Table of Contents

  • INDIA

    Multiple Authors

    This series of entries covers Indian history and its relations with Iran.

  • INDIA i. Introduction

    Christopher J. Brunner

    This entry presents a series of survey articles on selected areas of interaction and mutual influence between the two culture areas, including overviews of the enormous body of literature produced in India in the Persian language.

  • INDIA ii. Historical Geography

    Pierfrancesco Callieri

    The geographical borders between the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent are well defined by features, such as mountain ranges, which represent the western limits of the Indus River valley.

  • INDIA iii. RELATIONS: ACHAEMENID PERIOD

    Pierfrancesco Callieri

    The conquest by Darius I of the territories of the Indian subcontinent west of the Indus for the first time created a clear relationship between India and Iran.

  • INDIA iv. RELATIONS: SELEUCID, PARTHIAN, SASANIAN PERIODS

    Pierfrancesco Callieri

    Seleucus I (d. 281 BCE) led an expedition to India (Matelli, 1987) ca. 305 B.C.E. It ended, however, with the cession of  territories to a new Indian king, Candragupta Maurya.

  • INDIA v. RELATIONS: MEDIEVAL PERIOD TO THE 13TH CENTURY

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    The first political and military footholds of the Muslims in the subcontinent proper were in Sind, and at Multan in the middle Indus valley, secured in the early 8th century.

  • INDIA vi. Political and Cultural Relations (13th-18th centuries)

    Richard M. Eaton

    Relations between peoples of the Iranian plateau and India were extensive and uninterrupted between the 13th and 18th centuries. Migration, commerce, and politics all led to a range of cross-regional influences.

  • INDIA vii. RELATIONS: THE AFSHARID AND ZAND PERIODS

    Mansour Bonakdarian

     The invasion of the Persian capital (Isfahan) by Ḡilzai Afghan forces in 1722 and the collapse of Safavid central authority had a marked impact on Indo-Persian relations,

  • INDIA viii. RELATIONS: QAJAR PERIOD, THE 19TH CENTURY

    Mansour Bonakdarian

     By the time of Āqā Moḥammad Khan’s founding of the Qajar dynasty in 1796, Persia’s diplomatic relations with the Mughal empire and other territories in the Indian subcontinent were gradually passing under the supervision of British authorities in India.

  • INDIA ix. RELATIONS: QAJAR PERIOD, EARLY 20TH CENTURY

    Mansour Bonakdarian

    The contributions made by various non-Iranian individuals and groups to the constitutional/ nationalist cause in Persia have long been acknowledged in the historiography of the revolution.