Ancient Greece–Ancient India Relations

For the ancient Greeks, ''India'' () referred to the geographical region located east of Persia and south of the Himalayas, excluding Serica. At different points in history, the term also came to refer either to the more extensive Indian subcontinent or to the less extensive Indus Plain.Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed. - India
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Names

The Greeks referred to the ancient Indians as ''Indoi'' (. The Vedic Aryans referred to the Greeks as ''Yavanas'',The Influence of Greek Classics on Indian Culture in Ancient Era
/ref> ''Yona'' or ''Yonaka,''Lal, Shyam Bihari. “YAVANAS IN THE ANCIENT INDIAN INSCRIPTIONS.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 65, 2004, pp. 1115–20. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44144820. Accessed 24 Feb. 2024.
/ref> terms derived from the Ionians. ''Yawan'' is a Hebrew term that referred to the ancient Greeks. Inscriptions and Pali texts trace the Prakrit equivalent of the Sanskrit word ''Yavana'' as ''Yona''. It has been suggested that the Indians adopted the term either from the Persians—who called the Greeks ''Yaunas''—or from a Semitic language.

Traditional Indian grammarians believed that the word ''Yavanas'' was derived from the Sanskrit root ''Yu'' ('to mix, to mingle'). The earliest written record of the term ''Yavana'' appears in the '' Astadhyayi'', a work on grammar by Pāṇini. When demonstrating the use of the suffix -''anuk'', he cites ''Yavanani'' as one of his examples. In addition, Katyayana explains that when the suffix is added to the word ''Yavana'', it indicates handwriting. ''Yavanani'' and ''Yavanallipyam'' are examples of scripts used by the Yavana people.

Although originally the word ''Yavana'' meant 'Greek', in later centuries it was also applied to Romans, Arabs, and Westerners in general.

Mythology and legends

Dionysus

Megasthenes wrote about the prehistoric arrival of the god Dionysus in India, as did Apollodorus in '' Bibliotheca''. Polyaenus wrote that, after fighting King Deriades, Dionysus subdued the Indians, allied with them and the Amazons, and took them into his service. He later employed them in his campaign against Bactria.

The epic poem ''Dionysiaca'' by Nonnus recounts Dionysus' expedition to India. Nonnus also wrote about Colletes (), a huge, formidable figure, whose ancestor was said to be the founder of the Indian race. In addition, in Book 14, Hera assumes the likeness of an Indian in order to speak with and persuade the Indian chief to fight Dionysus' army.

A hymn to Dionysus in the ''Greek Anthology'' is titled ''Dionysus Indoletes'' ('Ἰνδολέτης'), which means 'slayer' or 'killer of Indians'. Other poems in the ''Greek Anthology'' also mention Dionysus' campaign against the Indians. Alphesiboea ('Ἀλφεσιβοῖα') was an Indian nymph who was loved by Dionysus.

Philostratus reports that Dionysus was called Nysian or Nysean (Ancient Greek: 'Νύσιος') by the Indians. According to legend, he founded the city of Nysa, sometimes identified with Nagara. When Alexander the Great arrived in Nysa, representatives of the city met him and asked him not to capture the city or its land, explaining that Dionysus had founded it and named it after his nurse. He had also named the mountain near the city Meron (Ancient Greek: 'Μηρόν'), meaning 'thigh', because Dionysus grew in the thigh of Zeus.Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 5.1
/ref>Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 5.2
/ref> In addition, Philostratus mentions that at Delphi, a silver offering disc bore the inscription 'Dionysus the son of Semele and Zeus, from the men of India to the Apollo of Delphi' (Ancient Greek: 'ΔΙΟΝΥΣΟΣ Ο ΣΕΜΕΛΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΔΙΟΣ ΑΠΟ ΙΝΔΩΝ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙ ΔΕΛΦΩΙ').Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 2.9
/ref> Furthermore, he reports that the Indians living in Caucasus and along the river Cophen said that Dionysus was an Assyrian visitor who knew the religious rites of the city of Thebes in Greece (according to Ancient Greek legend, Dionysus was born there).

In ''Argonautica,'' Apollonius Rhodius wrote about the Nysean son of Zeus, who left the tribes of the Indians and came to dwell at Thebes. Indians inhabiting the district between the Indus and the Hydraotes and the continental region extending up to the river Ganges declared that Dionysus was the son of the river Indus and that Dionysus of Thebes was his disciple. Phylarchus wrote that Dionysus was the first to bring two bulls, named Apis and Osiris, from India to Egypt; Plutarch found this theory absurd.

