The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.s1.10

v1.c15.s1.10

Unimpeded intercourse with the countries of the West was possible only so long as Northern India remained united under the Maurya dynasty, and Western Asia under the Seleucid successors of Alexander. The process of disintegration began in Western Asia with the defection of Bactria and Parthia about the middle of the third century, and in India probably some thirty years later when the downfall of imperial rule was followed by a period of anarchy and internal strife. These conditions made possible the series of foreign invasions from c. 200 B.C. onwards, which disturbed the North-West during many centuries and severed that region from the ancient civilisation of the Plain of the Ganges. The political isolation of India was completed by the Scythian conquest of Bactria, c. 135 B.C., and by the long struggle between Rome and Parthia which began in 53 B.C. After the Maurya Empire, intercourse tended more and more to be restricted to commerce by land and sea; and for the West, India became more and more the land of mystery and fabulous wealth. Down to the last quarter of the eighteenth century nearly all that was known of its ancient history was derived from the early Greek and Latin writers.