In this episode we discussed about the diplomacy in ancient India. Most of us think that diplomacy as a practice started after the Westphalia treaty which is undoubtedly true, but some practices similar to modern day diplomacy cease to exist in ancient India. The first ever Greek ambassador to India was Megasthenes. He was appointed as ambassador after Chandra Gupta Maurya defeated Selecus Nicator (Greek governor left by Alexander). Megasthenes stayed in India for 7 years and wrote about Indian culture, history and society at that time in a book named Indica. The soft power of Indian kings increased manifold in Gupta empire and they use to send brahmans to china as ambassador. 3 ambassadors were sent by the tang dynasty during the reign of Harshvardhana. Wang Xuance is considered as the official diplomat of Tang dynasty sent to the court of post Mauryan king. Even during the time of Ashoka India had diplomatic relations with present day Sri Lanka. The diplomatic relations of India and south east Asia was at its peak during the 11th century CE. The Cholas are also famous for their democratic village assemblies.  We also conversed a bit about the republican set up of Licchavis.