Sometime around 305 BCE, Seleucus Nicator, the general of Alexander, tried to wrest back control of North West India. He came into contention with the young Chandragupta Maurya. The same Maurya whose grandson Asoka would play the second most critical role in Buddhism after the Tathagata himself. His Indian ambitions thwarted, Seleucus had to settle for a peace treaty with loss of the eastern Satrapies. Turning his attention back to the Mediterranean, Seleucus went on to fight many wars and built many new cities. Including Antioch in Anatolia, Edessa and Seluicia in Mesopotamia. Also, around 300 BCE, he built the city of Dura Europos in present day Syria, on what would later be a hotbed of imperial contentions and hotpot of cultural hybridization. On the ephemeral borderlands of the Seleucid, Roman, Parthian and Persian empires. A city that was lost to the sands in 257 CE until excavated in the 20th century. It has revealed, among many things, substantial syncretism. A synagogue,...
The most Radical thinkers produced by India. First principle thinking- Why did we lose this amazing superpower? Each of these thinkers opened a new branch of learning or caused paradigm shifts in prevalent thinking of society-or sometimes- the whole species. Clarity on chronology-even if imperfect-helps you appreciate the evolution of the Indic intellect 1. "Whence came this creation? Did he create it, or did he not? He who surveys in the highest heaven knows. Or perhaps he may not know...." -Parame ṣṭ hi Prajāpati~2000 BCE Rig Veda 10.129 History's first Skeptic 2. "There is only one supreme god. Ahura Mazdā" -Atharvan Zaratuštra~1900 BCE (North west frontier province-Rangha/Bactria) The first monotheist Influenced Judaism Contributive to Indo-Iranian civil war & permanent schism Destinies of the last two IE tribes diverged forever 3. "The self is gradually revealed in creatures. Among animals, man is most endowe...