Cultural Contacts with Egypt

All through the ages, the peoples of India have had active intercourse with the other peoples of the world. Since the days of Mohenjo daro culture, the Hindus have never lived in an alleged "splendid isolation." It is generally assumed that internationalism or cosmopolitism is a very recent phenomenon in human affairs. As a matter of fact, however, culture has ever been international.

The dawn of human civilization finds the Hindus as captains of industry and entrepreneurs of commerce. They were in touch with the Pharaohs of Egypt. The mummies of the Egyptians were wrapped in muslin which was imported from India. Hindu trade gave to the land of the Nile ivory, gold, spices, tamarind-wood, sandal-wood, monkeys, and other characteristic Indian plants and animals. It is also believed that the textile craftsmen of Egypt dyed their cloth with Hindu indigo. Hindu ships brought the Indian commodities to the Arabian ports, or to the Land of Punt; and from there these were transported to Luxor, Karnak and Memphis.

Hindu commerce with the land of the Euphrates was more intimate and direct. As early as about 3000 B.C. the Hindus supplied the Chaldean city of Ur on the Euphrates with teak-wood. The Assyrians also, like the Egyptians, got their muslin from India. In fact, vegetable "wool", i.e. cotton, and wool producing plants have been some of the earliest gifts of Hindu merchants to the world. From the tenth to the sixth century B.C. the Assyro-Babylonian trade of the Hindus seems to have been very brisk. Hindus brought with them apes, elephants, cedar, teak, peacocks, tigers, rice, ivory, and other articles to Babylon, the Rome of Western Asia. It was through this Indo-Mesopotamian trade that the Athenians of the sixth century B.C. came to know of rice and peacocks.

This expansion of Hindu activity influenced the literature of the time, e.g. the Vedas and Jatakas. A cylinder seal of about 2,000 B.C. bearing cuneiform inscriptions and images of Chaldean deities have been unearthed in Central India. In Southern India has been found a Babylonian sarcophagus.

Hindu trade with the Hebrews also was considerable. Soloman (1015 B.C), King of Judaea, was a great internationalist. In order to promote the trade of his land he set up a port at the head of the right arm of the Red Sea. He made his race the medium of intercourse between Phoenicians and Hindus. The port of Ophir (in Southern India) is famous in Hebrew literature for its trade in gold under Soloman. The Books of Genesis, Kings and Ezekiel indicate the nature and amount of Hindu contact with Asia Minor. It is held by Biblical scholars that the stones in the breast plate of the high priest may have come from India. The Hindus supplied also the demand of Syria for ivory and ebony. The Hebrew word, tuki (peacock), is derived from Tamil (South Indian) tokei, and ahalin (aloe) from aghil.