Heracles

Megasthenes also wrote about the legendary arrival of Heracles in India. Pandaie () was a daughter of Heracles, whom he fathered in India. He gave her the southern part of India, where she reigned as queen. According to legend, the Indian tribe of Pandae was descended from her, and for this reason, they were the only tribe in India to have the custom of female sovereigns.Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Pandae
/ref> An Indian tribe called the Sourasenoi worshipped Heracles at the time of Alexander the Great. Quintus Curtius Rufus mentions Indian soldiers carrying a banner with the name 'Herakles' during Alexander's push eastwards.

Contact, records, and influence between the two civilizations

Coinage

Between about 200 BC and the very beginning of the first millennium AD, the Indo-Greek Kingdom covered an area encompassing modern-day Pakistan, parts of Afghanistan and of north-west India. The city of Kapisi appeared on Indo-Greek coins.

The Kushan Empire, which succeeded the Indo-Greek Kingdom and lasted nearly four hundred years, used the Greek alphabet and Greek legends on their coins. The Kushans also adopted other elements of Greek culture. Art themes derived from Greek mythology were common initially, but later Buddhist imagery dominated. In broadly the same era and south of the Kushan Empire, the Western Kshatrapas established coinage derived from Indo-Greek coinage. The obverse of the coins consists of the profile of the ruler with a legend in Greek, while the reverse represents a thunderbolt and an arrow, with Brahmi and Kharoshthi legends. In the first century CE, Gondophares, king of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom, minted coins with the Greek title of autokrator.

Inscriptions

Greeks are mentioned in the Yavanarajya inscription in northern India, and on the Rukhuna reliquary. In a Kharoshthi inscription found in the Swat area of Gandhara, which dates to the 1st century BC, there is a dedication from the Greek meridarch Theodorus. The Rabatak inscription uses Greek script to write a language described as ''Arya''. The inscription relates to the rule of the Kushan emperor Kanishka.

Art and literature

In the ''Greek Anthology'', India and Indians are mentioned on many occasions. In Sophocles' play ''Antigone'', Creon mentions the gold of India. The satirist Lucian wrote that Indians get drunk with wine very easily and worse than any Greek or Roman would be.

Kalidasa mentions the ''Yayanis'' (Greek maidens) in his work and the ''Yavana Ganika'' (Greek Ganika) was a common sight in India (Gaṇikā in India was similar to a Hetaira in the Greek world). These girls were also trained in the theatrical arts. The Indian theater had adopted some elements of Greek comedy.

Hellenistic influence on Indian art is well documented. Gandhara art was heavily influenced by the Greek style. The Art of Mathura is a blend of Indian and Greek art. The ''Pompeii Yakshii'', an Indian sculpture of a Yakshii, was found in the ruins of Roman Pompeii. Bharhut Yavana is a relief, discovered among the reliefs of the railings around the Bharhut Stupa, representing a Greek warrior.

At the Nasik Caves, some of the caves were built by people with Greek heritage. The murals in the Ajanta Caves are painted in a way which suggests a Greek influence.

Philosophy and religion

Pyrrhonism

The philosopher Pyrrho accompanied Alexander the Great on his Indian campaign. According to Diogenes Laërtius, Pyrrho developed his philosophy, now known as Pyrrhonism, in India. Diogenes Laërtius wrote that Anaxarchus, Pyrrho's teacher, met and spoke with Indian gymnosophists and magi. In the view of Christopher I. Beckwith, Pyrrho's philosophy was strikingly similar to the Buddhist three marks of existence, suggesting that his teaching was influenced by contact with Buddhism.

Because of the high degree of similarity between Nāgārjuna's philosophy and Pyrrhonism, particularly the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus, Nāgārjuna was likely influenced by Greek Pyrrhonist texts imported to India.

