Herodotus/Mahabharata question

[Yaroslav Vassilkov]

Dear Steve,
        I think you would find useful the whole chapter on "Gold-Digging Ants"
in Klaus Karttunen's book "India in Early Greek Literature", Helsinki 1989 (Studia
Orientalia, ed. by the Finnish Oriental Society, 65), pp. 171-176, with reference to
Mbh 2, 48.4.
        All the best
                                                Yaroslav.

Tue, 13 Mar 101 06:36 +0300 MSK Steve Farmer wrote to INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK:

> Quick bibliographical question:
>
> There is a famous passage in Herodotus (esp. 3.102), raised in
> discussing the tribute Indians paid to the Achaemenids, that
> speaks of giant Indian ants that supposedly brought gold to the
> surface when digging their tunnels. Could someone point me to the
> Mahabharata passages that tell the same or a similar story? The
> story is discussed, among other places, by B. Lauffer, 'Die Sage
> von den goldgrabenden Ameisen,' T'oung Pao (1908) 9:429-452.
> Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of that article at hand.
>
> The story illustrates the kinds of story that could pass fairly
> readily between India and Greece after the late 6th century BCE,
> thanks apparently to the Persian conquests in that period in NW
> India. I'm interested in such communications since I'm trying to
> track down evidence of more important (if indirect) influences of
> the Achaemenids on the canonization of Vedic sources in the
> 6th-5th centuries.
>
---
Yaroslav Vassilkov (yavass at YV1041.spb.edu)
Institute of Oriental Studies
Tue, 13 Mar 101 10:45 +0300 MSK