Foreign Influence on Ancient India

Front Cover
Northern Book Centre, 1992 - History - 328 pages
This is the first book dealing with the foreign influence on ancient India. Discusses the foreign invasions of India by the Achaemenians, Greeks, Sakas, Kushans, Sassanians, Pahlavas and the Hunas, and also the peaceful impact of the Romans on India. The book advances a theory that ancient India never provided any casus belli to the foreigners to attack her. It was India's weakness and an implied confidence in future victories that kept the invaders coming to India one after another. But these foreigners have also influenced India in the field of administration, religion, philosophy, astronomy, language, script, trade and commerce, and above all the way of life of the people of India, which is the main subject of the book. This book suggests that after the partition of this sub-continent, the name `India' which continued to be used for this country is a misnomer when the river INDUS after which the country was so named, went to Pakistan. This book also finds is real nature the matrimonial alliance between Seleucus and Chandra Gupta Maurya and gives possible solutions to some riddles of Indian history. The origin of the name of KIDAR has also been discovered for the first time. The book tells us in a poetic language how ‘the golden age of the Guptas was converted into a molten age of destruction and confusion’ by the Hunas. What remained of our culture after so much turmoil and changes is before us.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
The Persian Invasion and its Cultural Influence
17
Alexanders Invasion and its Cultural Impact
55
Greco Bactrain Influence
81
Parthian Influences
105
The Sakas and their Cultural Impact
118
The Kushanas Cultural Contribution
161
The Sassanian Interlude
192
Foreign Influence
255
GENERAL NOTES Alexanders Interview with the Indian Sages
305
Bower Manuscript
306
Hathigumpha InscriptionReference to Demetrius
307
Herodotus 484431 B C
308
Ptolemys Geography
309
Sushruta 2nd century A D
310
Bibliography
311

The Hunas and their Vandalism
206
Roman Influence
230
Imperceptible Influences
247

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