Gangaridai

Gangaridai (Greek: Γανγαρίδαι; Latin: Gangaridae) is a term

used by the ancient Greco-Roman writers to describe a people Gangaridai
or a geographical region of the ancient Indian subcontinent. c. 300 BCE–unknown
Some of these writers state that Alexander the Great withdrew
from the Indian subcontinent because of the strong war elephant
force of the Gangaridai. The writers variously mention the
Gangaridai as a distinct tribe, or a nation within a larger
kingdom (presumably the Nanda Empire).

A number of modern scholars locate Gangaridai in the Ganges

Delta of the Bengal region, although alternative theories also
exist. Gange or Ganges, the capital of the Gangaridai (according
to Ptolemy), has been identified with several sites in the region,
including Chandraketugarh and Wari-Bateshwar.

Contents
Gangaridai in Ptolemy's Map.
Names Government Monarchy
Greek accounts Historical era Ancient India
Diodorus
• Established c. 300 BCE
Plutarch • Disestablished unknown
Other writers
Preceded by Succeeded
Latin accounts by
Identification Mahajanapadas Mauryan
Gangetic plains Empire
Rarh region
Today part of Bangladesh
Larger part of Bengal
India
North-western India
Other
Political status
References
Citations
Sources

Names
The Greek writers use the names "Gandaridae" (Diodorus), "Gandaritae", and "Gandridae" (Plutarch) to
describe these people. The ancient Latin writers use the name "Gangaridae", a term that seems to have been
coined by the 1st century poet Virgil.[1]
Some modern etymologies of the word Gangaridai split it as "Gaṅgā-rāṣṭra", "Gaṅgā-rāḍha" or "Gaṅgā-
hṛdaya". However, D. C. Sircar believes that the word is simply the plural form of "Gangarid" (derived
from the base "Ganga"), and means "Ganga (Ganges) people".[2]

Greek accounts
Several ancient Greek writers mention Gangaridai, but their accounts are largely based on hearsay.[3]

Diodorus

The earliest surviving description of Gangaridai appears in Bibliotheca

historica of the 1st century BCE writer Diodorus Siculus. This account is based
on a now-lost work, probably the writings of either Megasthenes or
Hieronymus of Cardia.[4]

In Book 2 of Bibliotheca historica, Diodorus states that "Gandaridae" (i.e.

Gangaridai) territory was located to the east of the Ganges river, which was 30
stades wide. He mentions that no foreign enemy had ever conquered
Gandaridae, because it of its strong elephant force.[5] He further states that Diodorus Siculus as
Alexander the Great advanced up to Ganges after subjugating other Indians, but depicted in a 19th-
decided to retreat when he heard that the Gandaridae had 4,000 elephants.[6] century fresco

This river [Ganges], which is thirty stades in width, flows from north to south and
empties into the ocean, forming the boundary towards the east of the tribe of the Gandaridae, which possesses the
greatest number of elephants and the largest in size. Consequently no foreign king has ever subdued this country, all
alien nations being fearful of both the multitude and the strength of the beasts. In fact even Alexander of Macedon,
although he had subdued all Asia, refrained from making war upon the Gandaridae alone of all peoples; for when he
had arrived at the Ganges river with his entire army, after his conquest of the rest of the Indians, upon learning that the
Gandaridae had four thousand elephants equipped for war he gave up his campaign against them.

Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 2.37.2-3. Translated by Charles Henry Oldfather.[7]

In Book 17 of Bibliotheca historica, Diodorus once again describes the "Gandaridae", and states that
Alexander had to retreat after his soldiers refused to take an expedition against the Gandaridae. The book
(17.91.1) also mentions that a nephew of Porus fled to the land of the Gandaridae,[6] although C. Bradford
Welles translates the name of this land as "Gandara".[8]

