Indo Mediterranean contacts

SOME ASPECTS OF THE INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS The subject of my lecturel is : Some Aspects of the Contacts between India and the Mediterranean World. Let me begin by defining my subject geographically and chronologically. For the purpose of this paper, by " Mediterranean World " I have under stood, on the one hand, the Levant which included Asia Minor and the Fertile Crescent with Egypt at its western terminus, Syria Palestine forming its western band, and Assyria-Babylonia con stituting its eastern bow, and, on the other, Greece and Rome. By India I mean the Indian subcontinent, I shall deal with my subject roughly in four chronological periods, which, for the sake of convenience, I shall designate as Indo-Mesopotamian period, Indo-Anatolian period, Indo-Hellinistic period, and Indo-Roman period. An important aspect of the proto-historic India is represented by the Indus valley civilization (now more popularly known as the Harappan civilization) which has been brought to light, in its various ramifications, during the course of the last forty years or So. On the basis of an examination of the craniological series of Mohenjodaro, a majority of anthropologists and ethnologists are now inclined to reject the theory that the Mohenjodaro people contained a mixture of such types as the Negroid, the proto. Australoid, the Veddoid, etc., and to suggest that the Indus valley people belonged to the mediterranean branch of the europeoid race. Mario CAPPIERI, for instance, says that in the fourth millennium B. C. and probably before, North-West India seems to have been inhabited by a long-head race, which had a high 1, R.G Bhandarkar Anniversary Address delivered at the Bhandarkar O. R. Institute, Poona, on Rupañcami, 16th September, 1969. 2. Cr. V. P. ALEKSEYEy in Indiya v Drernos-Soomık Slatej, Moscow, 1964, 46 EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY vault, long face, and thin and prominent nose,‘3 Indeed, in different parts of the region which included Anatolia, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Iran, and North-West India, one has to assume the existence of a very archaic racial type of extensive diffusion, relatively homogeneous and living in well defined, small, indepen dent groups This type belongs to tbe great group of mankind, which G SERGI has called the Mediterranean race. Most of the anthropologists, who have examined the human remains found in the excavations of the regions from the Aegean Sea to the Indus and who have minutely studied the prehistoric skulls and skele tons, admit that the long-head forms belong to the Mediterranean stock. The Mediterranean type of people is believed to have been the carliest contributor of agriculture and urban civilization in almost the whole extensive area stretching along the Mediterra nean basis towards the east up to North-West India. It is sug gested that the rise of the Indus cities was due to a kind of cul tural explosion or revolution occasioned by the penetration into India of a new ethnic group, namely, one of the Mesopotamian peoples - presumably the Ubaidians - which was subjugated and forced out by the Sumerians. However, in view of the fact that the skeletal remains exca vated from the various sites of the indus.civilization are extre mely meagre, it would perhaps be hazardous to assert that the authors of that civilization belonged to the eastern type of the Asiatic proto-Mediterraneans. There is, indeed, no evidence to suggest any wholesale migration of peoples from Mesopotamia to the Indus region. There is also reason to believe that the socio political patterns of the Mesopotamian and the Indus civilizations were quite distinct from each other. It is further to be noted that, besides the Mediterranean type, the Indus skeletal remains were found to include stray brachycephalic Alpine or Armenoid types as well. Therefore, on the basis of the available evidence, it would be safer to assume that the Harappans originated in the local soil, that their civilization was essentially an indigenous develop ment, but that they had very busy and active contacts with, among 3. Proceedings of the flørld Population Conference, Vol. II, 761-762. INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS 47 others, the Mesopotamians belonging to the Mediterranean stock from whom they borrowed some techniques of urban life. The contacts between the sodus and the Mesopotamian re gions can be traced back to the Sargonide period of the Sumerian history (circa 2500 B, C) and seem to have actively continued up to at least 1900 B. C. A mention may be made in this connec tion of actual finds of objects which were typical of one civiliza tion in the archaeological sites representing the other civilization. Such are, for instance, the distinctive but uras (pyxis) in the proto-historic cities of Mesopotamia and Elam, the bone inlays of the characteristic Iodus kidney-shape, segmented, etched and gold disc beads, bronze amulets of couchant bulls, Early Dynastic scarlet ware with the figure of humped bull, and pottery bearing kaobs. The stylistic and typical details of these objects are such as would render improbable the assumption of coincidental similarities The evidence of the discovery in the Royal Tombs of Sumer of the figure of squatting monkey, carpelian beads, and a peculiar type of hair-dressing as also of the discovery in Harappa of a distinctive type of terracotta figurines, fashioned in the round, depicting nude male body, perhaps ithyphallic, with ex tremely obese stomach, prominent buttocks, shoulder-holes for the attachment of movable arms and stubby tail, hundreds of specimens of which have also been excavated from the Meso potamian sites, is certainly quite illuminating. A terracotta die of Indian origin discovered by Professor SPEISER in his Tepe Gawra excavations again suggests a basic synchronism between the Mesopotamian Old Akkadian period and the “mature” Harappan period 4 A reference may be made here also to the figurines of the so-called Eye-Goddesses, which have been discovered in the Indus as well as the West Asian archaeological sites. It is rightly pointed out that functional architecture is common to the Indus valley and Sumer. The similarity between the