DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

196 GREEK VIEW OF INDIAN SLAVERY [7.2
could have achieved themselves. The stockades and towers he described
have been found in the waterlogged suburbs of Patna-Bankipore. That
such a capital and its empire could be erected without slaves naturally
impressed the western observers as the most fantastic of all Indian
characteristics. Arrian (Indika 10 ; Meg. 210) quoted Megasthenes :
“ All the Indians are free and not one of them is a slave. The Lake-demonians
and the Indians here so far agree. The Lakedemonians, however, hold the Helots as
slaves, and these Helots do servile labour; but the Indians do not even use aliens as
slaves, and much less a countryman of their own”.
Parenthetically, the mention of helotage is most apt, as it most nearly
approximated to the sudra caste. The explicit statement about slavery
cannot be mere imagination, because Megasthenes represented a king
who had just fought a losing war with Candragupta, and would have
lost many of his people as slaves to the conqueror, had the Indians had
any sort of slavery on the Greek model. Alexander a few years earlier
had taken more than 70,000 slaves in the frontier province and part of
the Punjab. The procedure was quite normal in Greece, for each of
Xeno-phon’s Ten Thousand had taken a slave or two during the
march. Their cultural general, a disciple of Socrates, recouped his own
fortunes at the very end by a kidnapping raid for slaves and ransom.
The real difficulty arises from the philosophical interpretation given by
Diodorus Siculus, who idealized the situation described by Megasthenes
:
“ Of the several remarkable customs existing among Indians, there is one prescribed
by their ancient philosophers which one may regard as truly admirable : for the law
ordains that no one among them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave, but that,
enjoying freedom, they shall respect the equal right to it which all possess : for those
(they thought) who have learned neither to domineer over nor cringe to others will attain
the life best adapted for all vicissitudes of lot : for it is but fair and reasonable to
institute laws which bind all equally, but allow property to be unevenly distributed.”
(Meg. 38 ; Dio. Sic. II. 39, text E. Schwanbeck, Bonn 1846).
This is pure idealization on the part of Diodorus, who was himself
against slavery. The Indian philosophers never troubled their head about
social inequality, which was built into their society by the caste system