Buddhism

Buddhism flourished under the Indo-Greeks, leading to the Greco-Buddhist cultural syncretism. The iconography of Vajrapani is clearly that of the hero Heracles, with varying degrees of hybridization. Menander I was one of the patrons of Buddhism; he was also the subject of the Milinda Panha and is mentioned on the Shinkot casket. It has been claimed (by G. R. Sharma) that Menander is mentioned in the Reh Inscription, but other scholars disagree. Many Greek rulers after Menander had the description "Maharajasa dhramikasa" (follower of the Dharma) next to their name on their coinage; this does not necessarily imply that they were Buddhists or that Buddhism was dominant in their kingdom, as symbols of the Greek religion were also on the same coins, but it does indicate that Buddhism played a significant role. Buddhist manuscripts in cursive Greek, dated later than the 2nd century AD, have been found in Afghanistan. Some mention the "Lokesvararaja Buddha" (λωγοασφαροραζοβοδδο). The Greco Indian Kingdoms, Dr. Uday Dokras
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Dharmaraksita was a Greek who converted to Buddhism. He was one of the missionaries sent by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka to proselytize Buddhism. Mahadharmaraksita was a Greek Buddhist master who, according to Mahāvaṃsa traveled to Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka together with 30,000 Greek Buddhist monks from Alexandria of the Caucasus. Mahāvaṃsa also mentions how early Buddhists from Sri Lanka went to Alexandria of the Caucasus to learn Buddhism.

The Kandahar Greek Edicts of Ashoka, which are among Ashoka's Major Rock Edicts, were written in the Greek and Prakrit languages. In addition, the Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription was written in Greek and Aramaic. The emperor Ashoka used the word "eusebeia" (piety) as a Greek translation for the central Buddhist and Hindu concept of "dharma" in the Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription.Hacker, Paul. ''Dharma in Hinduism'', Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2006, 34:479-496

Buddhist gravestones from Ptolemaic Egypt have been found in Alexandria decorated with depictions of the dharma wheel, showing the presence of Buddhists in Hellenistic Egypt. Ptolemy II Philadelphus is mentioned in the Edicts of Ashoka as a recipient of the Buddhist proselytism of Ashoka:

Peripateticism

Aristotle's knowledge of India came essentially from Scylax and Ctesias. He quoted Scylax to refer to Indian politics and mentions seven Indian animals, by clearly drawing on Ctesias.Strabo and India
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The Peripatetic philosopher Clearchus of Soli traveled to the east to study Indian religions.

Another Peripatetic philosopher, Theophrastus, in his book on the history of plants, wrote an excursus on Indian species. Also, in his work "On Stones," he describes rocks, stones and gems produced in India.

Peripatetic philosopher Aristocles of Messene (cited by the Christian polemicist Eusebius) said an Indian conversed with Socrates in Athens.

And Aristoxenus the musician said that this argument comes from the Indians. For a man of that people met Socrates in Athens and asked him what his philosophy was about; and when he said that he was investigating human life, the Indian laughed at him, saying that no one could understand human affairs if he ignored the divine. Whether this is true, no one can say for sure.

Christian

Clement of Alexandria wrote about India, Gymnosophists, Brahmans, Buddha, etc. in the ''Stromata.''

The Greek theologian Pantaenus was said to have traveled to India.

Sophism

The Greek Sophist Philostratus, in his work ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'' () and the Suda, mentioned that the Greek philosopher Apollonius had traveled to India.

The Sophist Dio Chrysostom mentioned India in his work ''Discourses'' and wrote that Homer's poetry is sung in India. He also mentioned that Bactrians and Indians were to be found in his audience in Alexandria (circa 100 CE).

Political and military

During the second Persian invasion of Greece, the Persian army had Indian troops, both infantry and cavalry.

At the Battle of Gaugamela, Darius used Indian troops against Alexander the Great. Later, during the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, Alexander's army fought many battles against Indian tribes and kingdoms, including against the army of Porus the Elder. Plutarch wrote about the battle in his work ''Parallel Lives'', "The Life of Alexander." The Indian King Ambhi (the Greeks called him ''Taxiles'') supported Alexander with his forces. Philostratus the Elder in the ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'' wrote that in the army of Porus there was an elephant who fought bravely against Alexander's army, and Alexander dedicated it to the Helios (Sun) and named it "Ajax" because he thought that such a so great animal deserved a great name. The elephant had gold rings around its tusks and an inscription was on them written in Greek: "Alexander the son of Zeus dedicates Ajax to the Helios" (ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ Ο ΔΙΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΑΙΑΝΤΑ ΤΩΙ ΗΛΙΩΙ). Alexander also met and talked with Indian gymnosophists, including Dandamis and Kalanos.