He [Alexander] questioned Phegeus about the country beyond the Indus River, and learned that there was a desert to
traverse for twelve days, and then the river called Ganges, which was thirty-two furlongs in width and the deepest of all
the Indian rivers. Beyond this in turn dwelt the peoples of the Tabraesians [misreading of Prasii[1]] and the Gandaridae,
whose king was Xandrames. He had twenty thousand cavalry, two hundred thousand infantry, two thousand chariots,
and four thousand elephants equipped for war. Alexander doubted this information and sent for Porus, and asked him
what was the truth of these reports. Porus assured the king that all the rest of the account was quite correct, but that the
king of the Gandaridae was an utterly common and undistinguished character, and was supposed to be the son of a
barber. His father had been handsome and was greatly loved by the queen; when she had murdered her husband, the
kingdom fell to him.

Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 17.93. Translated by C. Bradford Welles.[8]

In Book 18 of Bibliotheca historica, Diodorus describes India as a large kingdom comprising several
nations, the largest of which was "Tyndaridae" (which seems to be a scribal error for "Gandaridae"). He
further states that a river separated this nation from their neighbouring territory; this 30-stadia wide river
was the greatest river in this region of India (Diodorus does not mention the name of the river in this book).
He goes on to mention that Alexander did not campaign against this nation, because they had a large number
of elephants.[6] The Book 18 description is as follows:

…the first one along the Caucasus is India, a great and populous kingdom, inhabited by many Indian nations, of which
the greatest is that of the Gandaridae, against whom Alexander did not make a campaign because of the multitude of
their elephants. The river Ganges, which is the deepest of the region and has a width of thirty stades, separates this land
from the neighbouring part of India. Adjacent to this is the rest of India, which Alexander conquered, irrigated by water
from the rivers and most conspicuous for its prosperity. Here were the dominions of Porus and Taxiles, together with
many other kingdoms, and through it flows the Indus River, from which the country received its name.

Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 18.6.1-2. Translated by Russel M. Geer.[9]

Diodorus' account of India in the Book 2 is based on Indica, a book written by the 4th century BCE writer
Megasthenes, who actually visited India. Megasthenes' Indica is now lost, although it has been reconstructed
from the writings of Diodorus and other later writers.[6] J. W. McCrindle (1877) attributed Diodorus' Book 2
passage about the Gangaridai to Megasthenes in his reconstruction of Indica.[10] However, according to A.
B. Bosworth (1996), Diodorus' source for the information about the Gangaridai was Hieronymus of Cardia
(354–250 BCE), who was a contemporary of Alexander and the main source of information for Diodorus'
Book 18. Bosworth points out that Diodorus describes Ganges as 30 stadia wide; but it is well-attested by
other sources that Megasthenes described the median (or minimum) width of Ganges as 100 stadia.[4] This
suggests that Diodorus obtained the information about the Gandaridae from another source, and appended it
to Megasthenes' description of India in Book 2.[6]

Plutarch

Plutarch (46-120 CE) mentions the Gangaridai as "'Gandaritae" (in Parallel

Lives - Life of Alexander 62.3) and as "Gandridae" (in Moralia 327b.).[1]

The Battle with Porus depressed the spirits of the Macedonians, and made them very
unwilling to advance farther into India... This river [the Ganges], they heard, had a
breadth of two and thirty stadia, and a depth of 1000 fathoms, while its farther banks
were covered all over with armed men, horses and elephants. For the kings of the
Gandaritai and the Prasiai were reported to be waiting for him (Alexander) with an army
of 80,000 horse, 200,000 foot, 8,000 war-chariots, and 6,000 fighting elephants.

