Foreign Influence on Indian Culture (from c. 600 B.C. to 320 A.D.)

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Long before Alexander reached the gates of geographical India, the people of the subcontinent enjoyed a sporadic cultural interaction with their immediate western neighbours through the "lateral valleys" of Makran and the mountain passes of Hindukush, which were major land-routes.

The complex nature of Indian culture makes it almost impossible to trace the traits left by the "foreigners" in that remote past. In a diverse and culturally rich country like India, there remains very little difference between culture and civilization.

The cultural life of a land consists of social behaviours of the inhabitants as manifested in their typical customs and usages, its spiritual emancipation enriched by the advancement of ethics, philosophy and religion, its aesthetic experiences and technical abilities expressed through the medium of fine arts and other aspects of higher pursuits of intellectual life.

The book examines in some detail the traces that the westerners left upon three major aspects Indian culture, viz. social life, fine arts and religion. It is an attempt to present a picture of the cross- fertilization of ideas in an age of Indian history when it came in contact with the geographically external ethnic elements.

Dr. Manjari Ukil (1936-2004) had studied Indology at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan under Professors Prabodh Chandra Bagchi, Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya and Ram Singh Tomar. Along with ancient Indian history and culture her allied subjects of study were Sanskrit, Pali and Ardhamagadhi under Professors Haridas Mitra, Siddheswar Bhattacharya, Nityananda Binod Goswami and Pandit Sukhamoy Bhattacharya Shastri Sapta-Tirtha. From 1953 till 1954 she studied at Boise, Idaho when her father, artist Mukul Dey was a Fulbright Scholar to USA.

Manjari taught Indology at Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi University; and, subsequently at Vidya Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan for about 25 years.

Born and married into a family of distinguished modern Indian artists, she had the opportunity to supplement her chief area of investigation with an insight into the evolution and development of Indian fine arts, sculpture and architecture.

In his inimitable style in the poem "He Mor Chitta" (O My Mind) Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore has said that in this vast sea of humanity of India have mingled so many races from far and wide,

"In this land of India, on the shore of vast humanity

We know not whence, and at whose call, these myriad stream of men

Have come rushing forth impetuously to lose themselves in this sea.

Aryan and non-Aryan, Dravidian and Chinese, Scythian, Hun, Pathan and Moghul, all, have merged into one body".

(Translated by late Indira Devi Chowdhurani, Visva-Bharati Quarterly, Vol. VI, 1929).

In this book I have dealt with certain aspects of culture of ancient India from c. 600 B.C. to 320 A.D. The complex nature of Indian culture makes it impossible to trace the traits left by the foreigners in that remote past. In a diverse and culturally rich country like India of the ancient times there remains very little difference between civilization and culture.

The cultural life of a nation consists of social behaviour of its inhabitants manifested in their typical customs and usages, it's spiritual emancipation enriched by the advancement of ethics, philosophy religion, it's aesthetic experiences and technical abilities expressed through the medium of fine arts and other aspects of higher pursuit s of intellectual life. I have examined in some detail and traces that the westerners left upon three major aspects of Indian culture, viz., social life, fine arts and religion.

It is difficult to write about an author and her work with detachment and dispassion if one's past remains inseparably intertwined with her personality, as is natural if the author happens to be one's mother. Keeping this constraint firmly in view, we attempt a foreword here with a certain amount of trepidation.

In an age when political boundaries apart, almost all other mutually exclusive barriers are fast giving way to an emerging global composite culture, it is immensely interesting to look back and glean information, as much as possible, about a hoary past of cultural cross-fertilization of ideas and methods that had taken place on the land that is known as physical Indian subcontinent. This is an area of academic investigation that enjoys ever increasing relevance even after the passage of more than 2,500 years since the days when the people of this land had experienced cultural intercourse with their immediate western and north-western neighbours from south-west and central Asia. For thousands of years innumerable groups of men, women and children, often peaceful, often in the form of an invading army or as groups of nomadic herders, came to this land to conquer to settle and to populate. The story of their cultural encounter with primarily Hindu-Brahmanical and Buddhist-Jain India is dealt here in some detail.

The present study may help discerning scholars to understand an aspect of ancient Indian history, which is primarily reconstructed here from the references as found in the indigenous literary evidences, corroborated by subsequent archaeological findings and interpretations.