Hindu Period

HINDU PERIOD The external history of India may be considered to begin with the Greek invasion in 327 B.C. Some indirect trade between India and the Levant existed from very ancient times. Homer was acquainted with tin and other articles of Indian merchandise by their Sanskrit names ; and a long list has been made of Indian products mentioned in the Bible. In the time of Darius the valley of the Indus was a Persian satrapy. But the first Greek historian who speaks clearly of India was Hecataeus of Miletus B.c.) ; the knowledge of Herodotus (45o B.c.) ended at the Indus; and Ctesias, the physician (401 B.c.), brought back from his resi dence in Persia only a few facts about the products of India, its dyes and fabrics, its monkeys and parrots. India to the east of the Indus was first made known in Europe by the historians and men of science who accompanied Alexander the Great in 327 B.C. Their narratives, although now lost, are condensed in Strabo, Pliny and Arrian.

Alexander's March.

Alexander the Great entered India early in 327 B.C. Crossing the lofty Khawak and Kaoshan passes of the Hindu Kush, he advanced by Alexandria, a city previously founded in the Koh-i-Daman, and Nicaea, another city to the west of Jalalabad, on the road from Kabul to India. Thence he turned eastwards through the Kunar valley and Bajour, crossed the Gour aios (Panjkora) river, laid siege to Mount Aornos, and then moved over the Indus at Ohind, 16 m. above Attock, receiving there the submission of the great city of Taxila, represented by miles of ruins, which are now being systematically excavated, near the mod ern Rawalpindi. Crossing the Hydaspes (Jhelum) he defeated Porus in a great battle, and crossing the Acesines (Chenab) near the foot of the hills and the Hydraotes (Ravi), reached the Hyp hasis (Beas). Here he was obliged by the temper of his army to retrace his steps, and retreat to the Jhelum, whence he sailed down the river to its confluence with the Indus, and thence to Patala, probably the modern Hyderabad. From Patala the admiral Near chos was to sail round the coast to the Euphrates, while Alexander himself marched through the wilds of Gedrosia, or modern Mak ran. Ultimately, after suffering agonies of thirst in the desert, the army made its way back to the coast at the modern harbour of Pasni, whence the return to Susa in Persia was easy.

During his two years' campaign in the Punjab and Sind, Alex ander captured no province, but he made alliances, founded cities and planted garrisons. He had transferred much territory to chiefs and confederacies devoted to his cause, and every petty court had its Greek faction. At Taxila (Dehri-Shahan) and Nicaea (Mong) in the northern Punjab, at Alexandria (Uchch) in the southern Punjab, at Patala (Hyderabad) in Sind, and at other points along his route, he established military settlements of Greeks or allies. A large body of his troops remained in Bactria; and, in the par tition of the empire which followed Alexander's death in 323 B.e., Bactria and India eventually fell to Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy.

Chandragupta Maurya.

Meanwhile a new power had arisen in India. Among the Indian adventurers who thronged Alexan der's camp in the Punjab, was Chandragupta Maurya, an exile from the Gangetic valley. In the confused years which followed Alexander's departure, he managed to form a kingdom on the ruins of the Nanda dynasty in Magadha or Behar (322 B.c.) . He seized the capital, Pataliputra, the modern Patna, established him self firmly in the Gangetic valley, and compelled the north-western principalities, Greeks and natives alike, to acknowledge his su zerainty. While, therefore, Seleucus was winning his way to the Syrian monarchy, Chandragupta was building up an empire in northern India. Seleucus reigned in Syria from 312 to 28o B.C., Chandragupta in the Gangetic valley from 322 to 298 B.C. In 312 B.C. the power of both had been consolidated, and the two new sovereignties were brought face to face. Seleucus, having recov ered Babylon, proceeded to re-establish his authority in Bactria and then moved on to India. There he met Chandragupta, now master of all Hindustan, with an immense army; and prudence decided him to ally himself with the new power in India rather than to oppose it. In return for five hundred elephants, he ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab and the Kabul valley, gave his daughter to Chandragupta in marriage, and stationed an ambas sador, Megasthenes, at the Gangetic court (302 B.e.). Chandra gupta became familiar to the Greeks as Sandrocottus, king of the Prasii; his capital, Pataliputra, was called by them Palimbothra. On the other hand, the names of Greeks and kings of Grecian dynasties appear in the rock inscriptions, under Indian forms.

Previous to the time of Megasthenes the Greek idea of India was a very vague one ; and it was he who first opened up the land to the western world. He describes the classification of the people, dividing them, however, into seven castes instead of four, namely, philosophers, husbandmen, shepherds, artisans, soldiers, inspectors and the counsellors of the king. The philosophers were the Brahmans, and the prescribed stages of their life are indicated. Megasthenes observes with admiration the absence of slavery in India, the chastity of the women, and the courage of the men. In valour they excelled all other Asiatics; they required no locks to their doors; above all, no Indian was ever known to tell a lie. Sober and industrious, good farmers and skilful artisans, they scarcely ever had recourse to a lawsuit, and lived peaceably under their native chiefs. The kingly government is portrayed almost as described in Manu, with its hereditary castes of councillors and soldiers. Megasthenes mentions that India was divided into one hundred and eighteen kingdoms; some of which, such as that of the Prasii under Chandragupta, exercised suzerain powers.

The Brahmanism of northern India was destined to be pro foundly influenced by the two powerful monarchies which sprung up toward the close of the fourth century B.C. On the east, in the Gangetic valley, Chandragupta firmly consolidated the dynasty which during the next century produced Asoka (264-228 or 227 B.C.), and established Buddhism throughout India. On the west, the Seleucids diffused Greek influences, and sent forth Graeco Bactrian expeditions to the Punjab. Antiochus Theos (grandson of Seleucus Nicator) and Asoka (grandson of Chandragupta), who ruled these two monarchies in the 3rd century B.C., made a treaty with each other (256). In the next century Eucratides, king of Bactria, conquered as far as Alexander's royal city of Patala, and possibly sent expeditions into Cutch and Gujarat, 181-161 B.C. Of the Graeco-Indian monarchs, Menander advanced farthest into north-western India, and his coins are found from Kabul, near which he probably had his capital, as far as Muttra on the Jumna. The Buddhist dynasty of Chandragupta affected the religion of northern India from the east ; the Seleucid empire, with its Bactrian and later offshoots, influenced the science and art of Hindustan from the west.