Plutarch[11]
Plutarch

Other writers

Ptolemy (2nd century CE), in his Geography, states that the Gangaridae occupied "all the region about the
mouths of the Ganges".[12] He names a city called Gange as their capital.[13] This suggests that Gange was
the name of a city, derived from the name of the river. Based on the city's name, the Greek writers used the
word "Gangaridai" to describe the local people.[12]
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea does not mention the
Gangaridai, but attests the existence of a city that the Greco-Romans
described as "Ganges":

There is a river near it called the Ganges, and it rises and falls in the same
way as the Nile. On its bank is a market-town which has the same name as
the river, Ganges. Through this place are brought malabathrum and
Gangetic spikenard and pearls, and muslin of the finest sorts, which are
called Gangetic. It is said that there are gold-mines near these places, and
there is a gold coin which is called caltis. A modern map identifying the places
depicted in the Periplous of the
Anonymous, Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Translated by Erythraean Sea
Wilfred Harvey Schoff.[14]

Dionysius Periegetes (2nd-3rd century CE) mentions "Gargaridae" located near the "gold-bearing Hypanis"
(Beas) river. "Gargaridae" is sometimes believed to be a variant of "Gangaridae", but another theory
identifies it with Gandhari people. A. B. Bosworth dismisses Dionysius' account as "a farrago of nonsense",
noting that he inaccurately describes the Hypanis river as flowing down into the Gangetic plain.[15]

Gangaridai also finds a mention in Greek mythology. In Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica (3rd century
BCE), Datis, a chieftain, leader of the Gangaridae who was in the army of Perses III, fought against Aeetes
during the Colchian civil war.[16] Colchis was situated in modern-day Georgia, on the east of the Black Sea.
Aeetes was the famous king of Colchia against whom Jason and the Argonauts undertook their expedition in
search of the "Golden Fleece". Perses III was the brother of Aeetes and king of the Taurian tribe.

Latin accounts
The Roman poet Virgil speaks of the valour of the Gangaridae in his Georgics (c. 29 BCE).

On the doors will I represent in gold and ivory the battle of the Gangaridae and the arms of our victorious Quirinius.

Virgil, "Georgics" (III, 27)

Quintus Curtius Rufus (possibly 1st century CE) noted the two nations Gangaridae and Prasii:

Next came the Ganges, the largest river in all India, the farther bank of which was inhabited by two nations, the
Gangaridae and the Prasii, whose king Agrammes kept in field for guarding the approaches to his country 20,000
cavalry and 200,000 infantry, besides 2,000 four-horsed chariots, and, what was the most formidable of all, a troop of
elephants which he said ran up to the number of 3,000.

Quintus Curtius Rufus[17]

Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) states:

... the last race situated on its [Ganges'] banks being that of the Gangarid Calingae: the city where their king lives is
called Pertalis. This monarch has 60,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry and 700 elephants always equipped ready for active
service. [...] But almost the whole of the peoples of India and not only those in this district are surpassed in power and
 glory by the Prasi, with their very large and wealthy city of Palibothra [Patna], from which some people give the name
of Palibothri to the race itself, and indeed to the whole tract of country from the Ganges.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6.65-66. Translated by H. Rackham.[18][19]

Identification
The ancient Greek writers provide vague information about the
centre of the Gangaridai power.[3] As a result, the later historians
have put forward various theories about its location.

Gangetic plains

Pliny (1st century CE) in his NH, terms the Gangaridai as the
novisima gens (nearest people) of the Ganges river. It cannot be The Wari-Bateshwar ruins of
determined from his writings whether he means "nearest to the present-day Bangladesh have been
mouth" or "nearest to the headwaters". But the later writer Ptolemy identified as a part of Gangaridai.
(2nd century CE), in his Geography, explicitly locates the Archaeologists have considered it
Gangaridai near the mouths of the Ganges.[15] as the ancient trading hub of
Sounagoura mentioned by Claudius
A. B. Bosworth notes that the ancient Latin writers almost always Ptolemy
use the word "Gangaridae" to define the people, and associate them
with the Prasii people. According to Megasthenes, who actually
lived in India, the Prasii people lived near the Ganges. Besides, Pliny
explicitly mentions that the Gangaridae lived beside the Ganges,
naming their capital as Pertalis. All these evidences suggest that the
Gangaridae lived in the Gangetic plains.[15]

