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Central Asians in Ancient Indian literature


Central Asia and Ancient India have long traditions of social-cultural, religious, political and economic contact since remote antiquity. The two regions have common and contiguous borders, climatic continuity, similar geographical features and geo-cultural affinity. There has always been uninterrupted flow of people, material and the ideas between the two.

Migration of peoples and tribes from Central Asia into India, and expansion of Central Asian empires into India, is a recurring theme in the history of the region, from the theorised Bronze Age Indo-Aryan migration, to the Iron Age Kushan Empire, the Indo-Scythians, the Indo-Greeks (via Bactria) and the medieval Islamic conquest of the Indian subcontinent. Intrusion is typically across the Hindukush, and influence of the intrusive population is first established in the Punjab and the Indus Valley, and sometimes further expanded into the Ganges Plain. This view of migration and the tribes as immigrants is subject to dispute as being historical corruption, and are regarded as invasions.

In classical Indian tradition clans of the Shakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pahlavas, Paradas etc. are also attested to have been coming as invaders from Central Asia to India in pre-Christian times. They were all finally absorbed into the community of Kshatriyas of Indian society. However, this is disputed and is postulated as the reasserting of Hindu/Vedic authority in the political scenario of India.

The Shakas were the inhabitants of trans-Hemodos region - the Shakadvipa of the Puranas or the Scythia of the classical writings. Later evidence attests them in Drangiana i.e. Shakasthana (modern Seistan) located south of Herat. 1st century CE Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as well as 2nd century CE Ptolemy evidence also attest Indo-Scythia situated in lower Indus in western India.


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