Chapter 9 India And The Contemporary World First Few Words
Our country had a close and intimate relationship with the outside world. It is not that we had intercourse only with southeast Asia, as some may think.
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We had intercourse with Greece, China, Tibet, Persia, Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula, and even Rome. But before we start reading about such intercourse, we would ask you to have an idea of the centers of ancient civilization outside India.
- Mesopotamia was one of them. It was a land between the rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. Mesopotamia was the center of the Sumerian civilization. The script known as cuneiform was evolved there. The Babylonian civilization also flourished in Mesopotamia. The famous king Hammurabi ruled in Babylon.
- A very distinguished civilization grew up in Egypt in northeast Africa. The Pharaos were ancient rulers of Egypt where the script called hieroglyphics came into being.
- Ancient Chinese civilization flourished along two rivers, Hwang-ho and Yangsi-Kiang. A great feature of ancient China was the Great Chinese wall which was built in order to ward off foreign invasion.
- Ancient Greece was another center of civilization. Greece in those days was divided into city-states. Some of them, particularly Athens and Sparta became most prominent. The Greeks had to fight with Persia. The account of this war was written by the great historian Thucydides. History, art, and philosophy were cultivated in ancient Greece. Socrates Plato and Aristotle were some of the great philosophers of ancient Greece.
- Ancient Persia too was the home of civilization. A strong empire grew up there. Darius, Cyrus, and Xerxes were some very famous rulers. Zarathustra, the famous preacher worshipped Ahura Mazda. He was the founder of the Zoroastrian faith.
- In Italy, a vast and glorious civilization grew up. It was called the Roman civilization. The Roman empire rose under Julius Caesar. Rome expanded under Augustus. Claudius was another great ruler. New towns and forums were built. Another feature of Roman life was the bathhouses.
Chapter 9 India And The Contemporary World Indias Contact With The Outside World
In the northwest of India, there are a number of mountain passes. These passes allowed tourists and tradesmen from the west and central Asia to come into our country.
Through the Himalayan passes travelers and tradesmen came to India. Travelers also came by sea route, mostly in western India. But it is not that only foreigners came to India through these routes.
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Indians too used these passes to go to central and western Asia, to Tibet and China. The purposes of these visits were trade and religious and cultural exchanges. There was sometimes political motive also.
Chapter 9 India And The Contemporary World Contact With Persia And Greece
Gandhar near modern Kabul was a prominent cultural center in ancient India. Moreover, it was through Gandhar that the Persians established their contact with our country.
In the second half of the 6th century B.C., the Persians under Achaemenid rulers invaded Gandhar. Their most famous king was Darius. Under him, the Persians established their dominion beyond Gandhar.
Probably they conquered the regions up to the Indus river. The Greek historian Herodotus tells us that India, or Indus as he called it, was a satrapi (a province) of the Persian Empire.
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Emperor Darius, I conquered the lower Sind region. He kept it under his control for both political and economic motives. Thus northwest India was in close contact with the Persian empire for quite a long time.
In the 4th century B.C. Emperor Darius III who ruled for just six or seven years (336-330 B.C.) was not as strong a ruler as Darius I.
During this period the Greeks under Alexander the Great invaded Persia and defeated the Achaemenid rulers. As a result, Persian rule in northwest India came to an end.
Persian rule was no more there. But the effects of Persian rule were felt even long after. First, India’s contact with western Asia was surely the result of Persian rule.
Trade relations were continued even after the end of Persian rule. Secondly, the Kharoshthi Script of ancient India probably had its origin in Persia. This means that Kharoshthi came from Persia to India.
Thirdly, there was a clear mark of Persian style on Maurya sculpture and architecture. The palace of Pataliputra, the Sarnath monument, etc. bear Persian influence.
Fourthly, we must not forget that Greek contact with India was established through the Persian Empire. Later, India had a close and deep-seated relationship with Greece.
Fifthly, some later dynasties continued the Persian satrapi system. The Sakas and Kushans had satraps in the outlying regions.
Contact With Greece
King Alexander of Macedon in Greece invaded India in 327 B.C. He first uprooted the Persian rule from northwest India and then entered our country through the Hindukush mountain.
It is well known that Alexander’s task was made easy by the mutual enmity of the Indian rulers of the northwest. Only Poros fought bravely. Alexander did not have to fight against any big and formidable power.
