Persja i Persowie w literaturze sanskryckiej
Persia and Persians in Sanskrit Literature

Author(s): Marek Mejor
Subject(s): Cultural history
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: India; Persia; Persians; Sanskrit literature; cosmopolis
Summary/Abstract: The centuries-long neighbourhood of India and Persia resulted in mutual cultural contacts, which intensified especially during the period of Mogul rule in India, when the meeting and intermingling of the two cultures created a new quality. Scholars studying the two cultures have postulated the existence of two models of cosmopolitan culture, viz. “Sanskrit cosmopolis” and “Persian cosmopolis”. In Sanskrit literature in the pre-Muslim period, mentions of Persia and the Persians are quite rare. In Vedic literature (c. 1400-500 BC) we do not come across any. They only appear in the epics, then we occasionally find mentions in classical poetry, in drama, in narrative literature, in the Puranas, in philosophical treatises, in lexicographers. This article provides a brief overview of references to Persians and Persia in Sanskrit literature from the end of the first millennium BC to the beginning of the second millennium AD.

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