Indus region and Mesopotamia in the matter of corbelled arch (as attested in Tell Asmar and Mohenjodaro), circular wells 4. George T. DALES, " Or dice and men", J405 82, 14-23. EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY of segmental bricks, and stone or baked clay lattice screens for windows cannot be regarded as being fortuitous It may be in cidentally added that the Indus civilization shows some improve ment in certain respects over the technique of Mesopotamia as is testified by the irregular streets of Ur and the planned ones of Mohenjodaro The evidence of seals is perhaps more convincing As many as thirty ladus seals are said to have been actually excavated from Sumer They can be understood as being indicative of trade contacts between the two regions Such trade link between India and West Asia is confirmed by the discovery of Indus like seals in the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. It has now been shown that the Indus civilization was a marıtıme civilization and not merely a land locked one Lothal which represented a sou thera extension of the Harappan civilization was undoubtedly a port with an impressive dochyard and served as an important centre of sea faring activity between the Harappan and the Meso potamian regions & It is even suggested that the presence of mature Harappan civilization can be attested along the coast as far west as the Dasht valley and that Sutkagen dor in the Dasht valley and Sotka koh in the Shadı kaur valley north of Pasoi played a key role as Harappan ports? It is further suggested that the enterprissog merchants of Kull civilization may have served as middlemen between Mesopotamian and Indus regions A spe cimen of the so called Persian Gulf seal, which, as indicated above, is a variant of the Indus pattern, is discovered at Lothal, 5 G BUDY, “The Ancient Indian Style scals from Bahrain , Anli qu ty 32, 243-46 Also scc W F LEENANS Forrign trade in the Old Babylonian Parod Leiden 1960 6 CES R RAO Shipp ng and maritime trade of the Indus people’, Exped I on 7, 30–37, Hartmut SciTxoKEL Zw schen Ur und Lothal DC Scchandelsroute von Allmncsopotamien zur Induski ltur, Forschungen unl Fort schnite 40 (5) 143 117 Incidentally it is suggested that when the Indo Aryans alrcady inl al ied a great part of India thc peninsula of Gujarat was perhaps a last bulwark of the Ind is civil zat on (I EEMANS, JCSHO 11, 223) 7 Gr Dale Harappan outposts on the Makran coast, Ant quly 36, 86-97 8 SR RAO A Pers ap Gulr cal from Lochal , Antiguity 37, 96-99 INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS 49 while Briggs BUCHANAN speaks of’ a dated seal impression con necting Babylonia and ancient India. * Mesopotamian records mention specific goods and materials which used to be imported from foreign lands, and at least some of these must have been imported from the Harappan regions. It is, however, interest ing to note that there are no traces of wares imported by the Harappans Presumably they were ‘soft’ and ‘consumable’, such as garments, wool, leather products, and perfumed oil. In deed, the viability of the Mesopotamian and ladus civilizations depended largely on mutual active trade, and it is not without significance that the end of the international trade of the Larsa period in Mesopotamia coincided with the end of the ‘mature’ Harappan period. A reference has already been made to the skeletal remains in the Indus valley which are suggestive of Mesopotamian Mediterranean stock. The Mesopotamian records mention several distant places, some of which may be identified with Indus localities. For instance, the inscriptions of the kings of Akkad and certain lexical texts originating in that region mention Magan or Makkan, which scholars identify with Makran in Baluchistan, and Melubha, from which place carnelian and special kinds of wood were imported by sea by the Babylonians and which is identified with Lothal and its environs.10 Dilmun is frequently mentioned in Sumerian texts and glorified in Sumcrian mythology. It is described as a place where the sun rises (that is, which is towards the east) and as a prosperous land dotted with great dwellings. Samuel KRAMER is inclined to identify 9 Archaeology 70, 104-107 Also scc : C J. GADD, “Seals of ancient Indian style found at Ur”, Proceedings of the British Academy, 1932, 191-210. 10 CF “The identification of Meluhha with India is well established and $ corroborated by its etymological derivative in Sanskrit mleccha, a word which occurs first in the Salapathabrahmana to denote barbarians (“lemons “) of unintelligible speech” (Asko PARPOLA and others, Deapherment of the Proto Dravidian Inscriptions of the Indus Gtoilization, A first announcement, Copen hagen, 1969, p.4) Penttı AALTO first suggested the connection of Meluhba with Palı milakkha. Sanskrit mleccha (bid, p 50) Also see : W.F. LEEMANS, " Additional cvidence for the Persian Gulf trade and Meluhha”, JESHO 11 (2), 215–226. 50 EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY Dilmun with the Indus region. He further points to the signifi. cance of the facts that the great Sumerian water-god Enki was most intimately connected with Dilmun and that the Todus civili zation was characterized by the cult of a water deity and sea faring ships 11 A reference may be made in this context also to words like taimáta, urugulā, and algi viligi occurring in the Atharvai eda (V 13 ), which are obviously non Aryan and which are supposed to have been derived from Mesopotamian Tiamut (the dragon ), urugala (the underworld), and Bilgi (an ancient Assyrian god) Thus, though it is not possible to ascertain at this stage the exact nature and extent of the interdependence between Indus India on the one hand and Mesopotamia which was a part of the Mediterranean world on the other, the fact that active coptacts had developed between the two regions early in the third millennium B. C and had continued for nearly 800 years can be proved beyond doubt As a matter of fact it does not seem unlikely that the Indus people had established trade links even with the Minoan Crete In this connection, a reference may be made to the correspondence between the Mother Goddess cults of Harappa and Syria Crete Syrio-Cretan type of doves, snakes, and tree worship was prevalent