IRANIAN INVASION ( PERSIAN)

During the first half the sixth century BC, there were several small principalities in the north west India such as those of the kambojas gandharas and Madras.
These are did not have any powerful kingdom like magadha.
Wealth and easy to enter through the passes of hindukush.
The Iranian ruler Darius penetrated into northwest India in 516 BC and annexed punjab and Sindh.
This area constituted the twentieth province or satrapy of Iran ( total 28 provinces).
The Indian satrapy included Sindh, the northwest frontier and the port of Punjab that lay to the west of the Indus. It was most fertile and populous part of the empire.
It paid the tribute of 360 talents of gold.
Indian subjects were enrolled in Iranian army and xerxes employed indian in war against Greeks.
India continued to be a part of the Iranian empire till Alexander's invention of India.

Results

The indo-iranian contact latest for about 200yesrs.
The Iranian scribes brought into india a form of writing which came to be known as the kharosthi script. It was written from right to left like the Arabic.
Iranian influence on the Maurya sculpture is clearly perceptible.
The monuments of Ashoka's time especially the bell shaped capital,owed something to the Iranian models.
Iranian influence may also be traced in the preamble of Ashoka's edicts as well as in certain terms used in them for instance, for the Iranian term dipi, the Ashokan scribe used the term lipi.
It seems that through the Iranians the Greeks came to know about the great wealth of India, which whetted their greed and eventually led to Alexander's invention.