Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c13.16

c13.16

It is an interesting and still unsolved problem, how far the Baktrian Greeks actually affected the civilization of North-Western India. Probably the results of their brief reign were not great. They were a mere handful, and their coins shew that they were rapidly absorbed by the surrounding population. The coins of Demetrius, for instance, are purely Hellenic; those of Menander a curious compromise between Greece and India. Again, there is evidence that the Baktrian Greeks very largely adopted the religion of their neighbours, and they could scarcely do this until they had become Hindus in all but name. The conversion of Menander to Buddhism is as dramatic as that of Aśoka. In the Nāsik caves is a leṇa owned by “Indrāgnidatta a Yonaka from Dattamitra (Demetria) in the north.” In the Kārla caves are several votive offerings from Greeks, some of them being from Benākaṭakā near Nāsik¹. Most remarkable of all is the curious inscription on the Garuda pillar from Besnagar, recording that it is the work of “Heliodorus son of Dion, a Greek envoy² from Takhasilā, sent by the Mahārājā Antalkidas³.” From these inscriptions it will be seen that the Greeks in the Panjāb and in Western India rapidly became converts to Hinduism and Buddhism, and were so little distinguishable from their neighbours that they even took Hindu names. Further than this, the solitary monument of Baktrian architecture,—the Besnagar pillar referred to above,—is purely Indo-Persian in type. No trace of Menander’s famous capital at Sāgala has survived, but there is no reason to suppose that it was in the Greek style¹. It is probable, however, that a corrupt Greek was spoken among these half caste settlers, and was perhaps the *lingua franca* of the Greek, Indo-Parthian, and Śaka tribes at that time. The Indo-Parthians had an additional reason to use Greek, as that was the court language of Parthia. They also used the Greek names for the months².