Rarh region

Diodorus (1st century BCE) states that the Ganges river formed the Archaeologists have considered
eastern boundary of the Gangaridai. Based on Diodorus's writings Chandraketugarh of present-day
and the identification of Ganges with Bhāgirathi-Hooghly (a western Indian state West Bengal as the
distributary of Ganges), Gangaridai can be identified with the Rarh ancient city of Gange, the capital of
region in West Bengal.[3] Gangaridai

Larger part of Bengal

The Rarh is located to the west of the Bhāgirathi-Hooghly (Ganges) river. However, Plutarch (1st century
CE), Curtius (possibly 1st century CE) and Solinus (3rd century CE), suggest that Gangaridai was located
on the eastern banks of the Gangaridai river.[3] Historian R. C. Majumdar theorized that the earlier historians
like Diodorus used the word Ganga for the Padma River (an eastern distributary of Ganges).[3]

Pliny names five mouths of the Ganges river, and states that the Gangaridai occupied the entire region about
these mouths. He names five mouths of Ganges as Kambyson, Mega, Kamberikon, Pseudostomon and
Antebole. These exact present-day locations of these mouths cannot be determined with certainty because of
the changing river courses. According to D. C. Sircar, the region encompassing these mouths appears to be
the region lying between the Bhāgirathi-Hooghly River in the west and the Padma River in the east.[12] This
suggests that the Gangaridai territory included the coastal region of present-day West Bengal and
Bangladesh, up to the Padma river in the east.[20] Gaurishankar De and Subhradip De believe that the five
mouths may refer to the Bidyadhari, Jamuna and other branches of Bhāgirathi-Hooghly at the entrance of
Bay of Bengal.[21]

According to the archaeologist Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti, the centre of the Gangaridai power was located in
vicinity of Adi Ganga (a now dried-up flow of the Hooghly river). Chakrabarti considers Chandraketugarh
as the strongest candidate for the centre, followed by Mandirtala.[22] James Wise believed that Kotalipara in
present-day Bangladesh was the capital of Gangaridai.[23] Archaeologist Habibullah Pathan identified the
Wari-Bateshwar ruins as the Gangaridai territory.[24]

North-western India

William Woodthorpe Tarn (1948) identifies the "Gandaridae" mentioned by Diodorus with the people of
Gandhara.[25] Historian T. R. Robinson (1993) locates the Gangaridai to the immediately east of the Beas
River, in the Punjab region. According to him, the unnamed river described in Diodorus' Book 18 is Beas
(Hyphasis); Diodorus misinterpreted his source, and incompetently combined it with other material from
Megasthenes, erroneously naming the river as Ganges in Book 2.[26] Robinson identified the Gandaridae
with the ancient Yaudheyas.[27]

A. B. Bosworth (1996) rejects this theory, pointing out that Diodorus describes the unnamed river in Book
18 as the greatest river in the region. But Beas is not the largest river in its region. Even if one excludes the
territory captured by Alexander in "the region" (thus excluding the Indus River), the largest river in the
region is Chenab (Acesines). Robison argues that Diodorus describes the unnamed river as "the greatest
river in its own immediate area", but Bosworth believes that this interpretation is not supported by
Diodorus's wording.[28] Bosworth also notes that Yaudheyas were an autonomous confederation, and do not
match the ancient descriptions that describe Gandaridae as part of a strong kingdom.[27]

Other

According to Nitish K. Sengupta, it is possible that the term "Gangaridai" refers to the whole of northern
India from the Beas River to the western part of Bengal.[3]

Pliny mentions the Gangaridae and the Calingae (Kalinga) together. One interpretation based on this reading
suggests that Gangaridae and the Calingae were part of the Kalinga tribe, which spread into the Ganges
delta.[29] N. K. Sahu of Utkal University identifies Gangaridae as the northern part of Kalinga.[30]

Political status
Diodorus mentions Gangaridai and Prasii as one nation, naming Xandramas as the king of this nation.
Diodorus calls them "two nations under one king."[31] Historian A. B. Bosworth believes that this is a
reference to the Nanda dynasty,[32] and the Nanda territory matches the ancient descriptions of kingdom in
which the Gangaridae were located.[27]

