Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/35

Rh collecting travellers' tales about the wonders of the East, are of very slight value.

Europe was practically ignorant of India until the veil was lifted by Alexander's operations and the reports of his officers. Some twenty years after his death the Greek ambassadors, sent by the Kings of Syria and Egypt to the court of the Maurya emperors, recorded careful observations on the country to which they were accredited, which have been partially preserved in the works of many Greek and Roman authors. The fragments of Megasthenes are especially valuable.

Arrian, a Græco-Roman official of the second century, wrote a capital description of India, as well as an admirable critical history of Alexander's invasion. Both these works, being based upon the reports of Ptolemy, son of Lagos, and other officers of Alexander, and the writings of the Greek ambassadors, are entitled to a large extent to the credit of contemporary documents, so far as the Indian history of the fourth century is concerned. The works of Quintus Curtius and other authors who essayed to tell the story of Alexander's Indian campaign are far inferior in value, but each has merits of its own.

The Chinese "Father of History," Ssu-ma-ch'ien, who completed his work about 100, is the first of a long series of Chinese historians whose writings throw much light upon the early annals of India. The accurate chronology of the Chinese authors gives their statements peculiar value.

The long series of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who