also in Mohenjodaro and Harappa Further, the segmentai variety of faience beads from Harappa resemble not those of Ur but those discovered in Crete If the evidence for the Indo Mesopotamian contacts is mainly archaeological, that for the Indo Anatolian contacts is essentially linguistic It also needs to be pointed out that the relationship between India and Anatolia was not of the nature of direct and continuing contacts As a matter of fact, neither of the two regions seems to have been at all conscious of this relationship. A clay tablet discovered at Bogazkoi (about 80 miles to the 11 Samuel Noah KRAMER, The Induṣ cıvılızation and Dumun, the Sumerian Paradise lost , Expeditzort 6, 44 52 PARPOLA and others identify Tilmun (Dilmun) with thc Bahre n land (op cut P4) Also see h JARITZ, “Talmud Makan Meluhba , Journal of Near Lastern Studies 27 (3), 209-213 INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS 51 south-west of Ankara ) - presumably, the ancient name of the place was Hattuśa - by Hugo WINCKLER in 1906 represented a treaty concluded between the Mitannian ruler Mattiwaza (son of Tuśratta) and the Hittite king Suppiluliuma, in the fourteenth century B.C. As witnesses to the treaty are involed, among many other gods, four gods whose names are clearly akin to those of the Vedic gods, Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra, and Nasatya. About twenty years before this discovery, that is, in 1887, there was discovered at El-Amarna in central Egypt a large number of tablets with writings in cuneiform characters. This collection constituted a part of an ancient archive containing the correspon. dence of Pharaoh Amenophis IV (circa 1364-1347 B, C.) and his father Pharaoh Amenophis III (circa 1402–1364 B, C.) with the castern states – particularly with the city-states in Syria Palestine and with Mitanni in castern Anatolia whose rulers were matrimonially related to the Pharaohs. The names of the Mitanni rulers mentioned in this correspondence, such as Arta tama and Artassumara, also show linguistic affinitics with Aryan names. Three years earlier, that is, in 1884, Friedrich DELIT ZSCH had drawn the attention of scholars to the Aryan influence on the language of the Kassites who seem to have had their principality to the south-east of the Mitannian realm, just to the north of the Persian Gulf. For instance, the word for the sun god in that language was śuniaś, and, both in form and meaning, it corresponded with the Vedic word sürya. Further, in the course of the archaeological expedition of 1906-12 itself, there was brought to light at Bogazkoi a text dealing with the breeding and training of horses, which belonged to the 14th century B. C. and wbose apiborship was attributed to one Xikkuly described as aśśuśćani ( which word is obviously related to asia - horse’ and sam-’to tame) from the land of Mitanni. This text contains some numerals like aika, lira, panza, śalia, etc, which are unmistakably reminiscent of Sanskrit eka, tri, pañca, sapta, etc. These numerals occur as the first members of the compounds formed with - uartanna, which form is clearly connected with Vedic vartani - its i ending having been changed to a-ending as is to be seen in such Vedic compounds with numerals as dasãigula 52 EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY (from daśa + anguli) and tryañjala (from tri ef anjal). Finally, between 1925 and 1931, there were unearthed important documents from the city of Nuzi which was situated at the south-eastern end of the Mitannian realm. These documents again contained words like babru-nnu (babhru ), parita-nnu (palta), and pinkara-nnu (pingala) to denote the colours of horses. This Aryan linguistic material gleaned from different sources, which, however, were directly or indirectly connected with the Mitanni state in ancient Anatolia and wbich generally belonged to the second millennium B, C., is classified under three main heads, namely, (a) Dames of four Vedic gods, (b) thirteen appellatives - among them four substantives, three adjectives, five Dumerals, and one verb - seves of which are derived from Kikkuli’s work, three from Nuzi, and three from Hurrian records, and (c) a oumber of personal names.13 About the Aryan character of the first two of these classes there can hardly be any doubt, while the third class contains words which seem to be local variations of the original Aryan forms. In the context of this last class, it may be incidentally pointed out that the mutual influence of the Near Eastern speech and the Aryan speech may be discovered in such phenomena as the peculiar development of the Indo-European vocalısm in Aryan, the participles in- ma-of Luwian with a middle or passive meaning corresponding to the formations like Sanskrit ksāma, stima, bhima, dasma, migma, uma, etc,15 and the Aryan words with Hurrian suffix like mutunni and aśśuśśanı,16 As regards a more precise linguistic characterization 12. M MAYRHOFER, " Zablwortkomposita des Kikkuli Textes”, IF 70, 11-13. 13. For a fuller discu$:09, see : R. HAUSCHED, Uber due fthesten Asset im alten Orient, Berlin, 1962, M. MAYRITOFER, Die Indo-Aruer im alten Vordera sien, mil cine analytischen Bibliographie, Wiesbaden, 1966, A KAMMENHUBER, Die Aner im Vorderen Orient, Heidelberg, 1968 14 CE O SZEXERCNYI, “Structuralis, and substsatun : Indo-Euro pcans and Semites in the Ancient Near Last”, Lingua 13, 1-29. 15. E BENVENISTE, “La forme du participe en Luw.”, Festschrij? Johan. rus Friedrich, 1959, 53-59 16 M MAYRHOFER, “Uber einige arische Worter mit hurtschen Suffix”. Annah Ist Uni, Or, Napoli, Sez. Ling 1,1-11. INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS 53 of these Aryan linguistic remains in Anatolia, one may think of three alternatives: they represent either the proto-Aryan stage or the Irano-Aryan stage or the Indo-Aryan stage. A critical and comparative study of all this material, in the details of which it is neither possible nor Decessary to enter here, has led to the conclusion that the language presupposed by the various forms is nearest to the Vedic Sanskrit. The mention of the four Vedic gods in the Mitanni-Hittite treaty is particularly significant in this connection. It has been shown that these four gods are mentioned together also in the Rgveda (X, 125. 