The Persian (Achaemenid) Invasion of India

Cyrus the Great is the likely first conqueror of Gandhara. Darius I added the Indus valley around 515 BCE.

1. Who took Gandhara first?

Gandhara was the old name of the Kabul river valley. The Persians called it Gandara. Livius says the Persians invaded it under Cyrus the Great, who ruled from 559 to 530 BCE.

No ancient source describes that conquest. Historians still treat it as certain. Darius I lists Gandara among the lands he inherited. He says so in his Behistun inscription.

So the order is simple. Cyrus won the land. Darius kept it and then pushed on to the Indus.

2. How did Darius reach the Indus?

Darius I sent a sea captain named Scylax of Caryanda to explore the Indus. Herodotus says Scylax sailed down the river to the sea. Livius dates that voyage to about 515 BCE.

Herodotus adds that Darius conquered the Indians after the voyage. By 512 BCE India was part of the empire. Livius reasons this from the dates of the Persian lists.

The Persian king probably spent a winter in Gandara. He prepared there for the war in India. Livius says we know little about the campaign itself.

3. How much of India did Persia rule?

Persia ruled only the north-west. Its lists name two Indian lands. One is Gandara, the Kabul valley. The other is Hindush, the southern Indus valley.

No list names a land on the Ganges. So this was a frontier conquest, not a conquest of all India.

Livius notes that Gandara controlled the road from the Indus valley to eastern Iran. That made it very valuable to the Persians.

Several passes across the Hindu Kush also lay just north of the Ghorband river. They led on to Bactria. A ruler of Gandara therefore held the gateway between India, Iran and Central Asia.

Livius names one satrap of Gandara in these years. He was Megabazus. He had been fighting in Europe after 513 BCE.

India paid tribute in silver and gold dust, and sent soldiers to the Persian army.

4. What did Gandhara pay?

Herodotus lists the tax districts of the Persian empire. Gandhara sat in the seventh district. The district also held the Sattagydians, the Dadicae and the Aparytae.

Together the four peoples paid 170 talents. A talent is a unit of weight used for tribute. So Gandhara paid only a share of the 170 talents.

Livius calls this seventh district the poorest. Do not mix it up with the Indians, who sat in the twentieth district.

5. What did Hindush pay?

The Indians paid the biggest tribute of any district. They formed the twentieth district. They paid 360 talents of gold dust.

Herodotus says the Indians were more numerous than any nation he knew. Their payment was the greatest of all.

Livius links this to the gold of the Indus. A relief at Persepolis shows a man from Sindhu carrying gold. Livius also says the Persian daric coin began after 515 BCE.

The lists of lands help with dating. The Persepolis terrace list names Indus, the southern Indus valley. Livius says this proves the conquest came before Persepolis was founded. It also came much earlier than the invasion of Europe in 513 BCE.

6. Did Indians fight for Persia?

Yes. Indian soldiers marched with Xerxes when he invaded Greece in 480 BCE. Herodotus describes them in his list of the army.

The Indians wore cotton clothes. He calls it tree-wool. They carried reed bows and iron-tipped reed arrows. Their commander was Pharnazathres.

Gandarian and Dadican troops marched too. They shared one commander named Artyphius. They had the same gear as the Bactrians.

Gandara gave goods as well as soldiers. Livius says yaka-wood from Gandara and Carmania was carried to Susa. It was used in a new palace there.

Persian rule left a script. Aramaic came to Gandhara, and Kharosthi grew from it.

7. How did Aramaic reach Gandhara?

The Persians used Aramaic for official records. Aramaic was written in a north Semitic script.

World History says the Persians took control of Gandhara and the Indus between the late 6th and early 5th century BCE. They brought Aramaic with them.

Clerks used it for tax and orders across the empire. Scribes in Gandhara met it as part of daily government work.

8. What is Kharosthi, and where is it first seen?

Kharosthi is a script for Gandhari. Gandhari was a Prakrit spoken in Gandhara. The script adapts the north Semitic letters used for Aramaic.

Andrew Glass says it is almost certainly related to Aramaic. It probably grew while Aramaic was the office script of the region.

Its oldest clear examples are Ashoka’s edicts at Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi, dated to about 250 BCE. Those two sites are in northern Pakistan.

Other Ashokan edicts nearby used Aramaic at Lampaka and Greek at Taxila. In the rest of India, Ashoka’s edicts used Brahmi.

9. Where do Persian kings name India in stone?

Darius I names Gandara and India in his tomb inscription. The tomb is at Naqsh-i Rustam in Iran.

The text is called DNa. In it Darius lists the lands he took outside Persia. Both Gandara and India appear on the list. The Old Persian form for India is Hidush.

The Behistun inscription also names Gandara. Its list runs to twenty-three lands in all. So Darius counted these lands as his own from early in his reign.

Remember three pairs: Cyrus and Darius, Gandhara and Hindush, Aramaic and Kharosthi.

10. What is the quick comparison?

• Cyrus: likely took Gandhara. No source describes it.
• Darius I: inherited Gandara, then took the Indus valley by 512 BCE.
• Gandhara: seventh district. 170 talents shared by four peoples.
• Hindush: twentieth district. 360 talents of gold dust.
• Xerxes, 480 BCE: Indian soldiers in cotton, with reed bows.
• Kharosthi: grew from Aramaic. First clear in Ashoka’s edicts.

Watch for one trap. The 170 talents were paid by four peoples together. The 360 talents were paid by the Indians alone.