There are absolutely fascinating patterns of inter-religious interactions in India’s history. They provide profound insights into how religion drives fundamental values and behaviors of a culture. India’s experience with foreign religions starting from Western antiquity provides can teach us valuable lessons about the religions themselves.
Let me introduce you to the story of Indo-Greek kingdoms. This is a story without parallel anywhere in recorded history. Interactions between Greeks and India go back as far as 500 BCE. The legendary Sanskrit grammarian Panini was acquainted with the word “yavana” (meaning a Greek person). The word is also present in the Mahabharata. After Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, India was territorially united for the first time by Emperor Chandragupt Maurya. One of his wives was the daughter of the Greek king Seleucus, a successor to Alexander himself in Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan-Iran)?. Subsequently, other Greek kings expanded their empire towards India and came to rule a large kingdom in the North-West of India (present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan). They continued to rule until 10 CE.
The history of these few centuries is a remarkable story of unparalleled religious and cultural syncretism. The kingdoms used both Greek and Brahmi scripts. Greek kings also used images of Hindu deities such as Lakshmi, Balaram, and Krishna on their official coins. The great university in Takshshila flourished as a famous center of learning. The most famous Indo-Greek king Menander I (known as Milind in Pali) converted to Buddhism. King Menander ruled as far east as present-day Punjab, even controlling the city of Mathura further east for some time. He is described in Buddhist texts as a great patron of Buddhism. A number of Greeks converted to Buddhism as well. There was a huge proliferation of art that combined elements of both Indian and Greek elements. The picture above is the depiction of the Buddha under the protection of the Greek god Herakles.
The significance of this exceptionally respectful religious and cultural co-existence becomes obvious when we compare it with what happens in Greece itself in merely a few hundred years after the end of the Indo-Greek kingdoms.
The Indo-Greek syncretism is perhaps even more remarkable for what did not happen than what did happen. What did not happen? Persecution of any person based on what religion they followed. No oppression of people for not following the religion of the king. Minender I–Analysis of Christian even though he was the first king to convert to Buddhism – did not impose his Buddhism on his subjects. He did not make Buddhism the state religion nor did he order massacres of non-Buddhists. There was no desecration of other deities. No destruction of other temples. No libraries were burned. Takshshila University continued educating students just as it always had. The great Hindu scholar Chanakya who went on to advise Chandragupt Maurya taught as a professor at Takshshila in this era. Buddhists, Hindus, and Greeks lived in peace and harmony.
Compare that with the behavior of Constantine and Theodosius just a couple of hundred years later, and the contrast could not be more striking. Under the powerful influence of state patronage by Christian convert kings, Greeks were forced to destroy their own temples, vandalize statues of their own gods, and made to abandon their timeless hallowed traditions such as the Olympics. The great center of Greek pagan civilization Alexandria was destroyed. The greatest Greek center of scholarship and repository of knowledge – the famous library of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – was burned down by Christians and the greatest living pagan female scholar of the times Hypatia lynched by a Christian mob. Minender I, on the other hand, had discussions on the nature of truth with Buddhist sage Nagasena in the finest tradition of both Indian and Greek paganism. He then adopted Buddhism and renounced his throne upon being convinced of the Buddhist path.
Let’s ponder and compare Minender and Theodosius. It illustrates the fundamental difference between how Greece reacted as a mutually respectful polytheist civilization upon encountering another similar culture in India and how Rome upon becoming an intolerant monotheist civilization treated polytheist Greece after co-existing with it for centuries. This is the only example we know of where the same civilization shows such a remarkable divergence between its evolution under polytheism vs. monotheism. This is the earliest evidence from the history of the influence of religion on a civilization.
– Jasraj