1 ) and the Atharvaveda (III. 4, 4) and that in the Rgveda they are not unoften celebrated as protectors of treaties or contracts.17 How can this superimposition of the Vedic Aryan element on Mitapoi be historically explained ? It would seem that, after the dark period following the fall of Babylon in about 1650 B. C., the Hurrans spread over a major part of Syria and Mesopotamia and established in that region the kingdom of Mitanni. In this adventure of theirs, the Hurrians were led by Aryan warriors, often referred to as mariann (Vedic marya), who, though comparatively few in number, eventually emerged as rulers and noblemen. Five or six generations of Aryad rulers of Mitanni can be attested from the available records. Two facts need to be emphasized at this stage: (1) The names of the Mitapoi prince involved in the treaty recorded on the Bogazkoi tablet and his father - Mattiwaza and Tuśratta - are unmistakably Indo-Aryan, 19 (2) Besides the four Indo-Aryan gods, quite a large number of other gods, presumably Hurrian, are mentioned on the Bogazkoi tablet. It would, therefore, not be wrong to suppose that the Indo-Aryan gods belonged to the Indo-Aryan ruling family and noblemen, while the other gods belonged to the large Hurrian population. It is rightly suggested by HERZFELD that it could have 17. P. TATEME, * The * Aryan’ Gods of the Mitanni trcaties “, JAOS 80, 301-317. 18. The names may be rendered in Vedic Sanskrit as mathivaja and Icesaratha. 54 EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY been only’ a group of Aryan condotierri and their troops ‘18 who were inyolved in the establishment of the kingdom of Mitan01 I visualise the entire course of history in this connection roughly as follows 20 The earliest common habitat of the speakers of proto IE (who, however, did not necessarily belong to the same racial stock), which can be attested on the strength of the available linguistic, archaeological, anthropological, and culture historical evidence, is the North Kirghiz steppes between the Urals and Altai In view of the facts that the proto-Hellenes can be shown to have catered Greece in about 2200 BC, that the Hittites, as will be soon pointed out, started on their isolated migration in about 2800 BC, and that the proto-Aryans must be assumed to have separated from the main stock in about 2600 BC. the proto IE unity can be. with reasonable certainty, dated from 3500 B C It has now been shown that the Hittite language is the oldest offshoot of the proto IE family It shows considerable alipity with proto IE but it cannot be assigned to any specific IE branch We may, therefore, assume th. there occurred an isolated migration of the Hittites from the common proto-lE habitat even before the JE speech bad assumed its specific form The Hittites proceeded towards the south west and occupied the region between the Caucasus mountain and the Caspian sea This may have happened about 2800 B C After a few centuries of comparative able vion, the Hittites are known to have pushed forth further towards the south-west through the Cilician gates and to have established their sovereignty over the highlands in the great bend of the Halys river in the course of their further expansion, they scem, on the one hand, to have reached the Mediterranean sea towards the south west, and, on the other, to have established some kind of suzerainty over the Mitannian kingdom towards the 19 F HERZFELD, Iran in the Ancient Cast, 1941, p192 20 For fuller statement on the subject, Bec “The antoccdents and the carly beginnings of the Vedic period’, publuhed elsewhere in this Volume It will be seen that I have goodified my carlier ViCW regarding the m gration of the Proto-Aryans towards Anatolia The spellings of some words CWJg la thu context basc also been changedINDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS south-cast. So far as the former event is concerned, it has been pointed out that the contact with the sea had great significance for the laod-locked people like the Hittites, and the sea (aruna in Hittitel ) was, therefore, much glorified in their texts. As for the latter event, it has been pointed out that, in spite of the fairly long period of proximity of the Hittites and the Hurrians, there do not seem to have occurred any significant political-cultural contacts between them until the middle of thc 14th century B. C., when, through a treaty recorded on the Bogazhoi clay tablet, a political and matrimonial alliance came to be established between king Mattiwaza of Mitanni and his suzerain king Suppiluliuma of the Hittites. But we have anticipated a little. Let us go back to the migrations of the proto-IE-speaking peoples. Even after the isolated migration of the Hittites in the initial stage of the development of proto-IE, the remaining proto-IE-speakers, who may now be designated as JE-speakers, continued to live in the North Kirghiz region for some time. The next landmark in the history of these people is represented by two major migra tions. The earlier major migration was in the south-eastera direction. Some of the tribes of the IE-speakers separated from the main body of the IE-speakers and migrated to a locality not very different from their Urheimat, namely, to the region round about Balkh. The other major migration was towards the Pripet region from where there later occurred further secondary migra tions towards, among others, the Aegean world, Italy, and Germa nic lands. We are, however, concerned here more with the tribes which migrated to and eventually settled down in the Balkh region. Here, between 2500 B, C. and 2300 B, C.. the proto Aryan language, which, on the one hand, had evolved out of IE and, on the other, was the ancestor of ancient Iranian and Vedic Sanskrit, as also the proto-Aryan religious ideology, which represented the anterior stage of the Avestan and the Vedic religious ideology, attained characterization. 