Alexander let Taxiles and Porus keep their kingdomsDiodorus Siculus, Library 18.3.1
/ref> and added Paropamisadae to the kingdom of Oxyartes.Diodorus Siculus, Library 18.39.1
/ref> In addition, he gave Peithon and Philip Indian satrapies. The Indian king Abisares who sent embassies of submission to Alexander was allowed to retain his kingdom with considerable additions.

Alexander also conquered the kingdom of the Indian king Phegeus. The inhabitants welcomed Alexander's army and the king met Alexander and gave him many gifts. He also conquered the city of Sagala.

Alexander asked Phegeus and Porus what was after the Hyphasis River and after their response he decided to continue. He was preparing to march against the Indian King Xandrames, before his army mutinied. After the mutiny of his army, he conducted the Mallian campaign.

After he conquered the Oritians and Arabitians, Alexander made Apollophanes the Satrap in the area.

According to ancient writers, the Queen Cleophis of Massaga had a son with Alexander the Great. Modern historians deny this.

After the Battle of Gabiene, Antigonus I Monophthalmus sent the Argyraspides to Sibyrtius at Arachosia.

Indo-Greek kingdoms and Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms were founded by the successors of Alexander the Great ( Greek conquests in India). Yavana era describes the period with Greek presence in India.

According to Indian sources, Greek troops seem to have assisted Chandragupta Maurya in toppling the Nanda Dynasty and founding the Mauryan Empire. Later, Seleucus I's army encountered Chandragupta's army. Chandragupta and Seleucus eventually concluded an alliance. Seleucus gave him his daughter in marriage, ceded the territories of Arachosia, Herat, Kabul and Makran, and received 500 war elephants.

Megasthenes had traveled to India and had several interviews with Chandragupta Maurya, known as Sandracottus to the Greeks.

Bindusara, the second Mauryan emperor of India, had diplomatic relations with and very friendly feelings towards the Greeks. He even asked Antiochus I Soter to send him a Greek sophist for his court.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus is recorded by Pliny the Elder as having sent an ambassador named Dionysius to the Mauryan court at Pataliputra in India, probably to Emperor Ashoka:
:"But ndiahas been treated of by several other Greek writers who resided at the courts of Indian kings, such, for instance, as Megasthenes, and by Dionysius, who was sent thither by Philadelphus expressly for the purpose: all of whom have enlarged upon the power and vast resources of these nations." Pliny the Elder, "The Natural History", Chap. 21

Asoka also appointed some Greeks to high offices of state (Yavanaraja, meaning Greek King or Governor), for example, the Tushaspha. In addition, his edicts mention a Yona (Greek) province on the north-west border of India, most probably Arachosia.

Polybius wrote about the use of Indian elephants in battles and about the alliance between the Indian king Sophagasenus and Antiochus III the Great.

Diodorus, quoting Iambulus, mentioned that the king of Pataliputra had a "great love for the Greeks".

The Greek historian Apollodorus and the Roman historian Justin affirmed that the Bactrian Greeks conquered India. Justin also described Demetrius I as "King of the Indians". Greek and Indian sources indicate the Greeks campaigned as far as Pataliputra until they were forced to retreat following a coup in Bactria in 170 BC.

The Heliodorus pillar is a stone column erected around 110 BCE in present-day central India in Vidisha, by Heliodorus (), a Greek ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas to the court of the Shunga king Bhagabhadra. The site is located about 5 miles from the Buddhist stupa of Sanchi.

The King Phraotes received a Greek education at the court of his father and spoke Greek fluently.

Stephanus of Byzantium called the city Daedala in India an Indo-Cretan city, most probably because it was a settlement of Cretan mercenaries.Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, D216.8
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Tamil poems describe the Greek soldiers who served as mercenaries for Indian kings as "the valiant-eyed Yavanas, whose bodies were strong and of terrible aspect".

Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher has posited that some of the troops of Mara in the Gandhara sculptures may represent Greek mercenaries.

The Cilappatikaram mentions Yavana soldiers, which, according to scholars, including Professor Dikshitar, is a reference to the Greek mercenaries employed by the Tamil kings.

Patanjali, the commentator of Pāṇini, describes two sieges the Greeks made: the siege of Saketa and the siege of Madhyamika.

Trade

Ptolemy II Philadelphus founded the Myos Hormos and selected it as the principal harbour of the trade with India, in preference to Arsinoe, since Arsinoe was at the head of the Red Sea and navigation down the Heroopolite Gulf was tedious and difficult. Vessels from Myos Hormos traded with Africa, Arabia, and India.

