Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/255

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A GREEK DESCRIPTION OF INDIA
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the Kalingoi living nearest the sea, the Mandu and the Malli living higher up, the Gangerides, near the mouths of the Ganges, and the Modo-Galingoi in an island in the Ganges. It is impossible not to recognize in the first and last of these names the ancient name of Kalinga, which included Orissa and the sea-coast of Bengal.

Megasthenes describes Parthalis as the capital of the Kalingoi. The powerful king of this place had 60,000 foot-soldiers, 1,000 horse, and 700 elephants. A large island in the Ganges is said to have been inhabited by the Modo-Galingoi (Madhya-Kalinga), and beyond them several powerful tribes lived under a king who had 50,000 foot-soldiers, 4,000 cavalry, and 400 elephants. Beyond them again lived the Andaroi, in whom it is impossible not to recognize the Andhras of Southern India. The Andhras were a great and powerful nation who had settled originally between the Godavari and the Krishna, but who before the time of Megasthenes had extended their kingdom as far north as the Narmada. Megasthenes writes that they were a powerful race, possessed numerous villages and thirty walled towns, and supplied their king with 100,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and 1,000 elephants.

In the extreme northwest, Megasthenes speaks of the Isari, the Cosyri, and other tribes located probably in Kashmir or its neighbourhood. The Indus is said to skirt the frontiers of the Prachyas, by which we understand that the powerful and extensive empire