[Disclaimer: I being no original researcher on such matters, rely on easily available 'authentic looking' material to guide my thinking]
On 7/13/07, Charles Haynes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Which outsiders? Isn't that begging the question? It assumes an already agreed upon "outside" and "inside" does it not?
For now let's focus on the 'outside'. For as it happens the presence of an "outside" does not mean there was anything *coherent* on the "inside". The Greeks and the Chinese would the usual suspects, and looks like there *was* an "outside view" In the time of Alexander The Great, the greeks produced a book called "Indica" [0]. Whatever the purpose, merits, and factual accuracy of this book, it has definite references to (at least speculation about) a land with significant resemblance to modern day India in terms of geographical spread. For a flavor, take these quotes from the translation[1]: <quote> But the parts from the Indus eastward, these I shall call India, and its inhabitants Indians. The boundary of the land of India towards the north is Mount Taurus. It is not still called Taurus in this land ... For Megasthenes has recorded names of many other rivers, which beyond the Ganges and the Indus run into the eastern and southern outer ocean; so that he states the number of Indian rivers in all to be fifty-eight, and these all navigable. ... The appearance of the inhabitants, too, is not so far different in India and Ethiopia; the southern Indians resemble the Ethiopians a good deal, and, are black of countenance, and their hair black also, only they are not as snub-nosed or so woolly-haired as the Ethiopians; but the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians in appearance. </quote> To me, it makes a lot of intuitive sense that the subcontinent covered on all sides by geographical formations posing significant obstacles for free movement of people, makes it logical for people to have an 'outside view'. Legends of spice-rich lands and rich intellectual traditions (Nalanda) should have played a great role in shaping this single view of the alien land on the "other side of the Indus" or the "other side of the Himalyas" or whatever. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indica_(Arrian) [1] http://www.und.ac.za/und/classics/india/arrian.htm -- Sriram Karra Back in Madras; and what a relief THAT is. Ph: 99620 88831
