India is a wonderful and mysterious country; has long attracted my attention, mainly by its architecture. Especially the desire to know how it was all built? For example, this:
Kailasanatha temple carved out of the rock, top view.
I don't really believe in the official version that it was carved into the rock by hand. The area of the temple on top is about 3000 m2 (58x51m), the volume is about 97,000 m3. And this is not limestone, but basalt. Of course, not all of this volume had to be removed - in the center there was a carved temple building with an area of 1980 m² (approx. 30,000 m3). It is even more difficult to take out figuratively. It's one thing to just hammer with a sledgehammer and take out the rubble, and quite another thing to hammer so that the result is something like this:
In the past, it means that such things were created by hand, probably without any drawings? And in our time to repeat this, using all our modern technology, is weak? Therefore, not entirely trusting modern sources, I thought that maybe the ancients would shed more light on this issue? And I turned my gaze to Strabo (a Greek geographer who lived in the 1st century BC, who wrote the "Geographical Encyclopedia" in 17 volumes). I will warn you right away that I have not yet been able to find an answer to this question, but I dug up a lot of interesting things for myself. What I share.
Geographical position of India
Strabo describes India as follows:
Promotional video:
Further, he characterizes the sources of information available at that time, from which he drew his information on geography. This characteristic, I believe, is still relevant today, since those sources are still our sources of knowledge about those times:
He writes that the main routes at that time were sea routes. Merchants traveled from Egypt to India through the Arabian Gulf and rarely reached the Ganges.
The map drawn by Strabo:
World map according to Strabo.
In fact, this was not a representation of Strabo, but of Eratosthenes (Greek mathematician, astronomer, geographer, philologist and poet of the 3rd century BC). We can say that Strabo borrowed it.
Eratosthenes divided the territory known at that time, or rather, the territory developed by people of that time, into two parts - northern and southern. The border between these two parts was marked by a mountain range called Taurus (Taurus mons), which runs across almost the entire continent from the Mediterranean to the Pacific Ocean (in modern names). These two halves, in turn, were divided into parts, called at that time "sphragids". In the northern part there were only two sphragids: Europa and Scythia. And in the south - Libia (now Libya, apparently, the name "Africa" appeared later), Arabia, Syria, Persia, Ariana and India. China then, apparently, also did not yet know, and the territory of Seres, which was later called China, they attributed to Scythia. In addition to the horizontal division, there is also a clear vertical division on the map: everything that was indicated in red iscalled Asia. Following the logic of this coloring, one can come to the conclusion that all parts of Asia were somehow united with each other, i.e. were, if not a single state, then some kind of community, as opposed to Europe and Libya, which were not united by one color according to the same principle.
Iberia is according to Strabo, the westernmost country, and India is the easternmost, i.e. beyond it - only the ocean. Strabo further describes the size of India, referring to the calculations of Eratosthenes. Modern scholars believe that Eratosthenes' measurements were not very accurate. Although this assessment is complicated by the fact that it is now unknown which stages he used. Since different stages vary from 157.5 to 209.4 m. But let's take the arithmetic mean - about 185 m - and translate its dimensions into modern ones:
Modern view of India:
Its largest size from north to south is about 3200 km, from west to east - 4500 km, if we count the eastern part of India, almost cut off from the main part of the republic of Bangladesh. Although the borders of India since then could have changed more than once, nevertheless, the measurements of the ancients roughly coincide with the existing dimensions of India, although Strabo blames his contemporaries and predecessors for the inaccuracies they made.
Tsar's road and postal service
I found on the Internet a mention of the Royal Road, but located not in India, but to the west - in the territories of modern Turkey, Iraq and Iran:
Map of the Royal Road.
This is how Herodotus describes the work of the postal service using this road:
Similarly, Marco Polo describes the Tartar postal service. Calling intermediate stations "pits":
The description is very long. I will not give it in full here. Moreover, Kadykchansky has it. I will give an explanation to the text regarding the word "iambic":
This description explains a little what distortions are superimposed on the ancient text, especially on the names, during numerous translations. Also contains an interesting mention of the Persian pits. The "Persian pits" were located not only in Persia, Uzbekistan and Katai, but also in Siberia:
That this is a coincidence, or someone borrowed the name from someone? Or maybe it was a single state? Here is what Karnovich writes about this (Historical Bulletin, 1884):
By Tatars we mean, of course, tartars. From another source (Gurlyand I. Ya. Yamskaya gonba in the Muscovite state until the end of the 17th century. Yaroslavl. 1900):
The border of the village is apparently the outskirts of the village. Previously, settlements were surrounded by walls and ditches. Which were called pits? That is, it may well be a Russian word. And not only Persian, Turkic or Tatar. But for some reason, they tried to hide the presence of a postal service in Russia in the Middle Ages:
Or explain its occurrence by someone's foreign influence:
Although tartars are not at all in relation to Russian aliens. It turns out a generally perverted distortion: first, declare your own people as foreign, and then borrow something else from them. When other countries try to glorify themselves at any given opportunity, Russia, apparently, has always been “famous” for belittling itself as much as possible. Although the Russianness of these "humiliators" can also be questioned.
