The interactions between the Indian and Greek civilizations during the fourth century BCE and later have been quite well studied, and what the article describes is not surprising.
For some context, the emperor Ashoka, scion of the Maurya empire, consolidated various smaller republics into an empire that covered most of Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan of today. These areas bordered the regions that were controlled by the Greeks at the time. Ashoka's time was one of consolidation and relative peace, people were more mobile, trade and cultural exchange flourished.
This article [1] sheds a little more light on the story. In fact, the visual image & depictions of the Buddha had significant Greek influence, the first images of the Buddha apparently surfaced outside India centuries after his death. The common depiction with curly hair was most probably not what the historical Buddha looked like [2].
> Most modern scholars believe he was most likely born sometime around 480 BC or thereabouts in Śākya Gaṇarājya, an oligarchic state in the northern Indian subcontinent and he most likely died sometime around 400 BC or thereabouts.
Siddhartha Gautama was born in present day Nepal, in the city of Kapilvastu in the Lumbini region. There are archaeological remains of the palace where he was born along with scriptures explicitly matching the origins and design.
The article also goes to great lengths to emphasize a lot of details are nebulous, however they are documented well since the Buddha was a royal prince. For that reason not sure where the idea that the depiction of Chinese Buddha should be accurate is insinuated either.
Śākya Gaṇarājya translates to English as Shakya Republic and that is actually correct. Kapilavastu was the capital of the Republic/Oligarchy of the Shakya clan. Buddha's father was the elected chief at the time of his birth. This is why one of his epithets is Shakyamuni ("muni" means sage so sage of the Shakyas.)
Strictly speaking Buddha was not a royal price but scion of an aristocratic family. As a comparison think of someone born in a patrician family of Rome when his father is a Consul of Rome. The Wikipedia article has good details about the Shakyas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakya
> Strictly speaking Buddha was not a royal price but scion of an aristocratic family.
Is that so?
It was propheised at his birth (so the legend goes) that he would either become an enlightened teacher, or a "wheel-turning" world monarch (chakravartin). That doesn't prove he wasn't a royal prince, but then I guess I'm not sure exactly what a "prince" is.
Prince is the son of a monarch. A monarch is the sole ruler (mono = one).
In an oligarchy you can still have powerful military rulers "whose chariot wheels roll everywhere"
To continue the comparison with the Roman republic. Consuls where great leaders bestowed with great power and honoured for their military successes. The Roman republic had a taboo of monarchy, one that Caesar himself played with dangerously and which got him killed.
Yabbut in some circumstances, a "prince" is effectively a king. I'm thinking of the princes in the Holy Roman Empire; they paid fealty to the Emperor, formally; but they were the masters of all they surveyed. And the word "prince" in literature often seems to mean exactly the same as "king".
Well if we want to dig in the etymology then princeps meant the first in the order (in battle) of the soldiers. This was used during the Roman republic and the connotation was indeed that the first soldiers were the best, more experienced ones Over time Romans realized that it was more effective to not deploy their best soldiers first and so the princeps (the best most experienced soldiers) were in the back.
additionally this history is supported by the Ashoka stamba erected at the historical birth site of the Buddha in Kapilvastu, Nepal as well. you will find though a recently inaugurated Kapilvastu city in India, and one can speculate around why :)
Ashoka was anything but peace-loving before the Kalinga war, the bloodiest war fought on the subcontinent. It was because of this war, Ashoka converted to Buddhism.
That would indeed be a bad look for a Buddhist, to fight such a violent war. Any sources which specifically say he was a Buddhist before the Kalinga war?
