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In ancient times, trade between the Indian subcontinent and Greece flourished with silk, spices and gold being traded. The Greeks invaded South Asia several times, starting with the conquest of Alexander the Great and later with the Indo-Greek Kingdom.
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A legendary account states that when the Greek God Bacchus/Dionysus grew up, he discovered the culture of the vine and the mode of extracting its precious juice, being the first to do so; [1] but Hera struck him with madness, and drove him forth a wanderer through various parts of the earth. In Phrygia the goddess Cybele, better known to the Greeks as Rhea, cured him and taught him her religious rites, and he set out on a progress through Asia teaching the people the cultivation of the vine. The most famous part of his wanderings is his expedition to the Indian subcontinent, which is said to have lasted several years. According to a legend, when Alexander the Great reached a city called Nysa near the Indus River, the locals said that their city was founded by Dionysus in the distant past and their city was dedicated to the god Dionysus. [2] These travels took something of the form of military conquests; according to Diodorus Siculus he conquered the whole world except for Britain and Ethiopia. [3] Returning in triumph (he was considered the founder of the triumphal procession) he undertook to introduce his worship into Greece, but was opposed by some princes who dreaded its introduction on account of the disorders and madness it brought with it (e.g. Pentheus or Lycurgus).
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In 327 BC Alexander the Great began his foray into Punjab. King Ambhi, ruler of Taxila, surrendered the city to Alexander. Many people had fled to a high fortress/rock called Aornos. Alexander took Aornos by storm after a successful siege. Alexander fought an epic battle against the ancient Indian monarch Porus in the Battle of Hydaspes (326).
East of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the powerful kingdom of Magadha, under the Nanda Dynasty.
According to Plutarch, at the time of Alexander's Battle of the Hydaspes River, Magadha's army further east numbered 200,000 infantry, 80,000 cavalry, 8,000 chariots, and 6,000 war elephants, which was discouraging for Alexander's men and stayed their further progress into the Indian subcontinent:
As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was •thirty-two furlongs, its depth •a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at‑arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants. And there was no boasting in these reports. For Androcottus, who reigned there not long afterwards, made a present to Seleucus of five hundred elephants, and with an army of six hundred thousand men overran and subdued all India.
--Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Life of Alexander"
Exhausted and frightened by the prospect of facing another giant Indian army at the Ganges River, his army mutinied at the Hyphasis (modern Beas), refusing to march further east. Alexander, after meeting his officer Coenus, was convinced that it was better to return.
Alexander was forced to turn south, conquering his way down the Indus to the Arabian Sea. He sent much of his army to Carmania (modern southern Iran) with his general Craterus, and commissioned a fleet to explore the Persian Gulf shore under his admiral Nearchus, while he led the rest of his forces back to Persia by the southern route through Gedrosia (modern Makran in southern Pakistan).
Alexander left behind Greek forces which established themselves in the city of Taxila, now in Pakistan. Several generals, such as Eudemus and Peithon governed the newly established province until around 316 BC. One of them, Sophytes (305–294 BC), was an independent Indian prince in the Punjab.
Alexander's army mutinied along the Hyphasis, as Alexander died before he could make a conquest in fighting the Nanda Empire, making the Beas River the eastern border of the Macedonian Empire.[ citation needed ]
Following Alexander's death, Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid dynasty and former Diadochi, gained control over Mesopotamia and the eastern satraps of the former Macedonian Empire. Seleucus unsuccessfully tried to campaign in India by invading what is now Punjab in northern India and Pakistan in 305 BC. [4]
Meanwhile, in India, Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire with the help of Chanakya his mentor and political advisor, rose to power by overthrowing the Nanda Empire in Pataliputra. His next course of action was to lead his armies into the Indus to battle with the Seleucid Empire and annex the satraps. The Seleucid-Mauryan War waged on for over two years, resulting in significant territorial and political change in the region. To resolve the conflict both parties finally settled upon a marriage alliance. Chandragupta annexed the Greek satraps, while also gaining Seleucid's daughter in marriage. In exchange Basileus Seleucus received 500 prized war elephant from the Indian Emperor, an asset which was used to decisively win the Battle of Ipsus. [4]
Seleucus also sent an ambassador named Megasthenes to Chandragupta's court, who repeatedly visited Chandragupta's capital of Pataliputra (modern Patna in Bihar state). Megasthenes wrote detailed descriptions of India and Chandragupta's reign.
