Indo-Greeks

The Indo-Greek kingdom is formed with the invasion of Greeks in the Indian subcontinent with the focus on Graeco-Bactrians, which is centred on Bactria. From the 2nd century BC to the beginning of the first century AD, the Indo-Greek kingdom was controlled by over 30 Hellenistic (Greek) kings in northwest and north India. Around 180 BC, Graeco-Bactrian king Demetrius (son of Euthydemus I) conquered India and founded the kingdom. The analysis of their ideology, legacy and historical background helps to develop the idea of their importance in cultural mix in Indian subcontinent. 

Who were indo Greek? 

By the early 2nd century BCE, the Bactrian Greeks had settled in the Hindu Kush region to the south. Between the 2nd century BCE and the early 1st century CE, Indo-Greeks were a tribe of Bactrian Greeks that dominated over northwestern India. Northern India was divided into various kingdoms after the Mauryas fell out of favour. The Sungas ascended to dominance in the Magadha area around 185 BC. After it, the Kanvas rose to prominence, only to be defeated by the Deccan-born Satavahanas. Powers from Central Asia and the northwest were continually attacking northwest India. When the Graeco-Bactrian king Demetrius invaded the Indian subcontinent in 180 BC, the Indo-Greek or Graeco-Indian Kingdom was formed.

Background history of Indo Greek

During the Persian Achaemenid kingdom, Greeks began to inhabit the Northwestern section of the Indian subcontinent. Darius the Great not only conquered the region, but he and his successors also conquered most of the Greek world, which encompassed the entire western Anatolian peninsula at the time (which would someday be Turkey). In Bactria, Alexander founded various colonies, including Alexandria on the Oxus (modern Ai-Khanoum) and Alexandria of the Caucasus (medieval Kapisa, modern Bagram). Seleucus I Nicator, who built the Seleucid Empire, took control of Bactria after Alexander’s death in 323 BC. The Maurya Dynasty in India was deposed in 185 BC when Pushyamitra Shunga, the commander-in-chief of Mauryan Imperial armies and a Brahmin, killed Brihadratha, the last of the Mauryan emperors. After that, Pushyamitra Shunga rose to the throne and formed the Shunga Empire, which ruled as far west as Punjab.

Ideology

The Indo-Greek rulers promoted Buddhism, and their rule, particularly that of Menander, is remembered as compassionate. Although direct evidence is lacking, it has been suggested that their invasion of India was intended to demonstrate their support for the Mauryan Empire, which may have had a long history of marital alliances, gift exchanges, and displays of friendship, ambassador exchanges, and religious missions with the Greeks. According to the historian Diodorus, the monarch of Pataliputra had “great fondness for the Greeks.” The Greek expansion into India may have been aimed to preserve Greek people in India as well as the Buddhist faith from the Shungas’ religious persecutions.

Legacy of Indo-Greeks

Apart from a brief invasion by the Indo-Parthian Kingdom, the Greek communities of central Asia and the northwestern Indian subcontinent were under the rule of the Kushan branch of the Yuezhi from the 1st century AD. The Kushans established the Kushan Empire, which flourished for centuries. The Greeks were ruled by the Western Kshatrapas in the south. The Kalash of the Chitral Valley claim to be Indo-Greeks’ descendants, though this is debatable.

The Indo-Greeks may have had a religious influence as well, particularly in respect to Mahayana Buddhism, which was developing at the time. The form of Buddhism that seems to have originated in the Greco-Buddhist communities of India, through a conflation of the Greek Democritean–Sophistic–Pyrrhonist tradition with the rudimentary and unformalised empirical and sceptical elements already present in early Buddhism, regardless of how Hinduism its later forms became.

Conclusion

From the discussion, it is seen that the kingdom has flourished under the Greek rule, which expanded and came into the Indian subcontinent affecting its culture, economy, beliefs and legacy. Following the invasions of the Indo-Scythians in 10 AD, the Indo-Greeks as a political entity vanished, while pockets of Greek populations likely lingered for several centuries longer under the dominion of the Indo-Parthians and Kushans.