21. Perhaps comparable with OIA amas, arpada. EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY As from the Pripet region, so too from Balkh there occurred, in course of time, secondary migrations - first of the proto-Indo Aryans towards the land of seven rivers in the south-east and, presumably much later, of the proto-Irano-Aryans towards Iran in the rest. There is reason to believe that, while the proto-Indo Aryans were fighting out their way towards India, their language and religious ideology gradually developed the specifically Vedic character. It was also during the course of this their onward march, under the leadership of Vr̥trahā Indra, that some adven turists from among them, instead of proceeding towards Sapta sindhu with their comrades, turned back and wended their perilous and protracted way towards the north-west. It was the descendants, by several generations, of these yaliant proto-Indo Aryaa defectors who ultimately reached the central bend of the Fertile Crescent, iasinuated themselves among the local Hurrians as their leaders, and eventually established the Mitaoni Kingdom under their sovereignty.3: The Mitannian kings were ncither the ancestors of the Indo-Aryans, nor were they, strictly speaking, the Indo-Aryans who had migrated from India to East Anatolia. Their ancestors had, however, been closely related to the ancestors of the Indo-Aryans as members of one and the same linguistic and religious fraternity. But they had separated themselves from the latter even before thc latter had entered fadia and had thus become proper Indo-Aryans. One branch of the proto-Indo Aryans entered Saptasindhu by the end of the third millennium B. C. and soon succceded in firmly laying the foundation of Vedic religion and culture. The other branch of the proto-Indo Aryans made its appearance, a few gcacrations later, in Asia Minor” as the group of condoticeri who cstablished the kingdom of Mitanni by the middle of the sccond century B. C. The lates of these two branches of the prolo-Indo-Aryan community proved to be quite distinct from cach other. The proto-Indo-Aryans migrating into North-Western India ucrc comparatively few in 22. Though usually referred to as Tayern Anatolis, the Mitsoni kingdom graphixally coincided with a maine part of ancient Afesogtamis. 23, Sce the preceding foot pote. INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS 57 number, but they seem to have possessed tremendous power to diffuse their language and culture so that, instead of being absorbed by the indigenous population, they could superimpose their own language and culture on that population. The Vedic language and culture soon became deeply and permanently rooted in the Indian soil. As against this, the proto-Indo-Aryans, who had made a detour in the direction of the Near East and who must have lost many of the features of their proto-lodo Aryan language and religious ideology already in the long process of that detour, could influence the indigenous Hurrian population of that region, through their language and religion, only super ficially and that too because they had manoeuvered to establish themselves as a ruling class withia that population. Unlike their brethren in India, they disappeared from the scene of history, politically and culturally, within less than 200 years. It is only on the hypothesis as stated above that the stray Indo-Aryan elements in the Mitannian and allied records of about the middle of the second millennium B. C. can be adequately accounted for. An important aspect of the Indo-Mediterranean contacts was represented by the contacts between the Phoenicians and the Indians. But very little archaeological, linguistic, or historical evidence is available for it being possible to make any adequate statement about those contacts. A suggestion is often made that the Panis mentioned in the Rgreda must have been Phocpician merchants. The Panis are no doubt described in the Rgveda as rich traders and usurers, but the Rgveda also gives the impression that the Panis were not mere casual traders. They seem to have become more or less permanently settled in India, and the Vedic Aryans, in the course of their colonization, continually encountered them and that too in a hostile manner. This would certainly go against their identification with the Phoenicians. The Panis seem to have been connected, in a special way, with Divodása, the river Sarasvati, and the family of the Bharadvājas. Then there is the legend that Saramā discovered the place where the Panis had kept the kine of the Vedic Aryans in captivity. All this does not conform with the general character of the Phoeni. 58 EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY cians as known from their history The Phoenicians were famous throughout antiquity for their maritime prowess which feature is hardly ever attributed to the Panis in the Rgveda 24 It was only after the end of the old Babylonian civilization that the region of Syria Palestine began to assume importance, and it was only as the result of the conflict between Egypt on the one hand and the Hittite Mitanni kingdoms on the other that the Phocnicians who had established themselves between Lebanon to the north and Palestine to the south enjoyed a period of inde pendence The earliest evidence of trade contacts between Phoenicia and Western India goes back only to 975 BC In that year, Hiram, king of Tyre, sent his fleet of ships of Tarsbish’ from Egion Geber, at tbe head of the Gulf of Akaba in the Red Sea to fetch ‘ivory, apes, and peacocks from the port of Ophir (which is identified with Sopara) to decorate the palaces and the Temple of King Solomop 25 But this commerce in merchandise between India and Phoenicia does not seem to have been accompanied by commerce in other aspects of culture and cryilization This however, happened in a distinctive manner - but, perhaps, in the reverse order - 11 the case of the contacts between the Greeks and the Indians It may be pointed out, at the outset, that as members of the collateral branches of the IE linguistic family, the Indians and the Greeks were, in a sense closely related to each other When however, they met again many centuries later, they did it as complete strangers In the 6th century BC Persia served as a link between the Greeks and the Indians Indian troops are known to have served under the Persians when they invaded the Greek possessions, while Greek officials and mercenaries are known to have served in the Persian administra tive set up even in India When, for instance, Darius had 21 A S ALTEKAR (Profeed ngs of the twenty second Ind on Ilustory Congress 1959, p 20 ) 1 inclined