The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c24.115

v1.c24.115

THE connexions between Persia and India date back to the gray dawn of the period of Indo-Irānian unity, when the Āryan ancestors of the Hindus and Persians still formed an undivided branch of the Indo-European stock. Though the separation of these two kindred peoples, through their migrating into the respective countries they have occupied in historic times, must have taken place more than three thousand years ago, nevertheless there long remained a certain community of interest, which had a bearing upon the early history of the north of India, where Persian influence, and even dominion, was strongest. The aim of the present chapter, therefore, is to bring out the main points of contact between the two nations from the earliest times and to indicate the effect of the sway exercised by Persia in Northern, or rather North-western, India prior to the invasion of Alexander the Great and the fall of the Achaemenian Empire of Irān in the latter part of the fourth century B.C.