Megasthenes - Megasthenēs

A Greek who transmitted information on the geography, customs, etc. of ancient India to the West. The Hellenistic Kingdom of Syria and the Maurya Dynasty of India established friendly relations (302 BC), and he was sent by the former king Seleucus I to frequently visit the court of the latter's Sandrakots (identified as Chandragupta), and wrote about what he saw and heard in the capital Pataliputra and on his travels there in his four volumes of "Descriptions of the Indias." The book was destroyed and is no longer available to the present day, but it became the source of writings by the Roman geographer Strabo and the historian Arrian, and was a long-standing source of knowledge about India in the Western world.

[Yoshiki Kanazawa]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

古代インドの地誌・風俗等の情報を西方に伝えたギリシア人。ヘレニズム時代のシリア王国とインドのマウリヤ王朝との間に修好がなり（前302）、前者の王セレウコス1世に遣わされてしばしば後者のサンドラコットス（チャンドラグプタに比定）の宮廷を訪れ、都パータリプトラやそこへの往還での見聞を『インド誌』（4巻）に著した。その書は隠滅して今日に伝わらないが、ローマ時代の地誌記述家ストラボンや史伝作家アリアヌスの著書の典拠となり、長らく西方世界のインドへの知識の源泉であった。

［金澤良樹］

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