Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c11.17

c11.17

The news of the accession of Augustus quickly reached India. Many Indian states sent embassies to congratulate him, an honour, as he remarks, never paid before to any Western prince¹. The most striking of these was one sent by an important king, called, according to Strabo, Porus by some and Pandion by others². If his name really was Pandion, he was one of the Pāṇḍya kings of Madurā, the most southerly of the three Tamil kingdoms. Porus, however (Paurava, a descendant of Puru) became a kind of generic name for an Indian king with the Greeks since the days of Alexander. It is tempting to identify this Porus with Kadphises the first, if it is possible to put the first of the Kushān monarchs so early³. The embassy sailed from Barygaza; it brought in its train a Buddhist monk, Zarmanochegas (Śramaṇācārya), who imitated the notorious Kalanos by burning himself on a pyre at Athens, and a letter written in Greek, describing Porus as “lord over six hundred kings.” All this answers to the Kushān rather than the Tamil monarch. In the Panjāb, Greek was talked, and Buddhism was the prevailing religion, which was scarcely the case in the south. Barygaza would hardly be the port for a Tamil embassy, with Nelkynda and Muziris at hand. Kadphises had extended his dominions over many “Yavana, Śaka, and Pallava” monarchs, and could appropriately call himself “Mahārāja over 600 kings.” Kadphises was familiar with Rome, as is shewn by his imitation of the coins of Augustus. The invitation to Augustus to form an alliance with him, and the offer of a free passage through his domains to Roman citizens, may refer to the overland route through Baktria to China and India. Many curious details about this embassy have been preserved by an eye-witness, Nicolaus of Damascus, who met the party near Antioch. They had started from India about 25 B.C. and had taken four years on the journey. They had suffered much on the road and many had died of fatigue. The length of the journey must have been due to the cumbrous nature of the presents they brought, which included tigers, a partridge as big as an eagle¹, a gigantic python, huge tortoises, and an armless boy who could shoot arrows and throw darts with his feet! With these ponderous gifts they had been forced to take the overland route, and had evidently experienced great difficulties in convoying them over the passes and through the deserts. Had they gone by sea, the journey would have been over in less than a year. This strange troupe found Augustus in Samos in 21 B.C. The tigers were shewn at the opening of the theatre of Marcellus. Other Indian embassies visited Rome from time to time. We have already referred to one from Ceylon to the Emperor Claudius. Another came to Trajan in 99 A.D. from Kadphises II or Kanishka¹, when the conquest of Mesopotamia had brought the Indian and Roman frontiers within six hundred miles of one another.