During the Roman and Byzantine period there were trade relations between India and the Roman Empire.

Isidore of Charax in his work ''The Parthian Stations'' () described the trade route between the Levant and India in the 1st century BC.

The so-called Muziris papyrus, written in Greek, contains crucial information regarding the cargo of a ship named the Hermapollon that sailed back to Egypt from Muziris in India. Muziris is also mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as one of the Indian ports Greek ships were sailing to. Other Indian ports Greek merchants visited were Barygaza, Barbarikon, Minnagara, Ujjain and Ariaca.

Tacola (Τάκωλα) was a place on the west coast of the Aurea Chersonesus, in India extra Gangem, which Ptolemy calls an emporium.

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea was a manual written in Greek for navigators who carried trade between the Roman Empire and other regions, including ancient India. It gives detailed information about the ports, routes and commodities.

Ancient Greek and Roman writers also describe the ports of the Arabia Felix, which were used for the Indian trade.

Procopius writes that, when the Byzantines didn't want to purchase their silk from the Persians any longer due to their conflicts, some monks coming from India, who had also spent a long time in a country called Serinda () which was beyond India, talked with the Emperor Justinian and promised to settle the silk question. Thus, the Byzantines would not need to buy silk from the Persians.

Chanakya mentioned Greeks and their polities in his ''Arthashastra''.

Athenaeus in the Deipnosophistae wrote that ''Euthydemus the Athenian'' in his book ''on Vegetables'' calls a species of gourd the Indian gourd (σικύαν Ἰνδικὴν) because the seed of that gourd was originally introduced from India.

After Alexander's time, there were trade relations between the Greek world and Sri Lanka. Ancient writers describe in details what was traded. Cosmas Indicopleustes wrote about a specific Greek merchant named ‘Sopatrus’ who had a trade relationship with Sri Lanka. At the Jaffna Peninsula, archaeologists discovered gold coins with Greek inscriptions, most probably belonging to the Byzantine period.

Travelers and explorers

The Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BCE was aware of dark-skinned people who lived far to the east, whom the Greeks named Aethiopes, although Greek beliefs seem to have been confused by conflating African and Indian characteristics and peoples. Ancient Greek knowledge of and interest in India hugely increased following the conquests of Alexander the Great and his campaign in northern India between 327–25 BCE.

Classical period

Fragments of the writings of Hecataeus of Miletus (549–486 BCE) convey a knowledge of nations living on the banks of the river Indus, using names for them including Indi, Indus, Argante and the people of Opia. Herodotus records that the Greek explorer Scylax, in about 515 BCE, was sent by King Darius I of Persia to follow the course of the Indus River and discover where it led. Writings attributed to Scylax, however, have been shown to have been written much later, in the fourth century BCE. No mention of India can be found in any of the works of Homer, Pinder or the Athenian playwrights.

Hellenistic period

Things changed dramatically near the end of the fourth century BCE, after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Nearchus, an officer in the army of Alexander who probably wrote his memoirs near the very end of the fourth century BCE, described India and the people living there. Onecicritus of Astypaleia, who was a captain of Alexander's navy, wrote about Sri Lanka.

The Greek ethnographer and explorer of the Hellenistic period, Megasthenes was a Macedonian ambassador sent by Seleucus I to the courts of Sandrocottus (Chandragupta) who ruled an area in northern India that lay north of the river Ganges. In his work, ''Indika'' (), he wrote about the history of Indians and their culture. Megasthenes also mentioned the prehistoric arrival of the god Dionysus and Herakles (Megasthenes' Herakles) in India. Some years later, Deimachus, who was an ambassador to the court of Bindusara, also wrote about India.

Patrocles was an admiral of Seleucus who sailed into the Indian Ocean and left an account of his travels, confirming Megasthenes' estimate of the breadth of India. His knowledge of the eastern seaboard of India was in error, however, believing that sea encircled the Indian subcontinent, linking the Indian Ocean with the Caspian Sea. We know all this from the surviving works of the Greek historian Strabo, who was active in the first century BCE. He did not trust previous writings about India because he believed they included a lot of fables in their writings, especially the recountings of Deimachus and Megasthenes, while Onesicritus and Nearchus together with some others wrote "a few words of truth," in his view. On the other hand, he trusted the works of Patrocles and Eratosthenes.