But I was completely distracted from India. Something is taking me to the "Native Penates".
Ancient Indian capital
In that quote, Strabo also mentions a very specific place - the city of Palibofra. This is how Strabo describes the city of Palibophra, or rather not Strabo himself, but Megasthenes, whom he quotes:
Not only this, but also many other descriptions of India, Strabo took from Megasthenes, calling him a deceitful writer. Megasthenes is a Greek traveler who lived in the 3rd century BC. The records of Megasthenes have not survived to our time, but extensive extracts from them are given by Diodorus of Siculus, Strabo and Arrian. Megasthenes calls Palibofra the main city of India. Its other name is Pataliputra. It is believed to have been built in 490 BC as a small fort on the Ganges River. If this is really the city mentioned by Strabo, then it turns out that the Royal Road was much longer than it is known about now.
Location of Pataliputra on modern map of India.
In this regard, I recall one more structure that resembles a road - the Genghis Khan shaft.
Which has a length of more than 200 km (preserved section). Read more about this shaft from Sibved, and from me.
Excavations in Pataliputra:
Ruins of the Column Hall at the site of Kumhrar Patatiputra.
And here is one of the columns from this columned hall:
The single remaining column of the 80-column hall.
This one pillar and a large amount of debris were found intact during excavations. At the site, 72 "depressions" were discovered, filled with ash and rubble, marking the places where other pillars once stood. During subsequent excavations carried out in 1951-1955, eight more such depressions were found, which gave the place the name - "Assembly Hall of 80 pillars". The surviving pillar is made of sandstone and has a height of 9.75 m. The rest of the pillars were the same and were buried in the ground by 2.74 meters. Since no other stone debris was found, it was assumed that they supported the wooden roof. No walls were found either. But to the south of this site, seven wooden platforms have been excavated that are believed to have supported a staircase leading to the canal to welcome guests:
Wooden platforms south of the hall are believed to have supported the stairs to the canal.
This building dates back to the 6th century BC, but, unfortunately, there is again no information about how these pillars were made. It doesn't look like manual processing at all. And this is how the wooden tyn may have looked like, described by Megasthenes through Strabo:
An artistic interpretation of the palisade, gate and town of Patatiputra.
The city dwellers apparently didn't have enough stone for the city walls?
Indian Caucasus Mountains
The mountains dividing, according to Eratosthenes, the inhabited world into two parts, northern and southern, and passing through almost the entire continent, called Taurus in ancient times, were also called the Caucasus Mountains:
Nowadays Paropamiz is a system of mountain ranges and uplands in northwestern Afghanistan and southern Turkmenistan, Imai - Pamir, Tien Shan. In connection with the incident with the Caucasus Mountains, the ancient confusion with the dams of Gog and Magog becomes clearer to me.
Climate of India
Then Strabo describes the climate of India, based on the words of Eratosthenes. This is another fact that I paid attention to: so many of the sources I am considering consist of excerpts from earlier sources. And it turns out that this applies not only to sources of the later - 16-18 centuries, but also such early ones as Strabo. He himself lived in the 1st century BC. But he constantly refers to authors who lived 100-200 years earlier than him. This is how Strabo describes the appearance of the Indians:
Those. southerners are black and northerners are white. Description of winter in India:
Unfortunately, the ancient authors do not report exactly how the artificial hills were constructed. Since it is not so easy to make hills large enough to accommodate entire cities. But, apparently, for them it was not a wonder? After all, as described here, in Egypt and Ethiopia, the cities were arranged according to the same principle.
