The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.19

v1.c30.19

The chief kingdoms of Northern India lay along the routes which connected Pātaliputra, the former capital of the empire, with the Kābul valley on the one hand and with the delta of the Indus on the other; and these routes were continuations of others which passed through Irān to the West. When, at the height of their power, the Maurya and the Seleucid empires were conterminous, intercourse by land between India and the Western World was unimpeded. But already during the reign of Açoka revolts in the Seleucid empire had led to the establishment of hostile powers in Bactria and Parthia, which controlled the two great lines of communication. The extension of the Yavana power from Bactria through the Kābul valley to the Jumna in the first quarter of the second century b.c., and the invasion, a century later, of the Çakas from Seistān into the country of the lower Indus (Çakadvīpa or Indo-Scythia), a position commanding the route through Central India, are described elsewhere². The land-ways which united India with the West had thus become increasingly difficult from the middle of the third century to the early part of the first century b.c.; but by sea commerce was still maintained with Mesopotamia (Babylon) and Egypt (Alexandria) through the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea; and the ports on the west coast were connected with Pāṭaliputra through Ujjayinī, the great emporium of the period. But the isolation of the sub-continent was now almost complete. The attempt to make India a great world power had failed; and its history now becomes a complex struggle within its own borders of elements both native and foreign, such as was to recur many centuries later on the downfall of the Mughal empire.