Communication in Asia and its Influence

In addition to these generally amicable trade relations, conquest and invasion played major roles in the transmission of ideas into India. India is geologically separated from the rest of Asia; the Himalayas—the world's highest mountains—constitute its northern border, but their passes have been crossed by innumerable invaders, migrants, and travelers. One important early group of migrants was the Aryans, who probably originated in Europe and arrived in India in the second millennium B.C.E. They spoke a proto-Sanskrit language and brought their sacred texts, the Vedas. Over the course of centuries they became predominant in northern India, but their culture probably absorbed elements from India's indigenous inhabitants.

Alexander the Great crossed the Indus River in 326 B.C.E. and easily conquered the divided kingdoms of northern India, but his troops revolted at the Beas River and refused to advance, so his expansion into the subcontinent was halted. In the political vacuum left by Alexander's withdrawal, an Indian dynasty, the Mauryas (321–185 B.C.E.), conquered the Gangetic plain and the Indus River valley, but the dynasty fell apart several decades after the death of the great emperor Ashoka (r. 269–232 B.C.E.). After this there were some small dynasties, such as the Shungas and Kanvas, but none were able to match the Mauryas' power. In the following centuries there were invasions by several groups of foreigners, including Bactrian military commanders of Alexander's frontier provinces. They were followed by Persians, Scythians, and Central Asian barbarian tribes.

The Bactrians carved out small kingdoms in the northern parts of the subcontinent, and their rule was a time of cultural exchange between the Greek cultural world and India. There is evidence of transmission of technology and literature as well as medical and astrological knowledge. The works of Plato were brought to India, and the Mahabharata was read by some Greeks. In one famous example of intercultural exchange, the Bactrian king Menander (fl. 160–135 B.C.E.) reportedly had a series of philosophical dialogues with the Buddhist sage Nagasena, which are preserved in the Questions of King Milinda (Milindapanho). This became one of the classics of Buddhist philosophy and was translated into Chinese as early as the fourth century C.E. In this text, Menander poses questions from the perspective of classical Greek philosophy, and Nagasena answers from a Buddhist perspective. Menander is presented as an admirer of the Buddha and his doctrine, and he seems to be familiar with Buddhist philosophy.

Buddhist thought and culture were also spread into Southeast Asia beginning in the third century B.C.E. The first successful Buddhist mission was reportedly sponsored by Ashoka, who sent his son Mahinda, a Theravada Buddhist monk, to Ceylon. After becoming established there, Theravada spread to other areas of Southeast Asia and became the dominant religion in Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, and Laos. Beginning in the seventh century, Mahayana Buddhism was adopted by the kings of Tibet, who began a process of importation of Indian Buddhist culture and learning. They sponsored Tibetan scholars to study in the great monastic universities of north India, and Indian scholars were brought to Tibet to spread their religion and to translate the Buddhist canon into Tibetan.

Beginning in the eighth century, a series of Islamic invaders penetrated into India from the north. One of these, Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030), conquered large areas of northern India and also engaged in widespread destruction and looting of religious sites. As a result of the depredations of his armies and later Muslim invaders, the Buddhist monastic universities were destroyed, and by the thirteenth century Buddhism had largely disappeared in India. In the thirteenth century, the Ghurids from Central Asia established the Delhi sultanate, which ruled much of northern India until 1526. They in turn were defeated by the armies of Babur (1483–1530), a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, who established the Mughal dynasty, which ruled most of India until 1856. The Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire established a prolific trade in both ideas and commerce between India and the Islamic world. Persian was the language of the Mughal court, which patronized the arts and philosophy. The height of the Mughal dynasty was a period of cultural flourishing in India, and ideas, literature, and technology circulated among India, Persia, and the Middle East as well as the rest of Asia.

In 1656 the Mughal emperor Dara Shukoh had sections of the Upanishads translated into Persian, believing that they were secret scriptures referred to in the Koran. Sufi writings and teachers also exercised significant influence in India, and this continues in the early twenty-first century. The great emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) was highly influential in the interchange of ideas in India and is reported to have held philosophical and religious discussions with representatives of a range of religions and traditions. Following an expansion of the empire under Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707), internal pressures weakened it, and local hegemons began to carve out small states.

European traders began to arrive in the sixteenth century. The first were the Portuguese, who established Goa as their trading base in 1510. In 1608 the British East India Company founded its first trade headquarters in Surat, followed by Madras in 1641 and Calcutta in 1691. During the next century, the East India Company gradually extended its control and by the eighteenth century had overcome most of its rivals. Following General Robert Clive's defeat of French forces at Plassey in Bengal 1757, Britain became the dominant power in the subcontinent and began to create rail and communications networks. In the early 1850s the East India Company spent £110,250 on telegraph lines linking the presidencies of India (the areas under direct British rule), which along with the railways and a postal service created by the British allowed for transport of goods and ideas all over the subcontinent. In 1865 a cable link was established between Britain and India.

Indians at first perceived the British as low-caste invaders, but gradually elites began to recognize the benefits of British education and started sending their children to study abroad. At the same time, the British established English-medium schools in India for their children and those of Indian elites. As British scholars began to explore India, interest in its classical literature increased dramatically. Chairs for the study of Sanskrit and Indian culture were established at leading British universities, and religious, philosophical, and literary classics were translated into European languages. Initially the main emphasis was on classical studies, and German scholars were at the forefront of this movement. The pioneering Indologist Max Müller published the first printed versions of the Vedas in Oxford between 1849 and 1873. A French translation of the Upanishads (from the Persian translation sponsored by Dara Shukhoh) was published in 1801–1802.

At the same time, European humanism and political philosophy were widely disseminated among British-educated Indians. The most influential leader of India's independence movement, Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi (1869–1948), first read the Bhagavad Gita in Sir Edwin Arnold's English translation after joining the London Vegetarian Society while studying law in London. His writings indicate that in addition to the Gita, he was profoundly influenced by Leo Tolstoy, the Sermon on the Mount, and Henry David Thoreau. As with many other Indians educated in British schools, his thought was a mixture of traditional Hinduism and Western thought.

During their study in British schools, India's independence leaders learned about Western notions of democracy and used these against their colonizers. In addition, the British-built railroads enabled activists to travel all over the subcontinent and to speak with like-minded people in distant areas. This, along with the availability of instant communications via telegraph and, later, telephone and wireless, facilitated the process of learning to imagine themselves as constituting one people belonging to a unified nation.

Because of India's diversity, the process of nation-building and the task of fostering nationalist consciousness among its various religious, linguistic, racial, and tribal groups continues in the early twenty-first century. The growing penetration of telephone service, television, radio, and other forms of mass communication is part of this process. Probably the most pervasive and influential medium for the dissemination of ideas is "Bollywood" films, which are produced en masse and are widely popular not only in India but also Nepal, Tibet, and Southeast Asia. Most of these use a simplified version of Hindi (often referred to as Hindustani), and they function as cultural markers that contain lessons about morality, behavioral norms, courtship and marriage, political issues, and religious themes. The plots are generally thin, characters tend to be stereotypical, and the acting is mediocre at best, but they are enormously popular and are important texts for both Indians and outsiders in regard to popular attitudes and current ideas. They also have helped to spread oral comprehension of Hindi throughout the subcontinent and even beyond, which may in time aid the government's goal of making it the national language. As it continues to define itself in the aftermath of its colonial period, India is once again emerging as a major center for the development and dissemination of ideas in Asia, and Indian thought and technology have become part of the global inheritance of humanity.