In fact, the cultural roots between India and West Asia point towards some of the stark similarities between them because no other country in the Asian continent have had as long and sustained historical engagement with the West Asia as that of India and that underlines the significance of present day relevance of their mutual relations which make their historic meeting unique and unparalleled.
Introduction:
Asia as a whole, as well as each of its constituent sub-regions, is extraordinarily heterogeneous regarding geography, climate, economy, social and cultural traditions as well as societal composition and culture.
Delineating the exact boundaries of the various “regions” or “sub-regions” comprising Asia continues to be a subject of intense debate among scholars. The difficulty of clearly differentiating one region from another is not surprising. After all, over the centuries, peoples, goods, languages and customs have crisscrossed the continent mainly as the result of conquest and commerce.
Through the ages, there have been several periods of heightened contact and various types of interactions between India and West Asia. They have left a lasting legacy.
India’s complex relations with the region:
As relations been India and West Asia revolve around different aspects like social, cultural, economic, religion, arts & literature, architecture, trade and science, and technology, etc., their mutual interplay and consequent thematic details will be highly pertinent here to substantiate the argument that both India and West Asia really enjoy the true social and cultural relations since ages and the so-evolved cultural legacy today is a rich treasure for the present and coming generations of both the regional units. They are being described here as under:
Socio-economic Relations:
India’s links with the West Asia by land as well as sea routes goes back to very ancient times. These ties between the two cultural zones consolidated gradually with fast spreading social, economic and cultural interactions between the two societies. Though the idea of nation was not yet developed, then it soon became particularly close with the rise of and spread of Islam and Islamic Civilization in West Asia. The fruitful cultural intercourse between India and West Asia is quite manifest in many aspects that one can see here how the Islamic world has been enriched as a result of these interactions. In fact, the Arabs admired with keen interest many other aspects of Indian culture and civilization as well. They translated several Indian works spread over a wide variety of subjects but did not remain satisfied with only the translations and went on to work out original compositions based on or derived from the treatises they translated. The other fields of Indian knowledge they studied included works on snake poison, veterinary art, and books on logic, philosophy, ethics, politics, and science of war. In this process, their vocabulary was also enriched considerably. For instance, in the field of shipping, of which they were renowned masters, one can quickly identify some Arabic words that had Indian origin; HOURTI (a small boat) from hort; banari from baniya or Vanik; donij from dongi, etc. are some of the examples in this respect.
About the economic relations between them, one can find several accounts from mid-ninth century by the Arab and other travelers such as Sulaiman the merchant, Al-Masudi, Ibn-Hnqual, Al Idrisi, etc., which testify the existence of a flourishing commercial exchange between the both. Evidence for a very active interaction in the cultural spheres including marital relations, however, goes back to the eighth century and earlier. The Great India Emperor Chandra Gupta Maurya had been married to Helena the daughter of Seleucus, a resident of Syria and was the commander of Alexander the Great.
Customs and traditions:
Even the advent of Muslims and Islam into India was through this region which has today evolved as the Hindu-Muslim or Ganga-Jamuni tehzib or a culture of mixed etiquettes and courtesy paving the way for the emergence of Sufism and other liberal-humanist Muslim sects in India and such liberal sects like Wahabi in West Asia. Besides these, many social rituals of both the societies manifest many common features as regards social intercourse like common assembly for deliberations on social and political issues, marriage proceedings, usage of household utensils, birth and death ceremonies and rituals towards dead ancestors who exist as gentle spirits before their salvation. Similarly, evil spirits supposed to be living as violent and ferocious volatile entities like bhoot, preta, pishcha, zinna, churail, etc. and rituals for different postures of Indian Yoga and Muslim method of their religious observance, i.e., “namaz” etc. have many things common between them.
Religion:
Consequently, many religious rituals including religious symbols of both the societies do reflect several commonalities between them. The Aryan diety ‘agni’ occupies the second important place among Vedic dev-mandal ( a group of gods), and that also figures prominently in Zoroastrianism as manifested in Zend-Avesta. The Boguz qui inscriptions from this region (Middle East) have close similarities with Indian Vedic deities viz. Varuna, Indra, Mitra, and Nasatya. Even the advent of Aryans into India is supposed to be from the Middle East, according to an excellent historian Max Muller and that obviously points towards a fact of the prevailing commercial exchange between the two societies.
