ABSTRACT
P ersia has been the land of culture and light for millenniums and has been a source of inspiration to Indians for many a century in the past. India and Persia, being adjacent countries, have both been from the remote past a common ground of cultural activities of the different branches of the Aryans, and hence have maintained a fairly regular interchange of cultural values, which have moulded their mutual lives in social, intellectual and religious spheres. Being neighbours in Asia closely linked up by routes of trade and navigation, and being in parts at least under the sway of common ruling dynasties from legendary times, these two centres of Oriental culture have been in contact with each other for several centuries. Far back in the Stone Age the forefathers of Indian and Iranian Aryans (of the Japhetic race) were either living near the North Pole or in the highlands of Central Asia. In the Oxus Valley they called themselves Aryans, while in the Euphrates regions they were later known as Kassites and Mitanni. In the pre-Zoroastrian period (fourteenth century bc) Indo-Aryans moving eastwards had probably a common language and culture, making allowance for tribal traits and distinctive features in them.