"On the other hand, the Sri Lankan tradition suggests that Ashoka was already a devoted Buddhist by his 8th regnal year, converted to Buddhism during his 4th regnal year, and constructed 84,000 viharas during his 5th–7th regnal years.[89] The Buddhist legends make no mention of the Kalinga campaign.[91]
Based on Sri Lankan tradition, some scholars, such as Eggermont, believe Ashoka converted to Buddhism before the Kalinga war.[92] Critics of this theory argue that if Ashoka were already a Buddhist, he would not have waged the violent Kalinga War. Eggermont explains this anomaly by theorising that Ashoka had his own interpretation of the "Middle Way".[93]
Some earlier writers believed that Ashoka dramatically converted to Buddhism after seeing the suffering caused by the war since his Major Rock Edict 13 states that he became closer to the dhamma after the annexation of Kalinga.[91] However, even if Ashoka converted to Buddhism after the war, epigraphic evidence suggests that his conversion was a gradual process rather than a dramatic event.[91] For example, in a Minor Rock Edict issued during his 13th regnal year (five years after the Kalinga campaign), he states that he had been an upasaka (lay Buddhist) for more than two and a half years, but did not make much progress; in the past year, he was drawn closer to the sangha and became a more ardent follower.[91]"
On the contrary, Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism after Kalinga war is told in Ashoka's edicts, which I think is just too convenient. But then, Sri Lanka has had historical wars with Hindu kings from India, so that is there...
At the end, I should not have spoken so authoritative.
For anyone wondering, there’s no connection between the Roman Garum (a sort of fish sauce that was very common in Roman cuisine) and Garam Masala—-I believe Garam simply means ‘hot’ (as in ‘hot spice’) in Hindi, and so bears no etymological history with Rome.
> Garam masala is a blend of spices that are lightly roasted. The "garam"/hot refers to this roasting.
That is incorrect. Garam does indeed mean hot, but individual spices in garama masala don't need to be roasted, in fact I believe most, if not all, of them are not roasted, rather simply ground together.
The garam refers to the taseer (in Ayurvedic terms) of the spice blend, as in is it cooling (such as fennel is cooling), or is it warm (such as black pepper is warm/hot) to the body.
Almost all, if not all, of the ingredients of garam masala are warming to the body.
AFAIK `taseer` isn't Ayurvedic term. `Prakruti/Nature-of-food` might be more appropriate word.
Most of the spices are indeed lightly roasted before grinding to bring out more flavor. It may differ regionally and may be based on grinding method. Grinding can generate heat as well.
Additional fact: Many regions have specific blends:
* Bengalis use punch-pooraN masala,
* Marathi / Maharashtrians use KaLa (black) masala also called as goda (gauDa) masala and many other regional blends.
Huh. TIL. The (Hindu) woman who taught me a few Indian recipes told me that the spices in garam masala were always pre-roasted, with the exception of the nutmeg.
You should try toasting all your spices before you grind and mix them: It only takes a few extra minutes and it adds so much extra flavour, I really miss it when the spices aren't toasted. Seriously. Google search how to toast spices, it could change your life.
If you're buying powder this has either already happened or it is too late.
To confirm, by toasting I'm assuming you're referring to dry toasting and not in oil or ghee.
Given that, there are spices that are toasted and some which are not.
For example, toasted cumin is just divine, toasted clove is also interesting. However, I'm not sure if say black pepper, black and green cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves etc. are ever toasted, at least we haven't tried that. Perhaps I should experiment one of these days..
Moreover, even with cumin, toasted cumin serves different purpose than regular cumin. Regular cumin is added in oil/ghee, while toasted powdered cumin in used as is. Most of the spices are anyway cooked in ghee or oil which enhances flavor.
Also, with garam masala, we use both whole (as a mixture of whole spices) as well as ground.
> there are spices that are toasted and some which are not.
No, I'm telling you that you can toast all of them, and you might like it.
> For example, toasted cumin is just divine, toasted clove is also interesting. However, I'm not sure if say black pepper, black and green cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves etc. are ever toasted, at least we haven't tried that.
I suggest you try it.
Black cardamom and cinnamon definitely both toast nicely.
Tej patta is a herb, not a spice.
I don't think dry heat is quite such an easy win with herbs as it is with spices.
> Also, with garam masala, we use both whole (as a mixture of whole spices) as well as ground.
Sure. People make garam masala all sorts of ways: Do whatever makes you happy. I'm just suggesting you try something awesome, not trying to tell you or anyone else "what" garam masala is.