Eudoxus of Cyzicus, near the end of the second century BCE, and Hippalus, who was possibly associated with Eudoxus, traveled to India with their ships. Hippalus is credited by the writer of the 1st-century CE ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' with establishing currents, winds and a route to use for trade with stopping points along the coast of India between the Red Sea and the very south of India.

Roman period

In the first century BCE, the naked Indian philosopher and monk Zarmanochegas (possibly, but not necessarily, a Buddhist) met Nicholas of Damascus in Antioch and later he also traveled to Athens, where he burned himself to death in 19 BCE. According to Plutarch, writing near the end of the first century CE or the beginning of the second, his tomb could still be seen in Athens.

Claudius Ptolemy, in the second century CE, mentions in his work a Greek captain named Diogenes, who was returning from his trip to India when the winds blew him off course and he had to stop below the Horn of Africa. Since the winds were not favorable to travel north, he traveled south and explored the east coast of Africa where he found the city of Rhapta. According to Ptolemy, this happened during the second trip of Diogenes to India.

Christian period

The ''Suda'', a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, mentioned that when Theophilos the Indian returned from India, he spent time in Antioch and the Emperor Constantius II treated him with all honor and respect.

Sozomen wrote that Meropius (Μερόπιός), a philosopher of Tyre, traveled together with two of his relatives, Frumentius (Φρουμέντιός) and Edesius (Ἐδέσιος) to India.

The Christian Topography by Cosmas Indicopleustes was an essay in scientific geography written in Greek with illustrations and maps. The work mentioned India, and the writer Cosmas Indicopleustes had actually made the journey, and he described and sketched some of what he saw in his topography. Cosmas Indicopleustes means "Cosmas who sailed to India".

Cities and places

Around 510 BCE, Persians, under the rule of Darius the Great moved the inhabitants of the Greek colony of Barca in Libya into Bactria. Later, Xerxes I also settled there with the "Branchidae," who were the descendants of Greek priests who had once lived at Didyma. Herodotus also records Persian generals threatening to enslave daughters of the revolting Ionians and send them to Bactria if they didn't stop fighting.

According to legend the god Dionysus founded the city of Nysa and named it Nysa and the land Nysaea (Νυσαία) after his nurse and he named the mountain near the city, Meron (Μηρὸν) (i.e. thigh), because he grew in the thigh of Zeus. When Alexander arrived at the city, he and his Companion cavalry went to the mountain, where they made ivy garlands and crowned themselves with them, singing hymns in honor of Dionysus. Alexander also offered sacrifices to Dionysus, and feasted in company with his companions.

Alexander the Great founded the cities of Nicaea and Alexandria Bucephalous. He also founded a city and named it after his dog, Peritas. In addition, he ordered Philip to build Alexandria on the Indus. He also founded other cities in India. Quintus Curtius Rufus wrote that Alexander founded a number of cities in the Indus Delta, but most probably he meant some garrisons. Claudius Aelianus wrote that there were Macedonians who settled in India in the cities founded by Alexander.

Pliny the Elder wrote that Nearchus founded the town of Arbis during his voyage to India.

The ancient Greeks called the modern Bay of Bengal ''Gangeticus Sinus'' (), meaning "Gulf of the Ganges".

According to Ptolemy, many Greek cities were founded by the Greco-Bactrians in northern India.
The cities of Sirkap and Demetriapolis were founded by Demetrius I of Bactria.

Eucratideia was founded by Eucratides I.

Panchaia was an island paradise located in the Indian Ocean mentioned by Greek writers.

Contacossyla (Κοντακόσσυλα) and Allosygna were emporia in the district of Maesolia (Μαισωλία or Μασαλία) (modern Masulipatam).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Maesolia
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Maliarpha (Μαλιάρφα,) was a place of considerable commerce in the territory of the Arvarni.

Stephanus of Byzantium wrote about a city called Daedala or Daidala () in India, which he called an Indo-Cretan city, most probably because it was a settlement of Cretan mercenaries.Stephanus also described many other Indian cities and places.

The Greeks called the Punjab region ''Pentapotamía'' (), meaning five rivers.

Caspeiria (Κασπειρία) was a district of India intra Gangem with Ptolemy naming 18 cities there, including the Caspeira (Κάσπειρα)Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), caspeiria
/ref> and the Rarassa (Ῥαράσσα or Ἠράρασα).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Rarassa
/ref>

Caspatyrus (Κασπάτυρος) or Caspapyrus (Κασπάπυρος) was a city in the district of Pactyice.

