As far as history has recorded, human civilizations were first established at the site of the three great river valleys-- the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, and the Indus. What is not always remembered is that these three civilizations were in contact with and influenced one another.
The Mesopotamian civilization included Ashur (later known as Assyria), as well as Akkad and Sumer (the two together were later called Babylonia). In the north, human settlements began in the seventh millennium BC and in the south in the sixth, but it is only around 5500 BC that something like civilization emerges-- with magnificent sculpture and architecture, well-planned cities, and irrigation systems. At that time the three river valley civilizations were apparently in touch with one another.
A significant factor contributing to the prosperity of the flourishing Mesopotamian civilization was that the cities of Babylonia lay on the major overland route from the Mediterranean (including Egypt) to Iran and India. The Akkadian rulers policed this road: it was the channel through which the three river valley civilizations met and had mutual concourse. Sargon of Akkad (circa 23,34-2279 BC) and Hammurabi of Babylon (circa 1792-1750 BC), famous for his code of laws, were equally in touch with the Indus Valley Civilization to the east and with the Pharaonic civilization to the south. India has forgotten how much of its knowledge of mathematics and astronomy it owes to this Mesopotamian civilization with which it was in frequent contact.
Tiglath-pileser 111 (827-745 BC) and his successors functioned as rulers of Assyria as well as Babylon. They maintained contact with both the Indian and the Egyptian civilizations. Nineveh, the capital of Assyria-- then the great cultural centre of the world-- could be compared to Alexandria which came into prominence four or five centuries later. Its library was enormous and world famous until it was destroyed in the seventh century BC. Astronomy, mathematics, the science of agriculture, as well as myths and legends were freely exchanged among the three civilizations. Information regarding specific contacts between Egypt and India may not be available, but there can be little doubt that the three civilizations interacted with one another. In the language of Arnold Toynbee, the Mesopotamian valley was a "roundabout'' for civilizations "where traffic coming in from any point of the compass could be switched to any other point of the compass in any number of alternative combinations".
Though the Assyrians occupied Egypt in 671 BC, centuries earlier it was the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose I (1525-1495 BC) who entered Mesopotamia while driving out the Hyksos from Egypt. Thutmose 111 (1490-1436 BC) had also carried his campaigns right into the land of the rivers of Mesopotamia. During war or peace, contacts between Mesopotamia and Egypt were chiefly cultural, while the links between India and Mesopotamia were mostly in the sphere of trade and the exchange of knowledge. It was through the Mesopotamian ''roundabout'' that Egypt and India freely gave to and received from each other.
Herodotus states that the Persian Emperor Darius (sixth century BC), before invading India, sent Skylax the Maryandian on a voyage of discovery down the Indus. His thirty-month voyage took him from Kaspatyras down the river to its mouth and then on to the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. Skylax visited Africa, Asia, and Europe by sea. A Greek work, purporting to be by Skylax, has been dated to the time of King Philip of Macedonia (fourth century BC).
The Persians became very powerful and circa 500 BC, their empire enveloped parts of India as well as Egypt. In India the Magadhan kingdom of Bimbisara and Ajatasatru was expanding, and contacts with Babylonians and Greeks, as well as with Persians and Bactrians, were becoming quite common. Both Egypt and India were heavily influenced by Persian culture during the sixth and fifth centuries BC and in 543 BC the Nile became a part of the Persian empire. There ls no reason to believe that these two parts of the wide Persian empire had no dealings with each other.
Alexandria, Metropolis Of The World
Alexander, the Macedonian conqueror of the Persian empire, wittingly or unwittingly acted as a great force in the merging of the five cultures the Aegean, the Persian (Mesopotamian), the Jewish, the Indian, and the Egyptian. And one of the great melting-pots for these five cultures was the city which Alexander founded tn 351 BC on the delta of the Nile, and which Ptolemy Soter (Circa 367-285 BC) --friend and general of Alexander and the Macedonian satrap of Egypt from 323-285 BC-- built after Alexander's death. It is most superficial to think of Alexandria primarily as a Hellenic city with a Greek culture. There were no contemporary old-world civilizations that did not play their role in that great city.
Soon after its founding, Alexandra, the marvel of the Middle East became the centre of world culture. At some distance from the interior of the city was the famous harbour and the well-known Pharos (lighthouse). The city Itself was in three sectors, the Egyptian sector Rhakotis to the west, the Jewish sector to the east, and the Greek and official sector called Brucheion, in the middle. The museum (university) and the library provided sources for knowledge which the whole world sought. At least a hundred research scholars from all over the world carried on work in the humanities and the sciences. Were some of them Indians? Did the library in Alexandria have some Indian manuscripts?
The Ptolemaic and Roman rulers were not merely patrons of culture; some of them rose to the pinnacle of scholarship themselves. Claudius Ptolemaeus (AD 151), known as Ptolemy, wrote the thirteen books of He Mathematike Suntaxis (The Mathematical Collection) which became the basis of cosmology, astronomy, and the calendar for all civilized nations for centuries till Copernicus presented his theories. Ptolemy was the Great Astronomer (ho megas astronomos), and it was his work that the ninth-century Arab astronomers adopted as the megiste or al-megist (the greatest). The last Ptolemaic ruler was Cleopatra, who virtually handed over Egypt to the Romans, circa 50 BC. These scholarly works of Alexandrian astronomers and mathematicians must have eventually found their way to India.
