Indica

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Indicá (roughly: "Indian history") is the title of several writings by ancient Greek historians about ancient India .

Similar to comparable ancient writings about the Persian Empire (see Persika ), these are specially ethnographically designed works. However, the knowledge of the Greeks about ancient India was very sketchy before the Alexander procession and was often characterized by fairy-tale-like stories that reached back to Herodotus . For the Greeks, India was a “wonderland” in which semi-mythical beings lived, like giant ants digging for gold; many similar miraculous stories ( mirabilia ) circulated in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Basically, the form of representation of the Indicá reflects the fascination of the Greeks with regard to India, with which they associated fantasies; Even in reports from Greeks who had first-hand knowledge of India, an astonishing reality shines through for this foreign country.

The majority of these works have been lost or only survived in fragments (collected in The Fragments of the Greek Historians ); of some works only the names of the authors are known. Skylax of Karyanda wrote as early as the late 6th century BC. A report about his trip to India. Around 400 BC Chr. Wrote Ctesias a work entitled Indika , which was indeed embellished fictionalized, but the former (inadequate) knowledge of the Greeks about this country documented.

With the conquests of Alexander , the Greeks' image of India expanded dramatically and several works were created by authors who had knowledge from their own experience. For example, Nearchus and Onesikritus wrote related writings as part of the Alexanderzug . In Hellenism , several authors wrote works with the title Indicá , such as Megasthenes and Daimachos , both of whom acted as ambassadors of the Seleucids at the court of the Maurya kings . A certain Dionysius also acted as ambassador there, but nothing has been preserved of his work on India. Arrian drew on Nearchus, Megasthenes, and other authors in his Indian book in the early Roman Empire. Arrian's account is characterized by a sobriety that stands in contrast to the often wondrous descriptions of other authors of Indicá , which is probably due not least to his sources.

literature

  • Manuel Albadalejo Vivero: La India en la literatura griega. Un estudio etnográfico. Alcala 2005.
  • Janick Auberger: L'Inde de Ctésias. In: Jean-Claude Carrière (ed.): Inde, Grèce ancienne, regards croisés en anthropologie de l'espace. Paris 1995, pp. 39-59.
  • Joan M. Bigwood: Ctesias' "Indica" and Photius. In: Phoenix 43, 1989, pp. 302-316.
  • Klaus Karttunen: India and the Hellenistic world. Finnish Oriental Society, Helsinki 1997.
  • Klaus Karttunen: India in Early Greek Literature. Finnish Oriental Society, Helsinki 1989.
  • Otto Lendle : Introduction to Greek historiography. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1992, ISBN 3-534-10122-7 , pp. 272f.
  • Klaus Meister : The Greek historiography. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-17-010264-8 , pp. 141f.
  • Josef Wiesehöfer , Horst Brinkhaus, Reinhold Bichler (eds.): Megasthenes und seine Zeit / Megasthenes and His Time. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2016.