India in Early Greek Literature.

• Author: Narain, A.K.

It has been very encouraging to witness during the last three decades a new interest in examining afresh relations between "India" and the Graeco-Roman world in ancient times. Several books dealing with the subject have lately been published. Klaus Karttunen's is one among the latest I have seen.

This book, as the author states, is a study of "the early Greek accounts of India and some related problems" and his task is to "reach some kind of evaluation of these sources." "But" he adds, "in order to understand the accounts properly it is also important to know something of the world which they reflected, and the role India played within that scheme" (p. 9). The book contains nine chapters, including introduction and conclusions. The references cover twenty-seven pages, followed by four pages of Index locorum citatorum and twenty-four pages of general index. In the end there are three maps.

The book does not provide a narrative, in a historical sequence, of the Greek literary sources, nor does it offer any systematic treatment of the major topics of interaction between the "Indian" and "Greek" civilizations. But, the author has, instead, produced a mixed bag of assorted items of varied interest often lacking any logical relation. For example, chapter II, on "Historical Perspectives" includes, among others, sections on the "Ships of Meluhha," "King Solomon and the Gold of Ophir," "Incense and Aromatics," "Mesopotamia and the Re-establishment of the Northern Route," etc. Chapters VII and VIII, entitled "Northwestern India in Greek and Indian Sources," in which the author claims to have offered something constructive, include, among others, such sections as "The Idea of India," followed by "Falconry," "Indian Dogs," "Fat-tailed Sheep," "Rhinoceros," "Fabulous Peoples in Indian Sources," "Cannibals," "Pandava," "Wine," "Heracles and Dionysius," "The Sun Cult," etc. In spite of this sporadic list of fantasy and fact, the author has succeeded in producing a book which brings old controversies on the nature and content of early Graeco-Indian relations back to life again and has updated research in the field drawing attention to new information and ideas.

In the introduction, the author makes a survey of the studies on India by classical philologists and Indologists from the earliest times to the present and comes to the disappointing conclusion that "the bulk of classical accounts on India does not deal with the same country and culture we know from Sanskrit literature," and therefore "it is a task of the present study to examine the circumstances by concentrating upon the earliest Greek sources" (p. 6). Karttunen defines "early Greek literature" in practical terms as forming "the first phase of the Greek awareness of India," but according to him "its oldest phase still contains nothing useful for us (see ch. IV), the first notice about India appearing only at the end of the sixth century B.C." (P. 7). "Alexander's campaign in India is often and with good reasons chosen as the boundary between the early phase, mostly relying upon hearsay, and new, direct information" (p. 7). But, the author goes...