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The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ from the hidden recesses of the sky; he was created for Indra and was extolled. ** In that realm where there is perennial light, and where the heaven is placed, O Soma, send me to that deathless and immortal realm! Flow thou for Indra."*
These facts prove the pre-historic antiquity of the-trade of India with the West; it originated through Persia, Media, Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor with the exodus of the Aryan race from Central Asia, as the philologists infer, from the names of various spices, drugs, vegetables, stones, etc. We also know that the ship captains of Solomon and Hiram not only brought Indian apes, peacocks and sandal-wood to Palestine, they also brought their Sanskrit names. This was about 1000 B. C: The Assyrian monuments show that the rhinoceros and elephant were among the tribute offered to Shalmaneser II. (859-823 B.C.) The Greek historian Hekataios, of Miletus, (549-486 B. C.) speaks clearly of India. Herodotos, too, (450 B. C.) had some knowledge of India; and since Alexander's invasion (327 B.CC.) the knowledge of the Western nations about India has become a matter of history. After Alexander's death his empire was partitioned, and Bacteria and India fell eventually to Seleukos Nikator, the founder of the Assyrian monarchy, (323 B. C.) While Seleukos reigned in Syria from 312 to 280 B. C., Chandra Gupta reigned in the Gangetic valley from 316 to 292 B.C. In 312 B. C., Seleukos having recovered Babylon proceeded to re-establish his authority in Bacteria and the Punjab. After a war with Chandra Gupta, Seleukos ceded the Greek settlements to the Indian king and left; Megasthenes as an ambassador at the Gangetic court. : He also gave his daughter to Chandra Gupta in marriage.
We see, therefore, that, long before Jesus was horn, India had become a familiar topic with the Western people. Alexander had brought Greece and India face to face; his officers wrote
* Sir George Birdwood's Handbook