According to Nitish K. Sengupta, it is possible that Gangaridai and Prasii are actually two different names of
the same people, or closely allied people. However, this cannot be said with certainty.[31]

Historian Hemchandra Ray Chowdhury writes: "It may reasonably be inferred from the statements of the
Greek and Latin writers that about the time of Alexander's invasion, the Gangaridai were a very powerful
nation, and either formed a dual monarchy with the Pasioi [Prasii], or were closely associated with them on
equal terms in a common cause against the foreign invader.[33]

References

Citations
1. A. B. Bosworth 1996, p. 75.
2. Dineschandra Sircar 1971, p. 171, 215.
3. Nitish K. Sengupta 2011, p. 28.
4. A. B. Bosworth 1996, pp. 188-189.
5. A. B. Bosworth 1996, p. 188.
6. A. B. Bosworth 1996, p. 189.
7. Diodorus Siculus (1940). The Library of History of Diodorus Siculus (http://penelope.uchicago.
edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/2B*.html). Loeb Classical Library. II. Translated
by Charles Henry Oldfather. Harvard University Press. OCLC 875854910 (https://www.worldca
t.org/oclc/875854910).
8. Diodorus Siculus (1963). The Library of History of Diodorus Siculus (http://penelope.uchicago.
edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/17E*.html). Loeb Classical Library. VIII.
Translated by C. Bradford Welles. Harvard University Press. OCLC 473654910 (https://www.w
orldcat.org/oclc/473654910).
9. Diodorus Siculus (1947). The Library of History of Diodorus Siculus (http://penelope.uchicago.
edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/18A*.html). Loeb Classical Library. IX.
Translated by Russel M. Geer. Harvard University Press. OCLC 781220155 (https://www.world
cat.org/oclc/781220155).
10. J. W. McCrindle 1877, pp. 33-34.
11. R. C. Majumdar 1982, p. 198.
12. Dineschandra Sircar 1971, p. 172.
13. Dineschandra Sircar 1971, p. 171.
14. Wilfred H. Schoff (1912). The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea; Travel and Trade in the Indian
Ocean (https://archive.org/stream/periplusoferythr00schouoft#page/48/mode/1up). Longmans,
Green and Co. ISBN 978-1-296-00355-5.
15. A. B. Bosworth 1996, p. 192.
16. Carlos Parada (1993). Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=MOcoAAAAYAAJ). Åström. p. 60. ISBN 978-91-7081-062-6.
17. R. C. Majumdar 1982, pp. 103-128.
18. Pliny (1967). Natural History (https://www.loebclassics.com/view/pliny_elder-natural_history/19
38/pb_LCL352.387.xml). Loeb Classical Library. Translated by H. Rackham. Harvard
University Press. OCLC 613102012 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/613102012).
19. R. C. Majumdar 1982, p. 341-343.
20. Ranabir Chakravarti 2001, p. 212.
21. Gourishankar De; Shubhradip De (2013). Prasaṅga, pratna-prāntara Candraketugaṛa (https://
books.google.com/books?id=srkHnQAACAAJ). Scalāra. ISBN 978-93-82435-00-6.
22. Dilip K. Chakrabarti 2001, p. 154.
23. Jesmin Sultana 2003, p. 125.
24. Enamul Haque 2001, p. 13.
25. A. B. Bosworth 1996, p. 191.
26. A. B. Bosworth 1996, p. 190.
27. A. B. Bosworth 1996, p. 194.
28. A. B. Bosworth 1996, p. 193.
29. Biplab Dasgupta 2005, p. 339.
30. N. K. Sahu 1964, pp. 230-231.
31. Nitish K. Sengupta 2011, pp. 28-29.
32. A. B. Bosworth 1993, p. 132.
33. Chowdhury, The History of Bengal Volume I, p. 44.

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