Synopsis In this critical study of the indica the author of the present monograph Professor S.R. Goyal has shown that the testimony of Megasthenes regarding the absence of the art of writing in India when he visited the country is correct, that the Indian heracles of Megasthenes as described in relation to Mathura should mainly be identified not with Vasudeva-Krshna but with Manu-Vaivasvata, that the Indian Dionysus of Megasthenes is a composite god, and that the Pauranika genealogies as known today existed more or less in the same form in the early Maurya age. He has also analysed afresh the reference made to the seven ‘castes’ and also to the Brahmana and Sramana ascetics by Megasthenes. Thus the present work suggests numerous new and challenging ideas for the consideration of Indologists.