Taprobana

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Taprobana (Ancient Greek: Ταπροβανᾶ) or Taprobane (Ταπροβανῆ) was the historical name for an island in the Indian Ocean.

Reports of the island's existence were known before the time of Alexander the Great as inferred from Pliny. In the treatise De Mundo, supposed to have been written by Aristotle (died 322 BC) but according to others by Chrysippus the Stoic (280 to 208 BC), the island is stated as being as large as Britain. The name was first reported to Europeans by the Greek geographer Megasthenes around 290 BC. There is no mention of the island in Herodotus (444 BC) and the first Geography in which it appears delineated is that of Eratosthenes (276 to 196 BC) and was later adopted by Ptolemy (139 AD) in his own geographical treatise to identify a relatively large island south of continental Asia. Taprobana may be the Greek rendition of Tamraparni or Tambapanni, meaning "copper-colored," the descriptive name of one of the rivers of Tamil Nadu. According to Western legend, the inhabitants had a single giant foot which they used to protect themselves from the sun.