to ident fy the Pani w th the Harappans or with a section of them 25 LG RAWLINSON India in Luropean 1 terature and thought’, The Lepog of India, Oxford, 1962, p I INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS 39 advanced as far as the head-waters of the Indus in 510 B. C., he is reported to have sent a Greek mercenary, named Skylax, to sail down the Indus and make his way home via the Red Sea. Skylax took the old route followed by the Phoenician traders and arrived at Arsinoe (which is identified with modern Suez) after a voyage of two and a half years.26 For whatever he tells us about India, Herodotus (born in 484 B. C.) has apparently depended largely on the account of Skylax. Panini (6th-5th centuries B, C.) shows acquaintance with the Yavanas or the Ionian Greeks. In this connection it may be pointed out that the true classical Hellenic thought and culture origtoated and developed in lonia in West Anatolia rather than on the mainland of Greece. It is, indeed, surprising that, even after having come into sufficiently close contact with the lonian Greeks, the Indians, who were generally endowed with a sharp linguistic sense, had not noticed the similarities betwecn their own language and the language of the Yayanas. Ctesias, another Greek, who lived at the Persian court at Susa for a fairly long time, has also written about India, but his account has tended to be more romantic than realistic. It seems that, before the times of Alexander the Great, thought travelled from the east towards the west. Thales (6th century B, C.), who is called the Father of Greek philosophy and who belonged to Miletus in Ionia, postulated a physical-natura listic principle, namely, water, as the one basic substance from which all else in the universe was composed. The Eleatic School aimed at discovering the ope reality underlying the material phenomena, and the Orphic movement emphasized that the soul, which was immortal and which was distinct from the body, sought release from the body. According to Heraclitus (540-475 B. C.), life was change and the entire universe was ever in flux, while Democritus (460-370 B, C.) believed that the reality was the mechanical motion of atoms. No direct evidence is available which might belp us to ascertain whether the Indian philosophica 26. RAWLINSON, op. cit., pp. 2-3. EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY thought bad exercised any significant influence on these and similar Greek speculations. But the facts such as that these and allied philosophical doctrines had already been known in India, that many of these doctrines had originated among the Tonian Greeks (or the Yavadas) who had close contacts with Persia and through Persia with India, that, according to his biographer Iamblichus, Pythagoras (born in 580 B. C.) had studied the esoteric teachings of, among others, the Brāhmaṇas, and that there is the traditional account of the meeting in Athens between Socrates and some learned Brāhmanas, point to the high probability of the influence of Indian thought on Greek philo sophical speculatioss. Alexander’s momentous campaigns in the East brought the Greeks in closer and more direct contact with the Indians than heretofore. Alexander, educated under the tutorship of Aristotle, set out on his victorious march in 334 B. C. and conquered ja quick succession Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt where he founded the city of Alexandria, Then he turned eastward, marched over the Fertile Crescent and defeated the large Persian forces of Darius III in the battle of Arbela in 331 B. C. Five years later he reached Panjab. Alexander was not only a conqueros, he was also an explorer. During his military exped! tions he was always accompanied by trained historians, scientists, and philosophers. Indeed, he was the pioneer of the Hellenistic (as against Hellenic) movement, which had for its aim the ’extension of Hellenic culture among the non-Greeks. His dream ‘of bringing about the marriage of Europe and Asia’ did not materialise, but, in the course of his attempts in that direction, the centre of gravity of Greek culture came to be shifted from Greece to Asia. Alexandria developed into the biggest city of the realm-a great cosmopolitan centre of academic and commer cial activities. Alexander’s conquests gave rise to a new move ment of colonial expansion in the East, which implied the establishment of a number of new cities and kingdoms with Greek rulers and Greek advisers and the diffusion of Greek culture. It must, however, be noted that the vast mass of the INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS 61 people, on whom the Greek rule had been clamped, did not become hellenized. Alexander’s Indian conquests proved almost ephemeral, so much so that they have been rarely mentioned in contemporary literature. But their general impact was vomistakable. For one thing, it is not unlikely that Kautilya’s exaltation of the king’s absolute authority and his emphasis on the vast bureaucratic governmental machinery with centralised control, which did not fit in well into the pattern of India’s traditional polity, were the result of the influence which the Hellenistic model in that regard must have exercised on that sagacious political teacher and administrator. It was again through Greek (and Persian) contacts with India in the 5th-4th centuries B. C. that iron is said to have been brought to India 27 Those contacts also resulted in a kind of second urbanisation,‘28 and cities like Charsada and Taxila came to be built. It is suggested that the builders of megaliths in South India were a people of Mediterra nean stock who probably came to the West coast by sea, entered South India in about 500 B, C, and then spread northwards.to Trade between India and the Hellenistic world received great impetus. There were several trade-routes, the two more common having been: (1) overland ; Pāçalıputra-Taxıla-Bactra (the capital of Bactria ) - tben west by south across the long stretches of the Persian and the Median territory to Seleucia - and from there either up the Euphrates reaching Antioch, or via Edessa to the Mediterranean; and (2) by sea : From India’s west coast - to ports of the Persian Gulf – then up the Tigris to Seleucia - and then onwards by either of the two routes mentioned above. A large number of merchants from India could be seen on the 27. Mortimer VVATEELER, Carly India and Pakistan, 21 and 171. [It is, however, now sought to bc established that iron was introduced into India by the PGW people about 1000 B C and that the Aryans know iron beforc they entered India (N R. BANERJEE, The Iron Age in India, Delhi, 1965 ) J. 28 H. D. SANKALIA, Indian Archaeology Today, 124. The first urbanisa ton’ was encouraged by the lado Mesopotamian contacts described above. 