I don’t know. Is a raw onion as good as a nice caramelised one? Maybe some people think they’re just different. Maybe it’s like coke and pepsi. Maybe they taste no difference at all. Or maybe just with some spices. Maybe some people even like the mix of toasted and non-toasted. Whatever their preference it is because it’s their preference, and so that’s the recipe they hand down to their kids.
I’m just saying you should try the caramelised onion, and don’t just stick to the raw ones because that’s the recipe you know.
I don't believe this is a good analogy. The amount of sugars in an onion is definitely not the same as in a seed of the cilantro plant for example. So the reactants would be different and so would be the product. This is evident by the amount of time needed for cooking, where to caramelize an onion takes a relatively long time. I think toasting spices can vaguely round out flavors, but doesn't really bring about a dramatic change.
Can’t say about others, but with cumin it makes a huge difference.
But, again, we use ground fresh toasted cumin as is, usually sprinkled on the top of dishes. While, regular cumin is cooked with oil/ghee. Cooking toasted cumin will char/burn it.
“Always” is a stretch. Like the other commenter mentioned, “garam” just refers to the type of spices used. These spices would be referred to as “garam masala” even if kept whole and unroasted. Some recipes call for tempering whole pieces of garam masala directly in oil instead of adding powdered garam masala at a later stage in cooking.
The reason most people will use powdered garam masala is that it is much more efficient. A little powder can provide similar flavor as many whole spices.
> Huh. TIL. The (Hindu) woman who taught me a few Indian recipes told me that the spices in garam masala were always pre-roasted, with the exception of the nutmeg.
> Maybe it's a regional thing?
It's regional insofar as the exact constituents of garam masala are regional - nutmeg, for example, is a pretty regional one and not super widespread.
It can be roasted, raw, or ground, depending on which stage you're using it in.
Yes, correct. Just to add, things with hot taseer are recommended to be eaten in winter, to stay warm (not temperature wise), and cool things in summer.
One of my childhood memories is eating a lot of mangoes (which is hot) in one sitting in summer (which is when mangoes are available), and them getting nose bleed (because its hot). Worth it :)
This nosebleed stuff: Is there any proven science behind it? I hear it from Chinese people also. I never believe it. Supposedly, fresh lychee fruits are "super hot". I can eat a huge bunch. No ill effects -- including nose bleeds. Many non-Chinese laugh when I tell this story -- "me too".
I don't know about science, but this has happened to me multiple times in life at different ages. The common scenario with all of them is that there's a bucket full of ice water & suckable mangoes (the one you don't cut, you just bite and make a hole, and then press the mango & let it ooze from that hole), its summer, and I am under a shade in open, in around afternoon or high sun, and I eat 10-12 of mangoes, I will feel the blood flowing through nostrils, and it will start dripping. If I eat 2-3, then no nose bleed. No nose bleed ever in life.
I wonder how much overlap there is between substances that are considered hot/cold in ayurvedic vs traditional Chinese medicine. I think mangoes are considered cold (阴) in Chinese, though they are relatively recent to their experience.
I'm curious: is there any correlation between the perceived spiciness of a blend and the taseer, or is the designation based moreso on observations on when it is appropriate to eat them (e.g., someone noticed that it was better to eat something in winter, or people tended to eat something in winter and so designated the spice as having high taseer)?
Taseer is of anything, not exclusively only of spices. Warm milk raises body's temperature, so hot, so is mango fruits dipped in ice water. So is dry fruits eaten at room temperature. Cold milk with half water, and some ice cubes is of cold taseer. Mint drinks are cold, so if rubbing mustard oil on forehead & foot soles. Rubbing ghee or almond oil is hot taseer.
Taseer is not based on spiciness or taste, it is based on how one's body temperature changes after consuming that food.
To add, there is also a concept of acidic & base foods. If one has too much of base foods, like one day old lentils, or gourds, one may feel like having sticky spit, or white crust of lips, or sore throat. The home remedy is to have a thick soup of dried ginger, onions & black pepper. This balances the body acid back to ph7 levels.
The whole idea of acidic/basic foods is not grounded on the scientific meaning of basic/acidic.
Food considered to be "acidic" often has no particularly low pH, and vice versa. And most of all: you can't influence your body's pH (i.e. blood) by eating something specific. You would be dead immediately if this was possible.