Calinipaxa was a city in India made known to the Greeks by the expedition of Seleucus I Nicator.

Gange (Γάγγη), according to Ptolemy, was the capital of the Gangaridae, at the mouth of the Ganges river. While Strabo speaks of a town with a similar name but places it far up the river, in the vicinity of Palibothra or Patna.
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mention a city called Ganges (Γάγγης).

The Greeks called the Eastern Himalayas in the district of India intra Gangem Damassi Montes/Mountains (τὰ Δάμασσα ὄρη).

The Saurashtra (region) was called by the Greeks Syrastrene (Συραστρηνή). Ptolemy mentions Syrastra, which may have once been its capital. Larica (Λαρική) was a rich commercial district between Syrastrene and Ariaca.

Dyrta (τὰ Δύρτα) was a small town in the country of the Assacani.

Peperine (Πεπερίνη) was an island off the south-west coast of India, undoubtedly derived its name from producing pepper.

Pactyice (Πακτϋική) was a district of North-Western India.

Triglyphon was the metropolis and royal residence of Cirrhadia (the modern Tipperah).

Palimbothra (Παλιμβόθρα) was one of the most important cities in India.

Chryse and Argyre were a pair of legendary islands, located in the Indian Ocean mentioned by ancient writers.

Bessyga (Βήσσυγα) was, according to Stephanus of Byzantium, an emporium in India.

Taprobana/Taprobane-Palaesimundu-Salice

At the Anuradhapura Kingdom in Sri Lanka, there was a Greek settlement. Professor Merlin Peris, former professor of classics at the University of Peradeniya, wrote that “the Greeks whom King Pandukabhaya settled in the West Gate of Anuradhapura were not the second or third generation of Greeks who arrived in northwest India but were men who, just two decades ago at the most, left Greek homelands as Alexander's camp followers and came to Sri Lanka with or in the wake of Alexander's troops. When their fellow Greeks showed reluctance to push further south, these Greeks apparently had done so.” The Greeks called Sri Lanka Taprobana, some Greek authors also used ''Palaisimoundou'', ''Salike'' and ''Sieladiba''.

Palaesimundum (Παλαισιμούνδου) was a town in Taprobane, but in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea the writer inform us that at his time the whole island was called like this (Ptolemy and Stephanus state that the island was called Simundum (Σιμούνδου), but it is very probable that they made a mistake and the correct name was Palaesimundum). Later the island was also called Salice (Σαλική).

Stephanus of Byzantium writes that a metropolis of the Taprobana was called Argyra () and that there was also a river called Phasis (). Ptolemy called one of a group of islands which surrounded Sri Lanka Nagadiba () (see Jaffna Peninsula). Talacory (Ταλάκωρυ) or Aacote (Ἀακότη) was a port emporium on the north-western side of Taprobana.

Tarachi (Τάραχοι) was a tribe in Taprobane who had a port called Ἡλίου λίμην.

Galiba (Γάλιβα ἄκρα) was a promontory on the northern coast of Taprobane, close to the Cory island. Certain mountains in the immediate neighbourhood of it had the same name Γάλιβα ὄρη and the inhabitants of which were called Galibi (Γάλιβοι). Cape of Zeus (Δίος ἄκρα) was a promontory on the south of Taprobane. Its exact position cannot be identified, but it must have been close to present Galle, if not the same.

Tribes

Greek writers mention many tribes. For example, the:

