India
India(see map: The Hellenistic world) This country had early trade connections with the Persian Gulf, but it remained unknown to Mediterranean peoples until the extension of the Persian empire to the Indus and the voyage of Darius' admiral Scylax down the Kabul and Indus rivers and perhaps round Arabia to Suez (Hecataeus, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 264 F 244–9; Herodotus 3. 98 ff., 4. 44). Even so, India remained a land of fable and wonders (as in the Indica of Ctesias, c.400 BC); it was believed to lie in the farthest east, yet Indians were confused with Ethiopians, and in popular belief India and Ethiopia formed one country. The conquests of Alexander the Great (327–325) brought more accurate knowledge of NW India as far as the river Hyphasis (Beas) and vague information about the Ganges valley and Sri Lanka; and the voyage of Nearchus reopened a sea...
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