All the authors (described by Strabo) indicate that the land in India is fertile and gives a rich harvest twice a year. Therefore, a lot of grain is grown there, including millet, rice, wheat, barley, as well as flax, many different vegetables and fruits. And also exotic plants for Europeans. And huge trees:
5 stages is about 1 km. How tall should a tree be to give such a shadow at noon? Although perhaps the ancient authors were slightly lying? Or Kadykchansky is right, asserting that not India is described here, but more northern latitudes. Many drugs and poisons are also produced in India. But:
Alexander the Great in India
Describes Strabo and the adventures of Alexander the Great in these places. Frightened by the strong flooding of rivers and, in connection with this, difficult passability for his army, he climbed to explore the mountains:
Having reached Gipanis, he stopped, because his army could no longer withstand the difficulties of the campaign. The warriors were exhausted by the incessant downpours. In ancient times, three rivers were called Gipanis: the Southern Bug River in southern Ukraine, the Kuban River in southern Russia and the Beas River in the Punjab state of India, which is also called Ardzhikuja - in the Vedas or Vipasha in ancient Indian texts, and the Gifasis among the ancient Greeks. It is located in the north of India.
They loved to count cities in thousands in ancient times! Modern India, with its population of 1.3 billion, has only 415 cities. But, perhaps, this list includes only large cities. And if we also count the villages? Strabo writes that all the cities he mentioned were no less than Kos. The modern name of Kos is Chora. This city is located on the Astypalea island in the Aegean Sea and has a population of 1385 people. Archaeologists claim that a modern city is equal in area to an ancient one, because it stands on old foundations.
Strabo does not mention the large tribes of Mallas and Sidraks anywhere else, and the Sib tribe describes it as follows:
Indo-Greek kingdom
The region of paropamisads mentioned here is located on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan (and earlier, this means that it was the territory of India or Greco-India after the start of the development of this territory by the Greeks). Its other name Paropamisus is the Hindu Kush or Hindu Kush. It seems that the name means "Above the eagle flight." Having conquered this place, Alexander the Great founded here the city of Alexandria Caucasian in 329 BC. e., which in the II-I centuries BC. e. was one of the capitals of the Indo-Greek kingdom, which arose as an extension of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, and existed from 180 BC. e. until 10 A. D. e.
Ancient cities founded by Alexander the Great in Central and South Asia.
Caucasian, because at that time these mountains were also called Caucasian. The ancients had a problem with names! With the Alexandria, something is understandable. There are plenty of them all over the world. Even in Ukraine and Belarus, where the Macedonian was probably not (or was?). Or maybe the names of Alexandria are connected not only with Macedonian? After all, the name Alexander is quite common. There are 3 Alexandria in Australia, 2 in Canada, 22 in the USA, 1 more in Colombia, 1 in Brazil, 2 in South Africa (source). But the Caucasus?
Location of the Indo-Greek Kingdom.
However, Strabo, who lived in the 1st century BC, knew nothing about this kingdom (which existed at the same time). Therefore, he does not mention it in his book. Moreover, he claims that these places have been little studied by his fellow tribesmen. Later, on the same territory and much larger, the Mughal Empire was located:
The Hindu Kush mountains (Paropamisads), among other things, are also known for such statues:
Buddha statues in Bamiyan, drawing 1896.
And photo. The first was made in 1976, when the statues were still there, the second - after the destruction of the statues by the Islamists-Taliban in 2001:
True, they were built later than the time when Alexander the Great founded his cities there, and the Sibs excavated a sacred cave. The smaller statue (35 m) was built in 507 AD, and the larger statue (53 m) in 554. AD Although personally I am still interested in the question: how were these statues made? What tools are used? Here, even in the photo, you can see that the surface of the niche has been cut off like a knife. It was as if they took a giant jigsaw and carefully carved this niche in the rock. There, people are especially mocking for the scale. Holes - from wooden reinforcement, to which wooden elements were attached. Since the statues were covered with wood. Judging by the diameter of these holes, this reinforcement consisted of rather large tree trunks. Currently, the area is not very wooded. Their faces were also wooden. In the drawing of 1896, they are drawn, but somehow incomprehensible. And in the 1976 photo, the upper part of the face is already missing. And I don't know what about the prison of Prometheus, but ancient manuscripts were discovered in the caves of the Hindu Kush. Some of the manuscripts were written in Gandhari and Haruhi, while others were in Sanskrit.
Strabo does not write anything about the technologies of ancient Indian builders. Probably because he himself does not know. But he gives descriptions of this country, which he himself considers mythical and mystical, they are so unusual in their content:
All the same, Strabo heard about some state, but describes it as "local", not as "ours". And, apparently, the ancient authors loved the number of 5000. There were 5000 cities between Hypanis and Hidaspus. The council consisted of 5000 advisers. That's really fantastic! The modern Russian State Duma has only 450 deputies.
I think that this is where I will finish my article about a little bit of everything, including about India.
Author: i_mar_a
