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While Megasthenes's account of India has survived in the later works, little is known about him as a person. He spent time at the court of Sibyrtius, who was a satrap of Arachosia under Antigonus I and then Seleucus I. [2] Megasthenes was then an ambassador for Seleucid king Seleucus I Nicator and to the court of the Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra (modern Patna).
Megasthenes also comments on the presence of pre-Socratic views among the Brahmans in India and Jews in Syria. Five centuries later Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromateis , may have misunderstood Megasthenes to be responding to claims of Greek primacy by admitting Greek views of physics were preceded by those of Jews and Indians.
Megasthenes in particular was a notable Greek ambassador in the court of Chandragupta Maurya. [75] His book Indika is a major literary source for information about the Mauryan Empire. According to Arrian , ambassador Megasthenes (c. 350 – c. 290 BCE) lived in Arachosia and travelled to Pataliputra . [ 76 ]
Ruins of the pillared hall at Kumrahar site at Pataliputra The Pataliputra capital, discovered at the Bulandi Bagh site. 4th-3rd c. BCE Mauryan remains of a wooden palissade at Bulandi Bagh site. During the reign of Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE, it was one of the world's largest cities, with a population of about 150,000–400,000. [27]
Pataliputra capital front and side view. Bihar Museum.. The top is made of a band of rosettes, eleven in total for the fronts and four for the sides.Below that is a band of bead and reel pattern, then under it a band of waves, generally right-to-left, except for the back where they are left-to-right.
The Hindu text of the Yuga Purana, which describes Indian historical events in the form of a prophecy, [53] [note 1] relates the attack of the Indo-Greeks on the Shunga capital Pataliputra, a magnificent fortified city with 570 towers and 64 gates according to Megasthenes, [55] and describes the impending war for city:
According to the later writer Megasthenes (c. 300 BCE), Pataliputra (Greek: Palibothra) was located in the country of the Prasii, which further confirms that Pataliputra was the Nanda capital. [ 1 ] The Nanda empire appears to have stretched from present-day Punjab in the west to Odisha in the east. [ 3 ]
Kumhrar or Kumrahar is the area of Patna where remains of the ancient city of Pataliputra were excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India starting from 1913. It is located 5 km east of Patna Railway Station.