The pH of your stomach content might vary if you just ate, but your body will create the acid by itself. As soon as you see food.
There might be still something to whole acidic/basic idea, but it has nothing to do with pH ;)
Its been a while since I last went into a deep dive about this, but i think the term did exist before. Black pepper, other spices, as well as ginger or garlic can add "heat" to a dish without chili peppers.
Fresh peppercorns certainly retain their heat during cooking. They are occasionally used in Thai stir-fries. If you eat enough, you will get crazy effects 4-12 hours later: The palms of your hands and bottom of your feet will tingle. It's wild.
Also, chillis lose some heat with cooking. Again: From Thai cooking, fresh chillis are used sparingly as a topping, but Bird's Eye chillis can be used in a stir fry enough to kill a small child (joke, but they can use a lot).
It's funny; the ambiguity of English "hot" makes it difficult to even think clearly about the different kinds of hotness. Ginger and garlic can produce similar sensations of hotness to what you get with chilli; I sometimes make a Nepalese-style lamb "curry" that has no chilli or pepper in it. It's very mild, but you could be forgiven for thinking it's flavoured with chilli.
It seems to be because the sensation induced in the mouth is literally that of heat. I remember Adam Ragusea on his excellent YouTube channel pointing out that capsaicin makes the mouth much more sensitive to temperature. So funnily enough, the sensation of something being too hot temperature-wise, and something being spicy is pretty much the same thing. It's also why cold water seems to help for a bit, but does nothing to eliminate the effects of the capsaicin as opposed to something like milk.
There's 'spicy', but then it can also be ambiguous (unless your tolerance is really low) with something that is full of flavourful spice notes but without the, er, heat.
I'm not sure Hindi does either though? Garam is certainly ambiguous.
So interesting to see William Dalyrumple pop up on HN. He has been writing fascinating history books for decades, particularly about India. He’s currently hosting a podcast called Empire[1] (season 1: British Empire, season 2: Ottoman Empire). This podcast is one of my favorite things
Amazing. This is fantastic. I like reflecting on the fact that an ancient Greek kingdom used to border ancient India — and that a Greek king became Buddhist before Ashoka—and that Ashokan pillars had Greek written on them.
As long as there have been distinct human cultures, there has been cultural syncretism.
What a lot of people imagine as separable cultures along borders were really cultural gradients or mixtures (this village here is mostly X, the villages north and south of here are Y, but the village even further south is also X, and we all speak each others’ language).
A lot of our discourse and views on culture are still poisoned by jingoistic nationalism from the 19th and 20th centuries (a cover for othering political foes and motivating the masses to fight and die for political goals), as well as concepts like imperialism and the couple centuries of European political hegemony, plus the elimination of non-prestige dialects/local languages and cultures via mass media.
It’s hard for us to imagine, but in a time before modern concepts of race/organized religion/nationalism the world was quite a dynamic cultural melting pot that wasn’t organized along these more recent distinctions. Greeks traded from Britain to India, pagan religions often saw other cultures’ pantheons as the same religion with different names and traditions, people noticed physical differences between groups of people but weren’t applying racist concepts to them. In a way, people of antiquity were often more tolerant and accepting than many contemporary people. But they could also just decide to kill and invade their neighbors with no pretext beyond wanting their stuff.
I think it’s the Abrahamic religions that ended all of this.
The proselytization that is central to Christianity and Islam doesn’t exist in any religion.
Those are the only historic cultures that insist that they are right and everyone else is very wrong. Most historic cultures believed in stuff but didn’t fight and kill for it, primarily because they knew they could learn shit from other cultures.
The OG Abrahamic religion does not proselytize, quite the contrary. They say it isn't ok to tell another tribe what to think unless they are cannibals in which case saving lives supersedes nonintervention. :)
The sequels however cleverly mixed in a dose of politics and empire building, it isn't part of the religions per-se.
At the same time to handwave away all attempts at classification because the lines are blurry does no help for our understanding of history.
