There was almost Sino-Roman direct contact. They knew of each other through trade goods and information that trickles through. Then there's the Battle of Zhizhi , probably false, but the story is of a Roman unit fighting against Chinese soldiers.

Read the book The Shape of Ancient Thought—it’s literally all about this!

Hello! I was talking about Greek Lettering but I would love to type out a longer explanation for this but no time tbh. Modern day English is very influenced by such a thing between Greeks and Hindus already. Just in the Letter G contains the alpha and the omega thing but also covered a lot of the Hindu thing. The beliefs of Breath is Gods and that Fire Breath or the Word is God is a very big combo of both words in multiple languages today that were inspired by a combo of the two. Many colors we see today and their words go back to this antiquity. Purple was based both on the smashing of bits of shells to make a color (blue to red to purple) (story of aprhodite and the shading of shiva to kali with Vishnu in middle making the purple) there are many fine examples in your day to do that include buddhistic teachings however I will say. All of Buddha and Hindu sculpture making started because of them. The main goal before then was to die like Buddha and be cast in gold. You become the Buddha Statue. This is a similar practice to some done on a Saturnalia festival tradition to Bodhi day or enlightenment day to Christmas

The Hindu religion does actually at least partially stem from the same root as the Greek one! It's an Indo-European religion being heavily influenced by a migration/invasion of Indo-Iranian or Aryan peope into Northern India. These are the people who wrote the Vedas. They were the eastern migration of the same peoples that in the west became the various Slavic peoples, the Norse, the Celts, the Italic peoples, the Hellenic Greeks and so on. The religions evolved very differently across the Norse, Celtic, Indian, Slavic and Greek and Roman strands but you also tended to find them re-combinjng in interesting ways later down the line with the Greek influence transforming Roman culture and religion, and influencing India through Alexander's conquests.

I think it should count more as a religion, you have to have a belief in things like karma, nirvana, samsara, buddhas, etc. Plus some schools of buddhism also have gods.

Did Roman soldiers go through some kind of a medical exam before joining?

Thanks for that. I did wonder if changing your philosophy would count as conversion given the context.

Well I think you're right in that this is not a totally correct term theologically. But from the history I have read, they usually refer to Greek nobility basically giving up their practices of worshipping Zeus etc and switching to Buddhism in colloquial language as "converting".

The Greek key is one of the most international symbols of Buddhism today, and you can see it all around Japan, China, Korea, and south East Asian countries.

Stoicism was influenced by Skepticism, which was an existing philosophy before the Macedonian conquests but changed quite a bit after Pyrrho traveled to South Asia with Alexander.

Mentioned before, but Hellenic Buddhism had a distinct art style and was the foundation of Buddhist art. Some incredible examples still exist across Central Asia, but a lot of them have been destroyed - including possibly the most famous, the [Buddhas of Bamiyan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan?wprov=sfti1 https://maps.apple.com/?ll=34.832000,67.826700&q=Buddhas%20of%20Bamiyan&_ext=EiQpfmrg+X5qQUAx6PQRp+j0UEA5fmrg+X5qQUBB6PQRp+j0UEA%3D).

Since homo sapiens began as black, yeah, I'd call that a "sizable impact".

Can I ask for the sake of my own understanding what you mean by ‘converted to Buddhism’? As it’s a philosophy and not a religion per se I didn’t think conversion would be an applicable term. As I say, for my own understanding. Edited to say. Typical Reddit~ ask question for clarification of meaning, get downvoted!

https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/knowledge-bank/roman-contacts-tamilnadu-south-eastern-india-recent-findings

https://www.tamilnadu.ind.in/tamilnadu_history/sangam_age/greek_and_roman_contacts_in_sangam_age.php

Many historians pointed out that as fair possibility of colonies for Greek people in South India (Tamilnadu) for few generations from 3 BC .. Considering Hindu religions is mostly follwed in Tamilnadu this seems fair possibility.

What are some good books or lectures about Egypt after the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty?

I think there was a lot more interaction than I used to imagine. It was almost taught to us as if India was a semi-mythical place until the East India Company arrived. Now I know that there was cross-conversation and that the libraries of Alexandria were also filled with extracts of the Upanishads.

Now that is really interesting! Thanks for this.

I believe there are echoes of heracles in some Japanese statuary as well

This is not in India but there is an example of Greek iconography going as far as Japan through silk road which is the depictions of wind deities in Japan and China, which has characteristics of the Greek god Boreas, most iconically the windbag

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C5%ABjin

This is a great question, as someone who grew up Hindu (not practicing) I often thought they shared some similarities and always wondered this as they would have been religions around at the same time. Much like there are Abrahamic religions, Hinduism and Greek gods are pantheon based.

The Greco-Macedonians introduced a number of innovative artistic, sculptural and architectural forms into the vernacular of Indian religious and governmental representation, and was especially popularized and proliferated throughout the Maurya Empire from the west. A great example of this production was the gradual transformation of the iconic image of the Buddha (as well as Hindu saints) in which Greek aesthetics were adopted.

Agree but I think China, Christianity and Islam are the prime examples. USA use culture as trading goods mostly which certainly has worked in terms of spread but then Swahili should be included as well, no?

Any definition of imperialism that miss the Mongols is silly in my mind. Percentage of humanity is related to someone who lived 800 years ago but this is somehow not worth mentioning.

Was it limited to China or is China the region that it was applied to. There was no line in the ground or on a map that said China back then.

I really have to squint to see the differences you seem to be seeing. The Arab conquest not spreading identity? How about the Aztecs? Half of Europe speak Latin languages somehow. The Roman colonists were different to later colonist how? Roman law had no impact on local tradition I presume?

The War of 1812, and the Avro Arrow are two historical events that have obtained mythical proportions in the Canadian psyche.

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It's a major historical find from antiquity? This is /r/history BTW