History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.454

v6.c82.454

A few words may be said about the intercourse between Babylon and India. A. H. Sayce says⁸⁹³ that as far back as the 3rd millennium B C there was cultural and possibly racial continuity between Babylon and the Punjab and the intercourse was by land and that so far there is no evidence that it was by sea. Peacocks, rice and Indian sandalwood were known in Palestine under their Tamil names in the Hebrew chronicles of Genesis and Kings ⁸⁹⁴ The Bogozkeui Inscription of about 1400 B. C. recording treaties between the king of Hittites and the king of Mitanni shows the dynasts of the latter people had the Vedic gods Indra, Varuṇa Mitra and Nāsatya in their pantheon.⁸⁹⁵ The archives of Bogozkeui contained an elaborate treatise on four tablets on the training of horses by a certain Kikkuli of the land of Mitanni in which are found certain technical terms akin to Sanskrit; and the personal names of the kings and nobles from Mitanni, Nuzi and Syrian documents betray an Indo-European⁸⁹⁶ origin. The Bāveru-jātaka refers to the trade by sea between Babylon and India.⁸⁹⁷ Greek ambassadors such as Megasthenes from Seleucus to Candragupta Maurya, Daimachus to Bindusāra (son of Candragupta) had been sent to India and it is not too much to hold that there was reciprocity from the Indian side and Indians had gone as envoys to the Seleucid and Ptolemaic courts many years before Aśoka sent his missionaries.⁸⁹⁸ Aśoka's edict No. 13 refers to five kings of the Near East to whom Buddhist missionaries had been sent, viz. to Antiyoga (Antiochus of Syria), Turamaya (Ptolemy II of Egypt), Antikina (Antigonus of Macedonia), Magā (Magas of Cyrene) and Alikasundara⁸⁹⁹ (of Epirus). The Gospel of Matthew (chap. 2. 1-2) states that at the birth of Christ in Bethlehem wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying that they had seen in the east the star of the newly born child and had come to worship him. The life of Apollonius of Tyana written by Philostratus⁹⁰⁰ (in the first quarter of the 3rd century A. D.) states that it was usual in India to show great hospitality to Babylonians and that the Indian king, Iarchus, presented to Apollonius seven rings named after the seven planets of which he was to wear one on each week day.