29 Thu is the viow of C von FORER-HATTENDORF, cf. IAC, January 1954, 238-7. EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY streets of Alexandria, and Strabo (the Greek historian) was told that 120 vessels sailed to India every year from the Egyptian ports After the death of Alexander at Babylon in 323 B, C, his vast empire broke up into four parts - the Ptolemaic empire in Egypt, the Seleucid empire in Syria and Persia, Antigonus’ empire in Macedonia and Greece, and the Oriental Greek and Bactrian kingdoms to the north-west of India Seleucos Nekator of the Syrian Persian Greek empire, who tried to emulate Alexander by invading Pataliputra, was defeated by Candragupla Maurya (322-298 B C ), and a matrimonial alliance is reported to have been concluded between the two. Seleucos also appoin ted Megasthenes as his ambassador in the court of Pataliputra The cultural contacts between the Maurya and the Seleucid realms continued even after Candragupta’s death, and the amusing episode 18 narrated that Bindusara, Candragupta’s successor, wrote to his contemporary Antiochus I of Syria asking for a sample of Greek wine and some raisins and a sophist who would teach him how to argue, and that Antiochus, while sending the wine and raisins with great pleasure, informed him that it was not good form among the Greeks to trade in philosophers. After Asoka (273-232 B, C.) became converted to the religion of the Buddha, he, as mentioned in his thirteenth rock-edict, dispatched missionaries to Antiochus and four other Greek kings, namely, Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, Antigonus Gopatas of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexander of Epirus,30 with a view to winning them over to the Law of Piety and World Peace. It is also noteworthy that a special board in charge of foreigners in Jodia had been set up in the Maurya administrative system.si After Asoha’s death in 232 B, C., the direct lado-Greek contacts were broken off, But India and Greece continued to influence each other through the Indo-Bactrians on the one hand and, to a certain extent, through the Indo-Roman contacts on the 30 The names as mentioned in the rock edict read Antayoga, Tula. maya, Amtckina, Maka, Alikyasudala 31 Bela LANIRI, “Impact of forcign trade on coins of ancient India QRHS 5, 194, INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS other. Rome entered into Hellenistic affairs in 212 B, C., but the acme of the Graeco-Roman civilization, which was characte rized by the assimilation of the Hellenic elements and the preservation of Hellenistic culture in the East, was reached during Pax Romapa (that is from Augustus (30 B, C) to Marcus Aurelius [ 170 A. D. ]). During this period, the Gāndhāra region had become the main centre where the Indian culture and the Graeco-Roman culture encountered each other and often fused together. Trade was perhaps the most essential link of this cultural contact. Indeed, the Kusāna prosperity seems to have depended largely on foreign trade. It is not unlikely that the advent of the Kusānas in Shen-to (that is, the lower Indus region) was primarily motivated by the prospects of rich gains from its thriving Indo Roman commerce. 82 During the Kusāna rule, the Graeco Roman trade with the East was at its height. A sea-captain from Alexandria who had then visited India has reported that spices and silks left Indian ports to be exchanged for Roman gold coins, Greek wines, and choice girls for the royal harems. The Milindpanha ( Ist century A. D.) also contains references to brisk maritime trade between India and Alexandria, The two great cities of Gāndhāra, namely, Begram and Taxila, had developed into veritable trade-centres on the Balkh-Gandhāra route. There bave been found at Begram ruins of a ‘palace (assignable to the 2nd-3rd centuries A D.), two rooms of which have yielded a hoard of Mediterranean and oriental wares, such as glass vessels from Syria and Egypt, Indian ivories, bronze bowls from Western factories, steelyard-weights in the form of busts of Minerva and Mars, and a good deal of specimens of Roman art like figures of Harpocrates, Hercules, and the grotesque philosopher’ of the Alexandrian type. According to Mortimer WHEELER, this must have been a customs depot. 32. B. N. MUKIERJEE, " Impact of foreign trade on political history-an illustration”, QRHS 5, 183. 83. Kalyan Kumar Das Gupta, “Forcign trade and Gandhara art”, QRHS 5, 2012 EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY Evidence is available to show that equally active and rich trade was carried on between the Tamil region in South India and the Roman empire, in the early centuries A. D. As a matter of fact, even before the Romans had come on the scene, the Tamil country was engaged in prosperous trade and commerce with Egypt and the Greek kingdoms. In this connection it is note worthy that the Hebrew word for peacock and the Greek words for ginger, cinnamon, and rice have been derived from Tamil. The Periplus of the Er; threan Sea by an Alexandrian sea-farer, of about the time of Nero, describes the journey from the Red Sea along the Indian coast from the mouth of the Indus to that of the Gangā But the most frequently followed trade-route seems to have been : Alexandria-Aden-Indian Ocean-Muziris ( Cran. ganore ) in Malbar. The discovery of the Monsoon in about 50 A. D must have given added fillip to the sea-journey from the Gulf of Aden to India between May and October and the return journey between November and March. According to Pliny, who complained of the drain of Eastern luxuries upon Rome, Rome used to pay fifty million sesterces annually for balance of trade with India The large hordes of Roman coins found in South India would also bear ample testimony to