Hot Pepper and Cold Religion
There was a fashion, many years ago, to claim that empires such as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome had ruled the whole of the known world and that while other countries did indeed exist beyond their borders, they were terra incognita as far as the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks and Romans were concerned.
I first began to doubt this scenario when I had occasion to learn Hindi and discovered that the Hindi word for "soldier" was jawan. I put it down in my memory along with the words for "house", "cow" and "thank-you", only to take it out and polish it when I read a book by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in which he remarked that the word jawan was not only linked to the Greeks - a corruption of "Ionian" - but could be traced even further back to the Table of Nations in Genesis chapter 11, where the Greeks are referred to as the "sons of Javan".
Of course, I knew that Alexander had made it as far as India and done a certain amount of mischief in north India, but Wheeler had found evidences of Greek trade by sea all along the coast of southern India, so whether or not Alexander had included the Punjab in the "known world" which he ruled, it was obvious that his compatriots were well aware of parts of India even further afield.
As for the Romans, they never made any claim to ruling India, yet they too had a long history of contacts with India and even with China. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea actually gives sailing instructions that take pilots from the port of Berenike on the shores of the Red Sea - the Erythraean Sea - as far as the mouth of the Ganges and down the east coast of Africa as far as a place called Azania, which I can't help but think may be in or near present-day Tanzania.
The driving force for all this travel was not the philosophy of the Indians - which led to the minutely described wanderings of the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana - but the desire to make money by supplying spices from the far East to the Romans. Excavations in Berenike by the Universities of Delaware and Leiden - now there's an unlikely pairing for you! - uncovered a large Indian jar near the temple of Serapis which contained 16lbs of black pepper.
Just in case there was any doubt about the origin of this spice, the archaeologists also found copious quantities of Indian pottery and one Roman amphora on which someone had scrawled some words of Tamil! It would appear that not only did Greeks and Romans visit India or even settle down there as merchants, but Indians travelled across to the east coast of the Red Sea and settled down in Berenike and Myos Hormos.
Meanwhile excavations in India under the direction of Dr P.J. Cherian, K.P. Shajan and V. Selvakumar at the site of Pattanam have uncovered Roman coins and a large number of Roman amphorae, dating between the 1st century BC and the first century AD. Curiously, the archaeologists also found large quantities of unfinished beads, which brings up the delightful picture of sophisticated Indians offering beads to the less civilised Romans!
Actually, we know for a fact that there was traffic between India and Rome because there is an admiring description of an Indian philosopher - undoubtedly a wandering guru like the late unlamented Maharishi Yoga, out to gull the Westerners, and possibly a Brahmin - who came to Rome and attracted a following. Unfortunately the poor chap came down with some disease and when he realised that death was near he ordered that a funeral pyre be constructed, onto which he climbed and ordered it lit. He aroused great admiration by sitting unmoving in stoic unconcern as the flames consumed him. As an Indian philosopher who had accompanied Alexander back to Babylon did pretty much the same thing, Indians were regarded with something akin to awe by both Greeks and Romans.
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| Inscription in Greek and Aramaic by King Ashoka found at Kandahar in Afghanistan. |
There is an interesting connection here: we know that King Ashoka of India, an enthusiastic convert to Buddhism, not only did his best to spread the religion in his own domains, but sent out missionaries to other countries as well. Until the museum was looted by the Taliban, the Kabul museum contained a black stone on which was carved an inscription by Ashoka, found at Kandahar, which was part of Ashoka's kingdom. Written in Greek and Aramaic, the Edict anounces that Ashoka desires men to be pious and declares that he has given up killing men or animals.
Among the missionaries sent out by Ashoka was one team which was dispatched to Greece. Scholars dispute the authenticity of this claim, but recent work shows that the kings to whom the missionaries were sent are mangled but recognisable names of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kings who were alive at the time. Although these missionaries did not succeed in converting the Greeks to Buddhism, it can hardly be coincidence that at just this time Gnosticism began to spread. Gnosticism held that matter was evil, which is similar to the Buddhist rejection of material things; it taught that the only way to salvation was through a secret knowledge (gnosis), which is probably parallel to the Buddhist "enlightenment".
Later on in the Roman period the missionaries may have gone in the opposite direction. The excavators at Berenike identified a number of religious structures in the town - shrines to the gods whose favour was sought by sailors or traders - but the largest of them all was the Christian church. There is, of course, the legend that St Thomas, the doubter among Jesus' disciples, travelled to India and suffered martyrdom there, but it is entirely possible that Christianity was spread and became rooted in south-west India thanks to the efforts, not of an Apostle, but through the life and witness of Christian sailors and traders.
black pepper The Greeks used pepper either as a medicine or as an offering to the gods. The Romans, however, although they used it in medicine and ritual, were also passionately fond of it in food. The collection of recipes known as Apicius calls for freshly ground pepper as an ingredient when preparing chicken, pine nut pudding, melon or honey desert. The mind - or rather, the taste buds - boggle! Return
something akin to awe There is probably a reference to these two Indians in St Paul's remark in 1 Corinthians 13, "Though I give my body to be burned - and have not love - I am nothing."Return
King Ashoka of India There was even a marriage arranged between Seleucus Nicator and Ashoka's aunt, as a means of stopping the fighting between the two kingdoms. Return
© Kendall K. Down 2009
