{"id":434,"date":"2019-03-24T17:17:53","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T16:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/otulinablog.pl\/?p=434"},"modified":"2019-03-24T17:17:53","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T16:17:53","slug":"first-encounters-with-the-people-of-india-antiquity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otulinaosztuce.pl\/?p=434&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"First encounters with the people of India – antiquity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I often wonder how the stereotypes arise. By them I mean those beliefs imprinted into our consciousness, which we mistakenly take for the truth about the world around us. And what makes it so difficult to remove, replace them? They are often used to describe something that escapes cognition. Where there is no direct experience, they let the imagination run wild. This mechanism works universally and has also worked among the ancient inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin when they tried to imagine the peoples of distant Asia. From these attempts a conviction about the existence of monstrous human races emerged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The place\nthat inspired the imagination most was India, writers were inspired by the information\nabout riches, luxury food and foreign customs. One of the first Greek travelers\nto reach India was SCYLAX of CARYANDA. He described fantastic humans inhabiting\nthese areas, including people with large ears (panotti<\/em>) and those with one leg (skiapod \/ sciapod). His\ncontemporary Herodotus used this fantastic stories when he wrote The Histories<\/em> (2. half of the 5th cen.\nBC). It contains the only remaining fractions of Scylax’ text, the rest have\nbeen lost through centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nphysician and historian who was younger than Herodotus \u2013 CTESIAS \u2013 also created\nimages of the inhabitants of India. He came from Greece, but for seventeen\nyears he remained in Persian captivity and was a physician of Artaxerxes II. In\nthe work Indica<\/em> (also preserved only\nin fragments), he repeated many stories, both after Greek and Persian authors.\nAnd thanks to him, India for the next fifteen hundred years has become a place\ninhabited by fantastic races of people and animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Arnstein Bible<\/strong><\/em>, ca. 1172 , British Library,\u00a0 f. 243r<\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
This\ndrawing comes from The Arnstein Bible<\/em>,\nthe twelfth century manuscript. In addition to the biblical books it also contains\ndiagrams describing the world, the sky and this sheet with a compilation of images of monstrous\nhuman races. It shows many races described by Ctesias. In the upper left corner\nis a cynocephaly – a doghead man, who, according to Ctesias, cannot communicate\nwith words, but only barks. Next you can see the one-eyed cyclop, and next to\nit a pair of blemmias (blemmites), ie people without heads with faces placed on\nthe body between the arms. The other inhabitants of the Far East, known to Ctesias,\nare visible in the middle row: the panotti<\/em>\nwith ears so large that they could cover whole body and in the lower row: the\nskopoid – a man with one big foot that moves with enormous speed and which he\nalso uses as a giant umbrella against the scorching sun. Next is placed the\nfigure of the giant and two pygmies fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
These\nfantastic ideas about the inhabitants of India for long had taken over the\nminds of Europeans. They remained valid, regardless of Alexander the Great’s\nexpedition (326 BC), in which he included many scholars to describe the new lands\nand its inhabitants. Mentions of Indian wonders, fantastic human races and\nanimals appeared even in the work of the Greek traveler and historian\nMegastenes (around 303 BC). He was the ambassador of one of the diadochs (name\nfor successors) of Alexander the Great,\nat the court of Chandragupta, the first universal ruler of India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pliny the\nElder in Natural History<\/em> (1st century\nBC) borrowed much from the abovementioned works of Scylax, Ctesias and\nMegastenes to describe India. This brief\noverview shows that the basic sin committed by subsequent authors was the\nuncritical repetition of ancient tales, even though they could use their own\nobservations. At the same time, they flattered the common taste of listeners\nwho expected that the distant lands would be extraordinary and surprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is the\nmechanism of creating these ideas? What did they grow from? I would distinguish\nfive factors that help to sustain the belief in the existence of monstrous\nhuman races inhabiting distant areas of Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Curiosity<\/strong>. This is the initiator of imagination. People\nused to wonder what the inhabitants of inaccessible lands look like, just as we\nare curious about what aliens may look like (if they exist). They also assumed\nthat if they live so far, they must be completely different from themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No direct and permanent contact<\/strong>. Due to the continuous political\nturmoil in the East, direct land contact between the West and India was\nextremely difficult. Trade was almost entirely in Arab hands, especially after\nthe 2nd century AD, and goods transported by caravans changed intermediaries up\nto eight times before they reached their destination. They were not accompanied\nby anyone who could bring a reliable knowledge about their country of origin.\nThis lack of direct contact hampered the development of geographical and\nethnographic knowledge, facilitating the spread of fantastic information about\nIndia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Catalan Atlas<\/strong><\/em>, 1375<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Cultural predispositions<\/strong>. The world of ancient Greeks, apart\nfrom people, were inhabited by fantastic characters: gods, minor deities and\ncreatures from the borderline of nature and fantasy. Their presence was to\nexplain the inexplicable, give form to the unknown, sublimate human fears. Sirens,\nsatires, centaurs, or harpies were a personification of instincts, desires or\nfears that controlled man. They existed at the intersection of the civilized\nworld of people and the untamed \u2013 nature. Therefore there was consent, mental\npreparation for the introduction of fantastic characters into the real world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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