Continued diplomatic exchanges and good relations between the Seleucids and the Mauryan emperors are then documented throughout the duration of the Mauryan empire.
In 180 BC, the Indo-Greeks, invaded parts of northwest and northern India and ruled in the Punjab region. They are an extension of the Greco-Bactrian dynasty of Greek kings (the Euthydemids) located in neighbouring Bactria.
The invasion of northern India followed the destruction of the Mauryan dynasty by the general Pushyamitra Shunga, who then founded the new Indian Shunga dynasty (185 BC-78 BC). The Indo-Greek king Menander may have campaigned as far as the capital Pataliputra in eastern India (today Patna): "Those who came after Alexander went to the Ganges and Pataliputra" (Strabo, XV.698 [6] ).
The Indo-Greeks ruled various parts of north-western South Asia until the end of the 1st century BC, when they were conquered by the Scythians and Kushans.
Buddhism flourished under the Indo-Greeks, leading to the Greco-Buddhist cultural syncretism. The arts of the Indian sub-continent were also quite affected by Hellenistic art during and after these interactions. [7]
The Seleucid Empire was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great, and ruled by the Seleucid dynasty until its annexation by the Roman Republic under Pompey in 63 BC.
The Seleucid dynasty or the Seleucidae was a Macedonian Greek royal family, which ruled the Seleucid Empire based in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded by Seleucus I Nicator, a general and successor of Alexander the Great, after the division of the Macedonian Empire as a result of the Wars of the Successors (Diadochi).
This article concerns the period 329 BC – 320 BC.
Porus or Poros was an ancient Indian king whose territory spanned the region between the Jhelum River (Hydaspes) and Chenab River (Acesines), in the Punjab region of what is now India and Pakistan. He is only mentioned in Greek sources. Said to be a warrior with exceptional skills, Porus unsuccessfully fought against Alexander the Great in the Battle of the Hydaspes. In the aftermath, an impressed Alexander not only reinstated him as his satrap but also granted him dominion over lands to the south-east extending as far as the Hyphasis (Beas). Porus reportedly died sometime between 321 and 315 BC.
Seleucus I Nicator was a Macedonian Greek general, officer and successor of Alexander the Great who went on to found the eponymous Seleucid Empire, led by the Seleucid dynasty. Initially a secondary player in the power struggles following Alexander's death, Seleucus rose to become the total ruler of Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Iranian plateau, assuming the title of basileus (king). The Seleucid Empire was one of the major powers of the Hellenistic world, until it was overcome by the Roman Republic and Parthian Empire in the late second and early first centuries BC.
Demetrius I Anicetus, also called Damaytra was a Greco-Bactrian and later Indo-Greek king, who ruled areas from Bactria to ancient northwestern India. He was the son of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom's ruler Euthydemus I and succeeded him around 200 BC, after which he conquered extensive areas in what is now southern Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan and India.
Chandragupta Maurya was the founder of the Maurya Empire, which ruled over a geographically-extensive empire based in Magadha. He reigned from 320 BCE to 298 BCE. The Magadha kingdom expanded to become an empire that reached its peak under the reign of his grandson, Ashoka the Great, from 268 BCE to 231 BCE. The nature of the political formation that existed in Chandragupta's time is not certain. The Mauryan empire was a loose-knit one with large autonomous regions within its limits.
Megasthenes was an ancient Greek historian, indologist, diplomat, ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book Indica, which is now lost, but has been partially reconstructed from literary fragments found in later authors that quoted his work. Megasthenes was the first person from the Western world to leave a written description of India.
