TRAVELERS AND STORYTELLERS 


=HERODOTUS, Histories (mid-5th c. BCE), a special overview page: [on this site]

=Ctesius of Cnidus (fl. late 5th. c. to early 4th c. BCE [site]: an overview of all we can know about his lost "History of India"

=Megasthenes (4th c. BCE), whose "Indika" survives only in fragments: [site]; his impression of Pataliputra (Patna): [site]

=Parthian Stations by Isidore of Charax, about trade routes to India, 1st c. BCE: [site

=STRABO (1st c. CE), in his "Geography," on India, from the Perseus Project:

=Book XV in the Hamilton & Falconer trans., "India and Persia" (with the gold-digging ants): [site]
=a Perseus search result page for all Strabo's references to India (Hamilton & Falconer): [site]; and Indian: [site]; and Indians: [site]
=the Internet Sourcebook: [site]

=PLINY (1st c. CE), in his "Natural History," on India, from the Perseus Project:
=Book VI Chapter 21, "The Nations of India": [site];
=Book VI Chapter 22, "The Ganges": [site];
=Book VI Chapter 23, "The Indus": [site]
=Book VI Chapter 24, "Taprobane": [site]
=Book VI Chapter 26, "Voyages to India": [site]
=Book VII Chapter 2, "The Wonderful Forms of Different Nations": [site]
=Book XI, Chapter 36: "Ants" (those clever gold-diggers): [site]
=a Perseus search result site for all Pliny's references to India: [site]
=MSSU versions: [site]
=Internet Sourcebook: [site]


=Saint Thomas-- does he really go to India? The "Acts of Thomas" describes his deeds there in some detail: [site]

="The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean, by a Merchant of the First Century": [site]

=Arrian, The Anabasis Alexandrae, Book VIII: Indica (2nd c. CE): [site]

=Pausanias (c.150-180) on India, refs. from Perseus project: [site]

=Aelian (fl. c.150): a book on animals, including many allegedly Indian ones: [site]

=The Life of Appolonius of Tyana, by Philostratus, 220 CE-- an imaginary journey to India: [site]

=H. G. Rawlinson, Intercourse between India and the western world from the beginning to the fall of Rome (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1916): [site]

=Fa-Hsien (Faxian) (c.337-414) travels from China to visit the Buddhist centers of South Asia, trans. by James Legge, 1886: [site]

=Hiuen Tsiang (Xuanzang), "Buddhist Records of the Western World"-- his journey to India, 629 CE: [site]

=ALBIRUNI's great book Tarikh al-Hind (c.1030, Ghazni), trans. by Edward C. Sachau (1910): volume 1: [site]; volume 2: [site]

=Ibn Battuta, early 1300's: his chapters on India, trans. by S. Lee (1829): [on this site]

=Sir John Mandeville (c.1366) in his "Travels" tells us, among many other wonders, "wherefore the emperor of Ind is clept Prester John": [site]; also [site] and [site]

=Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat (1499/1500-1551), Tarikh-i rashidi (History for Rashid) (c.1545/7), an early account of Central Asian travel, including Kashmir: [site] (Packard)

=Sebastian Munster (1488-1552) in his "Cosmographia" (1544) describes many wonders of India that go back to Herodotus: [on this site]

=Vasco da Gama's voyage round Africa to India, 1497-98: [site]

=St Francis Xavier (1506-1552): The Life of St. Francis Xavier, by John Dryden (1631-1700): [site]

=Sidi Ali Reis (1557), Mirat ul-Memalik: a Turkish admiral visits Gujarat, Sind, and Humayun's court, trans. from the Turkish by A. Vambery, 1899: [on this site]

=Father Monserrate, S.J. (1591): an excerpt from his account of his stay in Akbar's court: [on this site]

="Steel and Crowther's Journey of 1615-16 from Moghul India through Persia": [site]

=Sir Thomas Browne (1646), in Chapter 9 of his Vulgar Errors (Pseudodoxia Epidemica), concludes that there's probably not a race of Pygmies "about Ganges in Asia": [site]

=Pietro Della Valle (1586-1652), The Travels of Sig. Pietro della Valle, a noble Roman, into East-India and Arabia Deserta (1650); excerpts from the 1665 translation: [on this site]

=Francois Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, AD 1656-1668, trans. by Archibald Constable on the basis of Irving Brock's version, ed. by Vincent A. Smith (1934): [on this site]

=Jean Baptiste Tavernier (1605-1689), Travels in India (1676), trans. by V. Ball, revised edition by William Crooke, 1925: extensive excerpts [on this site].