As far as cosmopolitan culture was concerned, Alexandria was way ahead of Rome and Athens. To Alexandria the Brahmins (if they traveled at all) and the Buddhist monks came in search of knowledge as well as to impart treasures of knowledge from their county. There were great teachers-- whether Indian or at least in part influenced by Indian thought-- such as Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus, who shaped the world culture of the time. The theories of Pythagoras and Plato, the Stoics and the Skeptics, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, Christians, Jews, Gnostics, and the followers of mystery religions, flourished side by side and the streams influenced one another. It is from this milieu that the fountain of knowledge sprang, and from which all-- Indians and Egyptians, Romans and Greeks, Persian and Arabs -- drank to their hearts' content.
It is interesting to consider some of these great personalities who either lived in Alexandria or influenced it, and see how wide their own cultural contacts ranged. Plato himself went to Egypt before establishing his Academy around 387 BC when Alexandria had not yet been founded. What Plato knew of India and China is not known, but there was no knowledge or knowledgeable person that Plato ignored. To take the instance of Pythagoras of Samos (sixth century BC) : he traveled extensively in the East and in Egypt before settling down to teach at Matapontum in southern Italy. It has been said that he received most of his basic ideas from India, including that of metempsychosis, or transmigration. Without Pythagoras there would be no Plato and, subsequently, no Western tradition.
There were several Pythagorean communities in Egypt as early as the fifth century BC. The best known are the Therapeutai or the community of strict Jewish ascetics who, according to Philo's de Vita Contemplativa, seem to have followed a rule that was a blend of Pythagoras and Plato, Buddha and Moses. Eusebius, a church historian, thought they were Christian sects; they were in fact the product of Alexandrian Judaism in vital interaction with Pythagoras.
Who, indeed, was Pythagoras, the great contemporary of Buddha? Is the parallelism between Pythagorean insistence on disciplined communities and the discipline, or vinaya, of the Buddhist Sanghas a pure coincidence in India? ls there any substance to the fanciful etymology of his name that it is Puttha (Buddha in Pali or Prakrit) of the Agora (assembly or market-place)? Was Ammonius Saccas, the teacher of Plotinus and Origen, really a disciple of Buddha whose name is a Greek version of "Muni Sakya'' -- a strange combination of Jain and Buddhist titles?
In any case, the teachings of the Neoplatonists and Nee-pythagoreans in Alexandria have a strong Indian colouring. Western thinkers stoutly deny the connections : one reason may be sheer reluctance to concede that the roots of Western civilization owe anything to India.
This much is known-- ammonius Saccas taught both Plotinus and origen that true wisdom came from the East, specifically, India. Plotinus' biographer, Porphyry the Syrian, has indicated clearly that Plotinus went from teacher to teacher until he found Ammonius Saccas. Ammonius told his disciples that they should go to India: Plotinus tried, but did not get much beyond Persia. The Indian element in Alexandria's spiritual culture may have come from many different sources.
One is aware that Ammonius told his disciples not to talk about their teacher at all2, extracting a promise from his students to that effect. This was what authentic Indian spiritual teachers also would have done. Had Ammonius traveled to India?
It is known that the Neo-Pythagorean sage and miracle worker Apollonius of Tyana (first century AD?), according to Flavius Philostratus who wrote his biography around AD 2203, had extensive conversations with visiting Indian sages and also traveled to India.
Also revealed is the fact that Bardaisanes (AD 154-222), the heretical (Gnostic?) Syrian hymn writer of Edessa who was very influential in Alexandria later, met sages and ambassadors from India who came to the court of Elagabalus4. Eusebius5, recounts the anecdote of a conversation between Socrates and a team of Indian sages. Such contacts among Greeks and Indians seem to have been much more common than is supposed.
The Buddhist and Brahmin travelers who came to Alexandria never seemed to have settled there; they must have gone back to their land. Though there are no records of their conversations with their people at home they must have transmitted to them some of the ideas they had imbibed in Alexandria. Indian culture was vibrant during the first few centuries of the Christian Era. Perhaps Alexandrian, particularly the Neo-pythagorean and Neoplatonist concepts, served as a contributory factor and astronomical and mathematical ideas may have filtered into Indian culture.
Alexandria cannot be regarded as purely Egyptian or purely Hellenic. It was a cosmopolitan centre where traders from all parts of the world, from countries along the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, met and exchanged goods and ideas. The Alexandrians sailed to different shores and traveled to different lands bringing the wonders of the world to their city. It was a cosmopolitan culture fed by many streams from all over the world, including India.
If Toynbee is to be believed, civilizations sometimes absorb many ideas and then go into hibernation. Centuries later, they come back to life, with the dormant ideas presented in a new potent form. Both the Indian and Egyptian civilizations have absorbed a vast array of ideas and cultures : at the moment they seem to be hibernating. Are they ready to be re-explored?
Notes
1. A.J. Toynbee, A Study of History vol. 2, abridged edition, Dell, New York, 1965/1971, p. 164.
2. Porphyry, Vita Plotini, 3.
3. F.C. Conybeare, ed., Vita Apollonji 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library, 1912.
4. Porphyry, de Abstinentia, iv, 17.
5. Praeparatio Evangelica xi. 3.28.