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That is why our Indian historians do not regard Alexander’s invasion as a great success. However, Alexander stayed in India for about 19 months. On his return, he died in Babylon.
Was Alexander’s invasion fruitless? Did it have no effect on us? Alexander’s invasion had too few direct results. It had very little effect on India’s life and literature.
A few Greek colonies were set up in the northwest. And through them, contact between India and Europe was established. India learned the technique of stamping coins, and astronomy from the Greeks.
The indirect results of Alexander’s invasion were really far-reaching. A close commercial contact was established between India and the West.
The Bactrian Greeks brought idolatry in Buddhism. The Gandhara sculpture was very much influenced by the Greek style.
Central Asia And India
Long after the departure of Alexander, Greeks from Bactria established control over many parts of northwest India. They were called Bactrian Greeks or Indo-Greeks.
Bactria is an old country now identified with the north-east of Afghanistan. At the end of the 4th century B.C. Bactria was ruled by the Greek ruler Seleucus.
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Taxila or Takshashila, Gandhar, etc. were all ruled by him. After Seleucus, who was once a commander under Alexander, the Greek control over Bactria loosened.
And the entire region came under the Indo-Greeks. Demetrius was a very capable Indo-Greek ruler. But the most important of them all was Menander.
Menander
Menander was the most powerful and most important Indo-Greek ruler. His rule extended over Gandhar, Kandahar. Even a part of Bactria was controlled by him.
He had a long life and lived from 265 B.C. to 145 B.C. In the Pali literature of the Buddhists, Menander was called Milinda. Menander became a Buddhist at the insistence of Nagasen.
Nagasen had once a long conversation with Menander. This is recorded as Milindapanho, that is Milinda Prasna. Mathura, Bundelkhand, and Kathiawad were under Menander’s rule. Menander had a deep respect for Indian religion and culture.
About 130 B.C. a nomadic tribe called the Scythians put an end to the Indo-Greek rule. The Scythians are better known as the Sakas. Maues and Azes were two of the Saka rulers.
A branch of the Sakas came to rule Ujjaini and became known as Kshatrapas. The most famous of them was Rudradaman. The Parthians or Pahlavas ruled in the northwest side by side with the Sakas.
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But it was the Pahlavas who put an end to Saka rule. The most famous Pahlavi ruler was Gondophernes who probably started to rule in about AD 20.
Gondophernes began his career as a provincial ruler under the Sakas and later became independent. He conquered Seistan and the Kabul Valley. Later he conquered Sind, Punjab, and a good part of Afghanistan.
He called himself a Rajadhiraj. The Pahlava rule in the northwest came to an end with the rise of the Kushans. A nomadic tribe from central Asia called the Yueh-chi captured Bactria and ruled over the Kashmir Valley.
They were later known as the Kushans whose best-known ruler was Kanishka. Thus there is a long history of foreign rule and foreign contact.
Political domination brought cultural and commercial exchanges. We know of Megasthenes who came to India with Seleucus. His Indika tells us so many things about the Mauryas.
Another envoy who came to the Maurya court was Diamachus. Damascus came to India as an envoy of the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy. There were cultural exchanges between the Mauryas and the rulers of Egypt and Syria.
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King Ashoka sent peace missions to Syria, Egypt, Macedon, and Ceylon. An inscription found at Rajagriha tells us that Harshavardhana had exchanged envoys with China.
Through the Chinese travelers Fa-Hsian (or Fa-hein), Yi-Jing (or I-tsing), and Xuan Zhang (or Hiuen Tsang) a cultural link was established between China and India.
The Huns
The Huns were a central Asian nomadic tribe, very energetic and highly militant. In about AD 458, they entered in to India from the north-west. They invaded the Gupta kingdom again and again.
Skandagupta was able to withstand their raids. The Huns raised their head again in the 5th and 6th centuries. Their leader then was Mihiragula, a son of Taormina.
After Mihiragula’s death in 542, the Huns became weak gradually. Huns later became mixed up with Indian communities. It is said that the Rajputs had Hun blood in their vein.
Chapter 9 India And The Contemporary World Economic Ties
Foreign invasion opened contact and communication. Very important was India’s economic contact with the outside world. Both land and sea were used as trade routes in ancient times.
