Herodotus/Mahabharata question

[Steve Farmer]

Thanks, Yaroslav. I've since found much data in the Indology
archives from 1996 on the gold-digging "ants" (see "marmot").

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html

> 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.