Trade relations:
In fact, India and West Asia has had pre-historical ties since trade relations were established between the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Indus Valley & Harrapa. But these relations have deeper roots too as both of them have strong economic and commercial ties coming down since ages. One of mankind’s oldest maritime trading routes ran from ancient Sumeria via Bahrain to the Indus Valley civilization and Harappa, arguably called meluhha by West Asians, was one of their active trading partners. In fact, the British imperial interests on Persian Gulf were preserved through India and at that time countries like Kuwait and Oman used rupee as genuine tender for exchanging commodities and goods in normal human chores. There may still have been a modicum of the Copper trade with West Asia of which the Black and Red Wares (BRW) cultures of Rajasthan and Kathiawar was the inheritor. The movement into Narmada Valley may also have been in continuation of an earlier source of timber and carnelian for the West Asian trade.1
Architecture:
One of the most common features between the two cultures lies in the common architectural designs of both the societies manifested in making of domes, roof arches, decorations on house walls and doors etc.. However, if chalcolithic BRW with Yadava lineage be made acceptable it raises its problems, namely that the Yadavas were unlikely to have been Indo-European speakers. The occurrence of black and red wares in ancient middle-east is not associated with Indo-European speakers. Similar pottery is found in Egypt and Nubia (going back to IVth millennia BC), and some traces in the Arabian Peninsula have been suggested, says S. P. Gupta.2 They manifest themselves still today in different ways as regards common dress style, architecture and sculptures – particularly elevation of domes, pillars, erection of arches and burial monuments including pyramids etc. – musical rhymes and notes, religious ritual and practices etc.. In fact, it was India which contributed the number system and so were the West Asians who developed the counting method of numbers in the world. Thus, there is a long history of intellectual, political and commercial interactions which has left an indelible imprint on the Indian and West Asian cultures. The process of acculturation can perhaps be more clearly visualized concerning the Black and Red Wares (BRW) cultures and potteries. The association of BRW cultures shreds with late Harappan levels. In the same site and its subsequent diffusions have made it a carrier of Harappan Survivals to a far greater extent than the cultures contemporary with that of Harappa in the upper Sravasti and upper Doab. In the case of BRW, there was no hiatus either. The movement of white painted BRW culture along the Copper note in Rajasthan may further suggest the same despite the decline and fall of the Harappan cities. And that link became more prominent during the medieval period when art, architecture, and literature of both sides fused to take the so evolved cultural heritage to higher levels.
Medicines and Science & Technology:
Some Arab sources dating back to the tenth and thirteenth centuries informs us about several Indian works on medicines and therapeutics that were rendered into Arabic at the behest of the Caliph-Harun-al-Rashid, the ruler of Baghdad from AD 286 to AD 809. Indian scholars were also involved in these translations. For instance, SUSHRUTA SAMHITA was translated into Arabic by an Indian scholar called Mankh. In the field of Astronomy, two famous works viz. the Brahama-Sphuta-Siddhant better known to the Arab world as Sindluin and Khandakhadyak (known as Arkand) were brought to Baghdad by embassies from Sindh with the help of Indian Scholars of these embassies. They were translated into Arabic by Alfarari, who probably also assisted ‘YAKUB IUN TARIK.’ Later Aryabhatta and Varahmihira’s works also studied and incorporated into the scientific literature of the Arabs. Another contribution of India to Arab civilization was mathematics. The Arabs acknowledged their debts to India by calling mathematics ‘HINDISA” (about India), Indian mathematics was, in fact, their favorite field of study and discussions; its popularity is enhanced by the works of Alkindi among others. They were quick to appreciate the revolutionary character of the decimal system with its concept of zero. A contemporary Syrian scholar had paid a glowing tribute to it: “I wish only to say that this computation is done using nine signs. If those who believe because they speak Greek, that they have reached the limits of science knew these things, they would be convinced that there are also others who know something.”
Thus all these ancient historical sources testify that India did share a long and profound historical relationship with West Asia as India’s manifold relations with the West Asian countries evolved against this backdrop. In medieval times, comments a noted scholar M.S. Agwani; “the Indian expertise in medicine, mathematics, and astronomy was highly valued by Arab and Iranian scholars who eventually made it part of their intellectual tradition. Conversely, India imbibed a great deal from the Arab, Iranian and Turkish cultures; and much of it has become an inextricable part of the Indian cultural ethos. The intrusion of European Powers in Asia in the nineteenth century snapped some of these links but that only temporarily. Finally, their common resistance to colonial rule in the first half of this century brought the Indians, the Arabs, and the Iranians closer to one another in their historic endeavor to become masters of their destinies. And it is on these foundations that the whole edifice of political, economic and cultural relations between India and the West Asia has been built”3, during decades after the independence of the country.
Conclusion:
Today the West Asian region occupies a very prominent position in India not only economically and strategically but also culturally as well. Because all the persisting common features of their mutual relations between India and West Asia provide the solid foundation today upon which the entire fulcrum of various social, religious, economic and other miscellaneous relations have evolved to prosper. And it is no mere coincidence that the region is home to more than 7 million Indians, who contribute around US$ 40 billion in remittances annually. Fortunately, the West Asian region is a source for more than 60 percent of India’s oil and gas requirements, and hence critical for its energy security. In the same way, the Maghreb region is a primary source of phosphate and other fertilizers, also a significant factor as regards India’s food security. Unfortunately, the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq due to an unprecedented surge of ISIS have put the region in a state of flux and uncertainty. India’s position remains guided by its long-cherished goals of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, and it maintains friendly and constructive cordial relations with all the countries of the region. Thus India has been able to retain its friendly and progressive ties with the West Asian region, and that has been contributing towards establishing and maintaining peace, progress, and security of not only the two distinct cultures but that of entire humanity.
Notes:
Thapar Romila (1975), “A possible Identification of Meluha, Dilmuin, and Makan”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. XVIII, Part-1, P 30.
Gupta S. P., ‘Gulf of Oman: The Original Home of Indian Megalitis’, Puratattva, 1970-71, No. 4, P. 7
Agwani, M. S. (2015), Indo -West Asian relations: Towards expanding horizons, India Today, New Delhi, April 2