India (Herodotus)

In ancient Greek geography the basin of the Indus River was on the extreme eastern fringe of the known world. The term "India" was used by Herodotus and later Greek writers in three different senses: the Achaemenid Persian province Hindush which was at the lower Indus basin, the entire Indus land, which contained two other Persian provinces—Thatagush and Gandāra, and the whole of Indian subcontinent. The ethnic term "Indians" was most often used for Indians in the modern sense, represented by physical appearance and cultural markers such as wearing cotton, driving chariots and carrying iron-tipped arrows.

Etymology

The Indus River was called Sindhu in Sanskrit, and the country at the lower Indus basin, modern Sindh, was also called Sindhu. The Persian Achaemenid emperor, Darius the Great, having conquered this country of Sindhu around 513 BC, called it by the Persian equivalent Hinduš. The Proto-Iranian sound change *s > h occurred between 850–600 BCE, according to Asko Parpola.
The Ionian dialects of the Greek language dropped the leading aspirate and made the word Indos, which was used for the Indus River as well as the people of Hindush or the people of the Indus Valley in general. The land was called India or Indike. These terms appear to have been settled before the time of Herodotus, through the writings of Scylax of Caryanda and Hecataeus of Miletus.

Background

Indians and Greeks were brought together under the Persian Achaemenid Empire by the middle of the 6th century BC. By the end of the century, the empire stretched from the Aegean coast of the Mediterranean to the Indus River.
The Greek colonies in Asia Minor were already part of the Achaemenid Empire since 546 BC and, thus, the Greeks and Indians came into contact with each other as subjects of the Empire.
According to Herodotus 4.44 the Greek explorer Scylax of Caryanda sailed down the length of the Indus in the service of Darius. Hecataeus of Miletus, around 500 BC, wrote about the geography and peoples of "India", as did the Greek physician Ctesias. Most of these works have not survived in their original form but fragments are known through transmission by later writers. Not only individual Greeks, but also large groups of Greeks were forced to settle in Bactria, who must have had prolonged contact with Indians. Herodotus's account is believed to be based on these accounts.

Description

Geography

The Greeks were not aware of the geography of India east of the Indus basin. Herodotus in 4.40 uses the term "India" for the Indus basin, and describes it as being on the eastern fringe of the inhabitable world,
But he knew of Indians living beyond the Persian province of Hinduš :

People

In book 3, Herodotus gives some account of the peoples of India; he describes them as being very diverse, and makes reference to their dietary habits, some eating raw fish, others eating raw meat, and yet others practising vegetarianism. He also mentions their dark skin colour.
In 3.38, Herodotus mentions the Indian tribe of the Callatiae for their practice of funerary cannibalism; in a striking illustration of cultural relativism, he points out that this people is just as dismayed at the notion of the Greeks practising cremation as the Greeks are at that of eating their dead parents. In book 7 and in 8.113 Herodotus describes the Indian infantry and cavalry employed in Xerxes' army.

Later developments

As the western travellers went into the rest of the subcontinent through the original "India", the name was gradually extended to the inner regions. By the time of Alexander the Great, at least northern India up to the Ganges delta was known, the regions being referred to as Gangaridai and Prasii/Prasioi, all included in "India".
After Megasthenes, a Bactrian Greek that spent several years in the court of Magadha, south India was also known, referred to as Pandaia.
By the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes recognised "India" as terminating in a peninsula. Eratosthenes was also the first Greek author to postulate an island Taprobane at the far south of India, later becoming a name of Sri Lanka. European knowledge of the geography of India did not become much better resolved until the end of Antiquity, and remained at this stage throughout the Middle Ages, only becoming more detailed with the beginning of the Age of Sail in the 15th century.