Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c13.13

c13.13

India was totally unaffected by Greece before the days of Alexander. Between the two countries lay the unsurmountable barriers of vast seas, deserts, mountains and hostile nations; these alone would have made intercourse impossible, without the obstacles of an alien tongue and mutual exclusiveness. On the other hand, as we have already seen, there had been a long and continuous intercourse between India and the great nations of Asia Minor. Yet, as we have stated in a previous chapter, the traces of this contact are on the whole doubtful and comparatively insignificant. India may owe to her intercourse with the Semitic races her earliest script, perhaps too her calendar, her system of weights and measures, and some Purāṇic legends. Persia, of course, was in close contact with India for nearly two centuries, and the Panjāb was a Persian satrapy for that period. Indian architecture appears to have assimilated a great many Persian forms, but on the whole, the effects of the contact were surprisingly few. Indian literature could find nothing to borrow from her great neighbour.