the magnitude of trade between India and the Roman world. The exports from India consisted mainly of pepper, cinnamon, spices, drugs, pearls, silks, and muslins, while among the merchandise imported into Jadia were precious metals, pottery, glassware, wine, silverware, and human cargo (constituted of craftsmen and masons). It is certainly not without significance that several specimens of Roman glass have been discovered in the excavations at Dharoikota (Dhanakataka ) in Andhra.4 Attention may further be drawn to the fact that Tamil authors have referred in their writings to Roman colonies in South India at places like Muziris, Madura, and Pukar - the colonists having mainly been the natives of Syria and Egypt with Roman officers in charge. Incidentally, it may also be mentioned that, in the course of excavations at Pompeii in 1939, there has been discovered a fine ivory statuette 34. B B. LAL, Indian Archarology since Independence, 34,INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS of Indian workmanship supposedly portraying the Hindu goddess Laksmi. Some merchant must have brought it bome after his Indian adventure, before 79 A. D. when Pompeii was over whelmed. 35 So far as political relations are concerned it may be men tioned that the Kuṣāpa king Kadphises III had sent an embassy to Rome in 99 A, D. to congratulate Trajan on his accession. Actually, more than a century earlier, a Pandya embassy, under the leadership of Zarmannchegas (Śramanācārya), had left Bhțgukaccha in 25 B, C, and waited upon Augustus at Samos in 21 B. C. with presents for the Emperor which are said to have consisted, among other things, of gigantic python, huge tortoises, and an armless boy who could shoot arrows with his feet. Indeed, at least nine ambassadors from India are known to have visited Roman emperors up to the times of Constantine, The purpose of these embassies must have been both diplomatic and commercial Indian philosophy seems to have made a tremendous impres sion upon the thinkers of the Graeco-Roman world. We are told that Appollonius of Tyana ( 50 A. D.) had gone to Taxila to study under the Brāhmana teachers there, while the gaostic Baroksanes had learnt many curious facts about India from the Iodian embassy in Syria (218-222 A. D.) Indeed, gnosticism came to be described as orientalism in a Hellenic garb’. Clement of Alexandria (150-218 A. D.), who, incidentally, was the first Greek writer to mention the Buddha by pame, even went to the extent of asserting that the Greeks had stolen their philo sophy from the barbarians (by which term he must have meant the Indians As if to counterbalance this, the Indian astronomes Varāhamihira admonished his readers, a couple of centuries later, that the science of astronomy was well-established among the Yavanas and that, therefore, though they were barbarians, they must be respected like India’s own ancient sages. It is, therefore, 35. fortimer WIFEELER, Ront Beyond the Imperial Frontiers, 135 SANKALLA (op al., 120, f. n. 81) Jocs not think that the statuette portrays Lakym. 66 EXERCISES IN INDOLOGY not surprising that two of the five principal schools of Indian astronomy came to be named Romaka (after Rome) and Pauliśa (after Paul of Alexandria, 378 A. D.). The assumption of some kind of Hellenistic influence on the growth of Sanskrit drama during the Kusāna period would not be altogether unwarranted. Similarly the type of coinage introduced by the Indo-Bactrian kings was essentially Hellenistic in character. For one thing, those coins either had the names and portraits of the rulers inscribed on them or they showed figures of divinities belonging to the Greek pantheon. Secondly, the names given to some of those cojas, such as Dīpāra and Dramma, are obviously Indian forms of Greek Dinarius and Drachma. The standardızation of this coinage in respect of form and weight was also something which had been unknown in India in the earlier periods.97 But perhaps the most enduring monument of the Indo Hellenistic cultural fusion is to be seen in the Gāndhāra art, which is also significantly called the Graeco-Buddhist art. This school of art was actually inaugurated only after the direct Greek domination in the North-Western region of India had ended, and was patronised mainly by the Sakas and the Kusānas who had continued the tradition of their Hellenistic predecessors. The themes of the Gāndhāra art are essentially Buddhistic, while the style of execution is undeniably Hellenistic. The Gāndhāra Buddha, for instance, looks like an Apollo wearing costumes whose ‘wet’ drapery is derived from the Classical art. Indian sages and priests are clearly reminiscent of bearded philosophers and sages of the Hellenistic world, and the Yaksas, the Garudas, the Nāgas, and other semi-mythical beings appear to be mere eastern versions of the genit of the Hellenistic pantheon. The influence of the Hellenistic art-forms is unmistakably reflected in 36. I have suggested (“East and West”, published elsewhere in this Volume) that one may sce in this the influence of the anthropocentric West. Also see foot note 38. 37. It has been pointed out by Lallanji Gopal (QRHS 5, 188 ) that the literally golden period of Indian coinage system was the period which wit nessed India’s trade activity at its peak’, INDO-MEDITERRANEAN CONTACTS physiognomy, drapery, the wavy treatment of the hair, the use of Corinthian colonette as a space-divider in relief compositions, etc., adopted by the Gāndhāra artists.3: Verily, the religious penchant of Indian culture, united with the aesthetic penchant of Greek culture, has produced this sublime and creative school of art. [First published : ABORI 50, 1969, 57–74. Also published : Drogenes 71, 1970, 18-38.1 38. According to K. K. Das GUPTA (op. cit., 201-202), the art of Gin dhira was ‘but an integral part of itellenistic art and it derived its suste Dance from Budahum and capitalism, the latter being an outgrowth of Inilo Roman commcrcc’. In connection with the Cindhára art, I have said (“East and West”): “The traditional cosmic non individualistic outlook of the Indians did not encourage the sculptures of individual, isolated figures. It must have been the contact with the anthropocentric West which had inspired the sculpture of the figures of the Buldhr’,