India from 7th Century B.C. to 4th Century B.C.

14 Novembro 2017, 16:00 • João Manuel de Almeida Teles e Cunha

India has a varied culture and traditions, many of them have been influenced by the foreign culture. India being a prosperous and rich country with great civilization, it attracted the empires from long and many civilizations like Persian and Macedonian have invaded India for riches and few settled back while others left country with gold and diamonds. In all the great invasions of Ancient India Persian and Greek are the major ones.

• In the first half of sixth century BC, there were a number of small tribal states in North West India. There was no sovereign power to unite these warring tribes. 
• The Achaemenid rulers of Persia or Iran took advantage of the political disunity of this region. Cyrus, the founder of the Achaemeniddynasty, and his successor Darius I annexed parts of Punjab and Sindh. 
• The Persian rule in north western India lasted for nearly two centuries.
• The naval expedition of Skylax probably encouraged trade and commerce between Persia and India. 
• The administrative structure of the Mauryan empire was influenced in some measure by that of the Achaemenid rulers of Persia. 
• The cultural effects of the contacts with the Persians were also significant. The Persian scribes brought into India a new style of writing. It is called kharoshthi. It was derived from the Aramaic script, which was written from right to left. 
• Many of Asoka’s inscriptions found in north western India are witten in kharoshthi.
• The Mauryan art and architecture were also greatly influenced by the Persian art. 
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  During the fourth century BC, the Greeks and the Persians fought for supremacy over West Asia. 
• The Achaemenid Empire was finally destroyed by the Greeks under the leadership of Alexander of Macedon. He conquered Asia Minor, Iraq and Iran and then marched towards India.
• According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Alexander was greatly attracted towards India because of her fabulous wealth. On the eve of Alexander’s invasion, north western India was divided into a number of small principalities. 
• Lack of unity among them helped the Greeks to conquer these principalities one after another. However, Alexander’s army refused to march ahead when they heard about the vast army and the strength of the Nandas of Magadha. 
• Alexander had to return. He died at Babylon at the young age of 32 on his way back to Macedon. He hardly had any time to re-organize his conquests.
• The eastern part of his empire was given to Seleucus Nikator, who declared himself a king after the death of his master, Alexander though the contact between the Macedonians and ancient Indians was for a brief period, its impact was fairly wide in range. 
• Alexander’s invasion brought Europe, for the first time, in close contact with India, as routes, by sea and by land, were opened between India and the West. A close commercial relation was also established. 
• The traders and craftsmen used to follow these routes. Alexander asked his friend Nearchus to explore the sea coast from the mouth of the Indus to the Euphrates in search of harbours. 
• The Greek writers have left many valuable geographical accounts of this region for us. 
• The influence of Greek art is found in the development of Indian sculpture as well. The combination of the Greek and the Indian style formed the Gandhara School of art. 
• Indians also learnt the art of making well-shaped and beautifully designed gold and silver coins from the Greeks. The Greeks had some influence on Indian astrology as well.