* Abastanes or Abastani or Sambastae (Σαμβασταί) or Sabarcae, probably the Ambashtha.
* Arvarni (Ἀρούαρνοι), a tribe of India intra Gangem.
* Assakenoi or Assacani (Ἀσσακηνοί) or Astakenoi (Ἀστακηνοί).
* Calingae, people of India, live Gangem, close to the sea.
* Caspeiraei (Κασπειραῖοι), a tribe of India intra Gangem.
* Gangaridae (Γαγγαρίδαι), people near the mouths of the Ganges. Ptolemy assigns them a capital, called Ganga Regia, on the western side of the Ganges.
* Guraeans (Γουραίοι).
* Harmatotrophi, a small tribe mentioned by Pliny as living at the foot of the Hindu Kush.
* Hippasii (Ἱππάσιοι), most probably the same tribe as the Aspasii (Ἀσπάσιοι) or Aspii (Ἄσπιοι).
* Kirradae (Κιρρᾶδαι).
* Maesoli (Μαισώλοι), people of the Maesolia.
* Mallian people.
* Mandalae (Μανδάλαι).
* Padaei (Παδαῖοι), an Indian tribe.
* Pandae, an Indian tribe with the habit of having female sovereigns.
* Parapiotae (Παραπιῶται), an Indian tribe along the banks of the Namadus river.
* Pargyetae (Παργυῆται), a tribe who occupied part of the Hindu Kush.
* Passalae (Πασσάλαι) a tribe in India extra Gangem.
* Zamirae or Zamirai (Ζαμῖραι) and Gamerae or Gamerai (Γαμῆραι) was a tribe in India extra Gangem roughly in modern Myanmar.
* Oritae (Ὠρεῖται), a tribe of the sea-coast of Gedrosia.
* Xathri (Ξάθροι), a tribe Indians dwelling along the banks of the Hydraotes. They may have derived their name from the caste of the Kshatriyas.
* Tacaraei (Τακαραῖοι), a mountain tribe of India extra Gangem. They must have occupied part of modern Assam.
* Taluctae, a tribe of India extra Gangem, mentioned by Pliny.
* Tabassi (Τάβασσοι), a tribe of Indians who occupied the interior of the southern part of Hindustan, in the neighbourhood of the present province of Mysore. It seems that they derived their name from the Sanskrit Tapasja, “woods.”

Other

Pāṇini, an ancient Sanskrit grammarian, was acquainted with the word yavana (Greek) in his composition.

Kātyāyana was a Sanskrit grammarian, mathematician and Vedic priest who lived in ancient India. He explained the term yavanānī as the script of the Yavanas. He took the same line as Pāṇini that the Old Persian term yauna became Sanskritised to name all Greeks.

Theodectes thought the dark color of some Indians was because of the sun.GREEK IMAGE OF THE INDIAN SOCIETY
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Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae mentions a Basilis (Βάσιλις) who wrote a series of books about the History of India.

Claudius Aelianus wrote about the animals in India. He also mentioned that there were Macedonians who settled in India in the cities founded by Alexander.Aelian, Characteristics of Animals, § 16.3
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The Unani System of Medicine, a traditional system of medicine practiced in India, refers to Graeco-Arabic medicine, which is based on the teachings of Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen. The ancient Greek medical system was enriched with local elements and received positively by the Indian people and physicians.

India and Indians are mentioned in some of Martial's Epigrams.

A lot of entries in the Suda, the Byzantine encyclopedia, are about India.

Modern archaeological evidence from Bronze Age

A wall-painting from the Minoan town of Akrotiri has been identified as depicting a grey langur, a species of monkey native to the Indus Valley. Bronze-age contact between the Minoan world and the Indian subcontinent was likely mediated by the civilisations of Mesopotamia.

The historian Peter Frankopan said that “long-distance trade, and connections between the Mediterranean, Asia and the Indian Ocean are well attested, even in this period he Bronze Age for high value, expensive objects.” (See Indo-Mediterranean).

The area of modern Hala Sultan Tekke in Cyprus was an important trade hub during the Late Bronze Age, with large quantities of imported goods from neighbouring regions but also faraway regions like Afghanistan and India.Tombs rich in artifacts discovered by Swedish expedition in Cyprus
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See also

*India (Herodotus)
*Indo-Greek Kingdom
*Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
*Indo-Scythians
* Greek campaigns in India
*Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley
*''The Shape of Ancient Thought''

Greco-Buddhism

*Greco-Buddhism
*Greco-Buddhist monasticism
*Greco-Buddhist art
*Gandharan Buddhism
*Buddhism and the Roman world
* Indo-Greek religions
*Buddhas of Bamiyan
*Third Buddhist council

Trade and relations

* Buddhism and the Roman world
* Economic history of India
* Historic GDP of India (1-1947 CE)
* Indus–Mesopotamia relations
* Indo-Mediterranean
* Indo-Roman relations
* Indian Ocean trade
* Sino-Roman relations
* Indian maritime history
* Meluhha trade with Sumer

Other

* Romani people in Greece

References

Bibliography

*
*

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), William Smith, LLD, Ed., India

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), William Smith, LLD, Ed., Taprobane

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ancient Greece-Ancient India relations

Greece
India
Greece–India relations
Greece-India
Greece–Pakistan relations
Indian Ocean trade
Indo-Greek religions and philosophy
Indo-Greeks
Buddhism in the ancient Mediterranean