India Articles

The first text in Greek devoted entirely to India was written by Ctesias in the fourth century BC. Only fragments of it survive. Yet he was probably the most widely quoted author on India, although Aristotle treated him with contempt. However, soon after Aristotle drew upon Ctesias’ writings, as did Plato, Xenophon and Plutarch. From all these account... [continue reading]

Cyrus the Great (558-530 BC) built the first universal empire, stretching from Greece to the Indus River. This was the famous Achaemenid Dynasty of Persia. An inscription at Naqsh-i-Rustam, the tomb of his able successor Darius I (521-486 BC), near Persepolis, records Gadara (Gandhara) along with Hindush (Hindus, Sindh) in the long list of satrapies... [continue reading]

Herodotus (484 BC – c. 425 BC) has been called the Father of History since he was the first historian known to collect his materials in detail, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative. The Histories — his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced — is... [continue reading]

The name of India is a corruption of the word Sindhu. Neighbouring Arabs, Iranians uttered‘s’ as ‘h’ and called this land Hindu. Greeks pronounced this name as Indus. Sindhu is the name of the Indus River, mentioned in the Rig-Veda, one of the oldest extant Indo-European texts, composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent... [continue reading]

The rarity of the appearance of Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms in ancient literature is one of the reasons why those states are so little-known today. Indo-Greek literature did exist, but none has been found that speaks about the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek states. Classical authors tell us very little about Indo-Greek kingdoms, as they were... [continue reading]

The religious practices of the early Indo-Aryans, known as the Vedic religion (1500 BC to 500 BC) were written down and later redacted into the Samhitas, four canonical collections of hymns or mantras, called the Veda, in archaic Sanskrit. The Late Vedic age (9th to 6th centuries BC) marked the beginning of the Upanisadic or Vedantic phase. This epoch... [continue reading]

Possibly being overjoyed by the tales of mythical exploits of Heracles, Semiramis, the fabled queen of Assyria, Cyrus, King of Persia and so on, Alexander the Great set out from the tiny kingdom of Macedon for a daring adventure, unheard of in the entire civilized world. His theatre of war was vast, extending from out of the Danube River to beyond Indus... [continue reading]

For well over 1,000 years, sacred stories and heroic epics have made up the mythology of Hinduism. Nothing in these complex yet colourful legends is fixed and firm. Pulsing with creation, destruction, love, and war, it shifts and changes. Most myths occur in several different versions, and many characters have multiple roles, identities, and histories... [continue reading]

Introduction Like any other religious tradition, Buddhism has undergone a number of different transformations that have led to the emergence of many different Buddhist schools. Analyzing the major Buddhist traditions, we find a great number of topics ranging from moral concerns (which seems to have been originally the number one concern of the Buddha... [continue reading]

Buddhism is one of the most influential traditions of the Eastern world, with about two and a half thousand years of development. It has touched and adorned virtually every single aspect of Asian society: its lore, mythology, morals, art and even metaphysics and religion, despite the fact the Buddha, its founder, does not seem to have had any kind... [continue reading]