questioned the local interpreters on arrival
with his vast army on the other side of the Indus. Most of the local people did not
even know the meaning of the term ocean. Ptolemy (AD 90–168) was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek.
He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet. His
second book is the Geography, which is a thorough discussion of the geographic
knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. In it he says that the true shape of India,
the most striking feature of the land, is the acute angle formed by the meeting of
the two coasts of the peninsula in a single coastline running almost straight from
the mouth of the Indus to the mouth of the Ganga River. Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang AD 602 – 664) was a famous Chinese Buddhist
monk, scholar, traveller, and translator who described the interaction between
China and India in the early Tang period. The same division of five provinces –
Five Indies – continue in his description of the land he travelled. He packs
together the shape of India to a half moon with the diameter or broad side to the
north and the narrow end to the south. This is not unlike the configuration of
India in Ptolemy’s Geography; yet much more accurate. In fact the Chinese
pilgrim author brings in a touch of humour when he says rather wryly that the
people’s faces are the same shape as the country – narrow downward and broad
on the top. Please Answer the Following Questions on the GradeCam Scantron 1. What century was the first Greek text written solely about India? a. 1st b. 2nd c. 3rd d. 4th 2. Pliny described India as cover _______________ area of the earth? a. ⅓ b. ¼ c. ⅔ d. ½ 3. Anaximander described the earth as 2 half-­________________. a. Moons b. Circles c Spheres d. Columns 4. Herodotus defined the earth into 3 continents: Europe, Asia, and _______________. a. Africa b. South America c. Libya d. Greece 5. Where did Alexander begin is campaign to conquer the world? a. Macedon b. Rome c. India d. China 6. Alexander believed India to be a _________________ before getting there. a. Island b. Peninsula c. mountain range d. Dessert 7. What rivers did Ptolemy identify in his description of India? a. Yellow b. Indus c. Ganga d. Both B & C 8. What does the Chinese monk Xuanzang compare the shape of India to? a. Mountain range b. Face of people c. Piece of food d. Shape of a tree 9. In the first paragraph, India is described as a ________________ land. a. Sad b. Huge c. Happy d. Scary 10. Who was was the first Greek to draw a map of earth? a. Alexander b. Anaximander c. Herodotus d.Plutarch