And in the case of the Greek kingdom at topic, it was founded by a Macedonian, populated by Greeks and Macedonian veterans of Alexander's campaigns (who, yes, took local brides and so whose children are that gradient), with a polity modeled in Greek tradition, speaking Greek and Macedonian.
Are you forgetting the part where Alexander and successors deliberately tried to incorporate Persian and Indian culture into their own? Yeah the conquerors were Greek and Macedonian, my point is they weren’t chauvinistic about their culture like we might expect, Alexander in particular loved some of the cultures his conquests brought him into contact with.
> people noticed physical differences between groups of people but weren’t applying racist concepts to them.
There are enough counter examples, I don't even know where to begin. Of course it is useless (as I heared a historian claim only recently) to apply the modern concepts of racism and nationalism before the 20th century.
FWIW, there could be no b-but my genepool because they had no concept of genetics. Their idea of genus is however much more detailed and often times entirely made up.
Ancient Greeks called all non-Greeks barbarians, which was always a pejorative term. Racism is just one of those things people tend to discover independently as they become more organized and civilized, just like slavery and tyranny.
Have a look at some of the Gandhara (sp?) Buddhist statues. I think that sculpture tradition is from the Swat Valley, which is now Moslem and in Pakistan. They look like Greek sculpture to me.
The sad thing is that there is almost zero support for the preservation of manuscripts in India. There are still so many documents rotting in temple basements throughout the country. It is likely to be a source of major discovery—but it needs private money.
Edit: if you want to help, consider funding a PhD student in Sanskrit. It’s about $8k per year, matched by government support. While a Sanskrit PhD it might seem like a route to poverty, a modern approach would be highly technical — ie, about image processing, AI etc.
With an Indian company, you can fund phd research through the prime ministers fund (they pay the remainder of the fees and support). I think it is a wonderful program. Assume funding a top PhD student might be $20k per year.
If I had the gumption and ready money, I would just reach out to university deans with a letter indicating an intent to fund a particular profile. It might help to have a professor in the USA to help with the mentoring, because some of the academic connections may be valuable.
But this particular topic has potential because the tech could be cutting edge — so you can contribute to a field that has been very staid.
India, Greece, and Rome share a common history, as Hinduism is the closest thing we have to a continuation of the Greco-Roman religion (syncretized with the indigenous religions over many years). This is seen in the resemblance between the Greek and Roman Gods and the lesser known Indian ones. For example, the Rigvedic god Dyaus-pita is a direct relation to Jupiter. The names of the days in Sanskrit correspond to the same gods the latin names are after (and also the german ones, but they become harder to suss out).
The Rigvedic religion and Greek religion both descend from a common religion. Hinduism is a relative of the Greco-Roman religion, not a descendant. Belief in a god named Jupiter (or some variant) precedes both the Greek and Indian civilization.
Yes. Indian religions and greco-roman religion probably both had roots in proto-indo-european religion. There is a website that explores these roots at piereligion.org
Surprisingly unmentioned from what I've seen here is the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a circa 1st century Greco-Roman sea travel log detailing a trading route from Red Sea ports to the Indian and East African coasts:
I love history like this. History books are so full of battles and conflict and always imply cultures were divided by huge chasms. I love to see the connections and wish we highlighted it more.
<Super Ignorant Take Ahead...>
I remember being taught in American History class that Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson studied and admired Native American systems of government when drafting the Constitution but my kids weren't taught this (though to be fair American History was removed as a separate subject and no longer covered in depth in their schooling). Most 'mericans would say it comes out of enlightened Europe when John Adams cited the Mohawks, who he argued enjoyed “complete individual independence,” while tribal leaders brought major decisions like declarations of war to “a national assembly.” and Thomas Jefferson said “the only condition on earth to be compared with ours is that of the Indians, where they still have less law than we. The Europeans are governments of kites over pidgeons [sic].”
To me it seems today Persian history is so artificially removed from Greek popular history, but when my son and I explored Alexander the Great's history it lead to us exploring Persian history and feeling the popular narrative was manipulated from the reality with so much missing connections.
I responded negatively to a previous post on here about 'Islamic Golden Age History' because it artificially divides us when huge portions of that golden age thought was coming from Christians and recently conquered lands only tangentially 'Islamic' and again popular history Pigeon holing and artificially separating us all.
