Maurya and Shunga Art c5.9

c5.9

Apart from India's forming an integral part of an 'Ancient East' and sharing in a common cultural heritage from very early times, there is more or less definite evidence of intimate cultural contact of India with Iran in particular from about the eighth and seventh centuries B. C. The North-west and the Indus Valley forming a part of the empire of Darius made contacts with Iran easier still. This intimate contact must have been responsible for certain elements in Buddhist and later Brahmanical mythology, tradition, worship and iconography, especially those connected with the cults of the Sun and the Fire.¹⁹ It was also responsible for the origin and evolution of the Kharoshṭhī script in about the fifth or fourth century B. C. An Aramaic inscription belonging to about the fourth century B. C. has actually been found at Taxila.²⁰ The Haryaṅkas, the Śaiśunāgas and the Nandas must have more or less felt the pressure of this contact, but since their dominions lay far away from the regions where presumably the effects of the impact of the two civilisations were directly felt, Eastern India was perhaps only indirectly touched by Iranian contacts.