The sea ports on the west coast of India were important trade centers. The West Indian ports like Bhrigukachcha at the mouth of Narmada also known as Broach, Kalyan on the Konkan coast, and Cape Comorin (modern Kanya Kumari) were centers of trade with Rome.
Spices, gold, etc. were the main items of trade. Kaveripattinam on the Kaveri delta was another western port. The ports on the eastern coast were centers of trade with southeast Asia. Tamralipta was the most important eastern port.
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In ancient times a network of inter-connected trade routes called the silk route, played a very important part in India’s trade with central and western Asia and Europe.
Although called the silk route, trade items also included gold, wool, silver, and spices. The silk route connected India with Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, and China.
The Mediterranean Sea was an important center in international trade along the silk routes.
Chapter 9 India And The Contemporary World Cultural Contacts
We were as much influenced by foreign culture as the foreigners were influenced by our culture. It was like a two-way game. The Aramaic language and script were used widely in the Persian Empire.
It is guessed by historians that the Kharoshthi script used in ancient India had its origin in the Aramaic script. When Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian city of Persepolis, many Persian artists, artisans, and craftsmen came over to India.
They began the Indo-Persian style of architecture. The IndoGreeks of Bactria infiltrated in to India. Over the years they got mixed up with the Indians. They taught Indians the art of stamping coins.
The Greeks brought to India the science of astronomy. Their style of sculpture greatly influenced India. The result was the Gandhara art form.
The Gandhara Art
We saw in Chapter 8 that a new style of art grew up in Gandhara. It particularly expressed itself in the stone images of Buddha. This was famous as Gandhara art.
Buddha’s images bore the Greek and also the Roman styles of sculpture. In most cases, the Gandhara Buddha looked like the Greek God Apollo.
The Saka rulers stamped silver coins. On some of them, scripts in both Greek and Prakrit were inscribed. The Junagarh inscription of Rudradaman, the Sakà Satrap was written in Sanskrit.
The Sakas and Kushans adopted Indian garments, the Indian style of house-building. They even adopted the Indian art of warfare. The Sakas and Pahlavas introduced different kinds of clothing.
Most of them were used by Indians also. The long robe-like garment, pajamas, belts, and long and heavy shoes were loved by Indians. It is surmised that the art of making earthen pots came to India from central Asia.
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Many of the central Asian tribes adopted Buddhism and some adopted Brahmanism. The Kushans worshipped Vishnu, Shiva, and Buddha. The Kushan coins bear the images of Hindu gods and goddesses apart from Greek and Roman ones.
The drop scene used in the stage performances of Indian drama is called the Yavanika in Sanskrit. This word comes from Yavana which meant Greek.
Buddhism was an important medium of contact between India and the world. Many Chinese pilgrims came to India to learn and practice Buddhism. We know of Fa-hsien and Xuan Zhang.
But there were many others. The pilgrims went back to China and preached Buddhistic ideas. There were Indians who spread Buddhist ideals in Tibet and China.
It was mainly through Atisha Dipankara that Buddhism spread to Tibet. The Tibetan King Strong-Tsan Gampo introduced Buddhism in Tibet.
Kumarajiva was a Buddhist scholar who lived in Kashmir and later went over to China. He lived the latter part of his life in the Chinese capital. He contributed much in the spread of Sanskrit scholarship and Buddhist philosophy in China.
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
A very important source of information for ancient India was a book written by an unknown author. The name of the book is Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
In those days the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf had a combined name-the Erythraean Sea. This book was about trade and commerce that were carried out in these seas.
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The author’s name is not known. The author was a Greek who lived in Egypt. The book vividly describes ports and the trade that was carried out then. It was probably written sometime in the 1st century A.D.
It is a very important source of ancient Indian history. It gives picturesque descriptions of men, ships, birds, animals, and plants that the author came across during his travels.
WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History
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- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 1 The Idea Of History
- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 2 Primitive Man In The Indian Sub Continent
- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 3 Ancient History Of The Indian Sub Continent
- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 4 Ancient History Of The Indian Sub Continent
- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 5 Indian Sub Continent In The 6th Century BC
- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 6 Expansion Of Empire
- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 7 Economic Condition And Livelihood
- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 8 Culture In ancient India
- WBBSE Notes For Class 6 History Chapter 9 India And The Contemporary World