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in South Asia based in Magadha. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, it existed in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE. The empire was centralized by the conquest of the Indo-Gangetic Plain; its capital city was located at Pataliputra. Outside this imperial centre, the empire's geographical extent was dependent on the loyalty of military commanders who controlled the armed cities scattered within it. During Ashoka's rule, the empire briefly controlled the major urban hubs and arteries of the subcontinent excepting the deep south. It declined for about 50 years after Ashoka's rule, and dissolved in 185 BCE with the assassination of Brihadratha by Pushyamitra Shunga and foundation of the Shunga dynasty in Magadha.
The Indo-Greek Kingdom, also known as the Yavana Kingdom, was a Hellenistic-era Greek kingdom covering various parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India.
The Pauravas were an ancient tribe in the Indus valley, to which King Porus may have belonged.
Paropamisadae or Parapamisadae was a satrapy of the Alexandrian Empire in modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, which largely coincided with the Achaemenid province of Parupraesanna. It consisted of the districts of Sattagydia, Gandhara, and Oddiyana. Paruparaesanna is mentioned in the Akkadian language and Elamite language versions of the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great, whereas in the Old Persian version it is called Gandāra. The entire satrapy was subsequently ceded by Seleucus I Nicator to Chandragupta Maurya following a treaty.
Dhana Nanda, according to the Buddhist text Mahabodhivamsa, was the last Nanda king of Magadha.
Shashigupta IAST: Śaśigupta was a ruler of Paropamisadae, between the Hindu Kush mountains and Indus Valley during the 4th century BCE. The name Shashigupta is a reconstruction of a hypothetical Indo-Aryan name, based on a figure named in ancient Greek and Roman sources as Sisikottos (Arrian), and Sisocostus (Curtius).
The Indian campaign of Alexander the Great began in 327 BC and lasted until 325 BC. After conquering the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Macedonian army undertook an expedition into the northwestern Indian subcontinent. Within two years, Alexander expanded the Macedonian Empire to include present-day Punjab and Sindh in what is modern-day Pakistan, surpassing the earlier frontiers that had been established by the Persian conquest of the Indus Valley.
Chandragupta is a board wargame designed by Stephen R. Welch and released in 2008 by GMT Games as part of the Great Battles of History (GBoH) series of games on ancient warfare. Chandragupta simulates battles fought by the Mauryan Dynasty in ancient India, and in so doing, attempts to illuminate the features, challenges, and unique attributes of the Indian military system and culture during this period.
The Nanda–Mauryan War was a war fought in ancient India from c. 323 BCE to 321 BCE between the King Dhana Nanda of the Nanda dynasty and forces of Chandragupta Maurya that led to the establishment of the Maurya Empire in Magadha. Little is known from historical sources for certain dating about the conflict. According to Mudrarakshasa legends, Chandragupta's army included Bahlika, Kirata, Parasika, Kamboja, Saka, and Greek mercenaries. The army invaded capital city Pataliputra (Kusumapura) after regaining power and defeated the Nandas.
The Seleucid–Mauryan War was fought between 305 and 303 BCE. It started when Seleucus I Nicator of the Seleucid Empire sought to retake the Indian satrapies of the Macedonian Empire, which had been occupied by Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, of the Maurya Empire.
Chandragupta Maurya is an Indian Historical drama series being broadcast on Dangal TV, based on the life of Chandragupta Maurya, an Indian emperor of ancient India and the founder of the Mauryan Empire. Chandragupta Maurya was first aired in March 2011 on Imagine TV. Ashish Sharma played the adult and Rushiraj Pawar played the young Chandragupta Maurya.
Hellenistic influence on Indian art and architecture reflects the artistic and architectural influence of the Greeks on Indian art following the conquests of Alexander the Great, from the end of the 4th century BCE to the first centuries of the common era. The Greeks in effect maintained a political presence at the doorstep, and sometimes within India, down to the 1st century CE with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdoms, with many noticeable influences on the arts of the Maurya Empire especially. Hellenistic influence on Indian art was also felt for several more centuries during the period of Greco-Buddhist art.
Certain areas in the north-west were acquired through the treaty with Seleucus... It has been suggested that the territory ceded consisted of Gedrosia, Arachosia, Aria, and the Paropamisadae.