Indian Itihas and Western Histories - the two ancient styles of historic documentation.

The Greeks and Romans were habitual to accurate historical documentation even two millennia ago. As far back as 5th Century BCE, Herodotus in his book histories, states the purpose of writing his own 'History' book:

"Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks." — Herodotus, The Histories

History, as an academic discipline was very much mature in the west at the time. As an example, the first-century Greek writer Strabo criticized Megasthenes, the ambassador at Mauryan court and author if 'Indica' - a book on India, as being a liar. So, histories were not only written but also were questioned and criticized. That I think, is a sign of sophistication.

With such a long tradition of the study of History, there is a lot more amount of reliable data related to the events of the west and has been a part of the study for a very long time.

In India, however, the scholars were inclined more towards romanticizing the events while documenting them. We have Puranas, which provide us knowledge of the past, but in a form of literature and not as much as history. Though 'Itihas' (इति + ह + अस्/आस = thus surely is/existed. Meaning that it is a recorded of happenings of past) as a concept was known to Indian scholars, it was very different from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Indians took a lot of creative liberty while describing the events (Mahabharat and Ramayan are the most well-known example of Itihas. Among which, in Mahabharat, Vyas himself calls the epic as being an 'Itihas').

Such Indian tradition continued well until the arrival of Muslim rulers, who brought with them the western way of history writing. They might have learned this style from the Europeans in the golden age of Islam, during which a vast number of Indian and Classical documents were studied by the Islamic in Middle-Eastern Muslim Empires. We can see the sharp distinction in 'Prithviraj Raso' from 12th century CE - the heavily fictionalized accounts of Prithviraj Chauhan and 'Baburnama' - far more accurate accounts by Babur written in 16th century CE (need more insights here).

Thus, history-writing of ancient India was definitely more appealing and gripping but lacked accuracy. By the virtue of which, they became an integral part of Indian culture. While that of West emphasized more on accuracy.