MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
western India toward the end of the sixth century B. c. 
The new province quickly became known as the richest 
in the Persian Empire. Herodotus tells us that it paid a 
yearly tribute of three hundred and sixty talents of gold- 
dust, equivalent to between five and six million dollars— 
an enormous sum for those days. 
The Persian Empire exerted a very great influence upon 
India. It inspired the Indians to use stone as well as 
wood in architecture and sculpture. The Indian courts 
borrowed much from the stately ceremonial and elaborate 
etiquette surrounding the Great King, as the Persian ruler 
was called. Trade was extended and the machinery of 
government developed. In a word, India underwent at 
this time a great advance in all that goes to make up what 
we call civilization. Persia lost political control over 
northwestern India in less than two centuries; but her in- 
fluence as a civilizing agent went on spreading. 
About two hundred years after Darius’s time, north- 
western India again fell victim to invasion and conquest, 
this time by Alexander the Great (326 B. c.). This event, 
however, although it had some little political effect, in- 
fluenced the civilization of the country but slightly. In 
the realm of sculpture, perhaps, it made the deepest 1m- 
pression. The Indians before that time undoubtedly had 
something in the way of carving, especially in wood, but 
not much exists to show that they had begun to represent 
their gods in realistic form, human or otherwise. They 
seem rather to have used symbols, like the wheel and the 
swastika. After Alexander’s time, however, sculptors 
came from western Asia, trained according to Greek ideas, 
and they left a lasting impress on the later religious art 
not only of India, but of China, Japan, and various other 
Eastern lands as well. 
A few years after Alexander’s death, a certain military 
adventurer named Chandragupta Maurya established in 
the valleys of the Ganges and the Indus the first great 
Indian Empire. Although undoubtedly influenced by the 
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