=East India Company letters, ed. William Foster (1900), vol. 4: [site]

=NiccolaoManucci, "Aurangzeb goes to Kashmir," an excerpt from from Mogul India, or Storia do Mogor, by Niccolao Manucci  (c.1652-80), trans. and edited by William Irvine, 1907-08: [on this site]

=Robert Knox (1641-1720), An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies Together with an Account of the Detaining in Captivity [of] the Author and Divers other Englishmen Now Living There, and of the Author's Miraculous Escape (1695): [site]

=JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700), "Aurung-Zebe, a Tragedy," with an introduction by Sir Walter Scott; The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) (1808 edition): [site]

=John Dryden (1631-1700),The Life of St. Francis Xavier, in The Works of John Dryden, Volume 16 (of 18) (1808 edition): [site]

=Mallet, 1683: Description de l'Univers by Alain Manesson Mallet, a set of global maps and views: [on this site]

=Prevost, 1746-59: Histoire générale des Voyages by l'Abbé Antoine François Prévost, with maps and views by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin: [on this site]

=Robert Kerr, ed. GENERAL HISTORY AND COLLECTION OF VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, ARRANGED IN SYSTEMATIC ORDER: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time (1811): [on this site]

=Lalla Rookh (1817), a long poem by Sir Thomas Moore; once extremely popular, this amply-footnoted "Eastern Romance" is based on a frame story involving a daughter of Aurangzeb: [on this site]

=W. B. Cramp, Narrative of a Voyage to India (1823): [site]

=The General East India Guide (1825), by John Borthwick Gilchrist: [on this site]

=Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, Observations on the Mussulmauns of India, Descriptive of their Manners, Customs, Habits, and Religious Opinions, made during a Twelve Years' Residence in their Immediate Society (1832). Edited by W. Crooke (1917), available [on this site]; also through Project Gutenberg: [site]

=Sir Walter Scott, the conclusion to The Surgeon's Daughter (1827), in which Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan appear as characters: [on this site]

=A. H. Holdsworth, Campaign of the Indus: in a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division (1838-40): [on this site]

=Thomas Babington MACAULAY (in India 1834-38), a variety of writings: [on this site]

=AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN THE 19th CENTURY: Selected magazine articles about South Asia: [on this site]

=Laurance Oliphant (1829-1888), A Journey to Katmandu (the Capital of Nepaul), with The Camp of Jung Bahadoor; including A Sketch of the Nepaulese Ambassador at Home (1852): [site]; includes North Indian travelogues as well

=Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Brahma" (1867): [on this site]; "Saadi" (1867): [on this site]

=English Rule and Native Opinion in India: From Notes Taken 1870-74, by James Routledge (1878): [site]

=Lady Isabel Burton's description of her first visit to India (1876): [on this site]

=Helena P. Blavatsky, From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan (1879-80, pub.1892): [on this site]

=J. Talboys Wheeler, Tales from Indian History: Being the Annals of India Retold in Narratives (1881): [site]

=Harry deWindt (1856-1933), A Ride to India Across Persia and Baluchistan (1891): [site]

=Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Akbar's Dream" (1892) and other India-related poems: [on this site]

=Mark Twain (1835-1910), Following the Equator (1898). About South Asia: Part 2, Chapter 12; Part 4, Chapters 37-38; Part 5, Chapters 39-50; Part 6, Chapters 51-60; Part 7, Chapters 61-62: [site]

=William Eleroy Curtis, Modern India (1904): [site]

=John Biddulph (1909), The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago: [on this site]

=Herbert Strang, In Clive's Command: a Story of the Fight for India (early 1900's): [site]

=William Butler Yeats, "Mohini Chatterji" (1928): [on this site]


 
 

 
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