'Islamic Golden Age' thought is also much Christian mindset thought (though not Germanic western European post Roman Christian thought which somehow becomes all Christian according to historians). Persia IS one of the progenitors of Western thought alongside Greece (Alexander the Great adopted much from Persia along with lots and lots of other cross pollination). But we sure aren't given that impression from popular history.
Now today I learned Indian spices were influential in Roman food. But I was taught Europeans didn't covet Indian spices until way later. Why? What use does that narrative have? Over eighty percent of the 478 recipes in the fifth century Roman cookbook of Apicius included pepper and that cookbook was widely known about since the 1800s apparently.
OK too many words, and hopefully I didn't offend with my Islamic Golden Age stuff. I'm not trying to lesson the Importance of the Islamic world, but expand it. I just hate that today we self isolate and apply that isolating viewpoint to the past when it doesn't appear to have been the case.
> Now today I learned Indian spices were influential in Roman food.
They also loved Chinese silk.
I'm kind of surprised you hadn't run into this yet. It seems like every Roman author is bemoaning the popular love of food drenched in pepper and transparent silk clothes. Try reading Juvenal, it's quite funny to see what he decries and what he considers normal.
Europeans never stopped importing spice, from ancient times to the present day. To my knowledge there was never a complete interruption.
There were complaints among the Roman elite about the "decadent" silk dresses worn by women, e.g. Seneca the Younger:
"I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes. ... Wretched flocks of maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body."
> But I was taught Europeans didn't covet Indian spices until way later. Why?
No idea why this was taught, but it was untrue. However it is somewhat true that most Europeans couldn't afford many spices until the 1600s, in this is a case where being supply constrained probably kept a cap on demand too.
The rise of Venice in the medieval era was due in large part to their carefully constructed trade monopoly for spices.
> Medieval high society had an insatiable appetite for spiced sauces, sweets, wine, and ale... In Mairano’s era, Venetian traders in London sold a pound of pepper for a sum equivalent to a week’s work for an unskilled laborer.[1]
Venice had agreements with the Ottoman empire for access to spices coming via the Spice Road as well as the rulers of Egypt (sometimes also Ottoman) for spices coming via the Red Sea.
It's true that Portuguese and Spanish exploration was partially fueled by a desire to avoid the Venetian monopoly on spices though:
> Bad news came in 1501, however, when word reached Venetian merchants that the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama had sailed around Africa to India, bypassing the Mediterranean and—so it was feared—diverting the flow of pepper away from Venice.
But the demand was always there - it was supply that was constrained.
It may not surprise you to learn that early Jesuits in Canada had ongoing debates and dialogues with Algonquian sachems and recorded some of the exchanges. And these works were widely circulated in Europe as the enlightenment was taking shape. There was an interesting thing happening there that’s a bit too complicated and nuanced to type out on my phone, but you can probably find more from here. There’s a good section in The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity about it.
> But I was taught Europeans didn't covet Indian spices until way later. Why? What use does that narrative have?
Because spices were a major driver for European colonialism in Asia from the 1600s onwards (East India Company, VOC, etc), but they did not significantly influence British, Dutch, etc history before that.
Venice became rich mostly on the spice trade much earlier than this[1].
But it is true that demand for these spices drove exploration. But the 1600s was too early for colonialism in most areas where the spice trade was vibrant until another 150 years.
> Even the name of the island itself derives from Sanskrit: dvipa-sakhadara means the “Island of Bliss.”
Foreign Sailors on Socotra: The Inscriptions and Drawings from the Cave Hoq (a book mentioned in the article) refers to this as an “academic myth” and suggests that the island’s name is of South Arabian origin.
The Kushan Empire (of the Yuezhi) that had Greek language administration and a Saivite ruler fascinate me. Perhaps syncretic kingdoms were common in those days. Crazy to imagine, I can't say I expected that.
Past thalassocracies and syncretic empires just really challenge my default worldview.
Having read many of his books, that’s absolutely not the case. His book ‘The Anarchy’ (and the podcast) goes into great detail about the excesses of colonialism.
