259. Relations Between India and the Outer World
The first culture influence whose entry into India can be traced in any detail was that carried by the Vedic Aryans from the northwest. In fact, as already mentioned, more is known about this importation than of what it encountered in India. In the post-Vedic period, the introduction of the Semitic alphabet suggests that other cultural ingredients also flowed into India from the west without direct record being preserved of their transmission. The Persian and Macedonian conquests extended only over the westernmost margin of India and were of little direct influence. But the latter was followed by a semi-Hellenization of southwestern Asia, including for instance the establishment of a Græco-Bactrian kingdom in southern Turkistan and Afghanistan, adjacent to India; and for several centuries a stream of Greek culture elements trickled into the heart of India. Sculpture, architecture, astronomy, drama, coinage, derived new impetus, in some cases even their origin, from this source. In some instances the Hindus were no more than copiers of Hellenistic models: Greek hangs and folds were given to sculptured garments, Greek astronomical measurements taken over without change. Yet as the centuries wore on and new imports along these lines lessened and then died out, the introduced elements became more deeply incorporated into Indian civilization, modified and encrusted more and more heavily by distinctive Hindu styles, until now their superficial appearance makes an impression of independent native growth. The working over of the Semitic alphabet into its Hindu forms may be taken as typical of the nature and degree of this remodeling of the Hellenistic culture imports.
Soon after 700 A.D. commenced a series of Mohammedan invasions and conquests—Arab, Afghan, and Mongol-Turkish—also from the northwest, and of course accompanied by a new series of culture influences—firearms, for instance, and the true arch—which in their turn underwent absorption and partial transformation.
The flow of culture between India and the Mediterranean world has not been wholly eastward. Cotton; the common domestic fowl; probably the buffalo and rice; perhaps asceticism, monastic life, and certain mystic points of view; position numerals with zero; chess; and some of the concepts of modern philology, were transmitted westward. Eastern Africa was influenced, largely through the medium of Arab sea trade. Towards the north and northeast as far as Mongolia and Japan, India has been a dispenser of culture content and has taken little in return. Toward the southeast, Indian influence has been the largest component in the civilization of Indo-China and the East Indian archipelago, which as regards their higher attainments may be regarded as cultural dependencies or extensions of India.