The Byzantine perception of India in late antique literary sources

Abstract

This study focuses on the Byzantine perception of India according to the descriptions found in a selected group of late antique literary sources. Belonging to diverse literary genres and describing different aspects of India in relation with their own literary contexts, these sources can to a large extent reflect the Byzantine attitude toward such a remote geographical location. By placing the Byzantine sources in question within a framework that stretches from Antiquity as far as the Middle Ages, this study aims at observing the literary depictions of India in the Byzantine era and understanding the Byzantine perception of this land. Thus, it analyzes the impact of classical (Greco-Roman) literary modalities, Christian discourse, and commercial networks between the Byzantine Empire and India on the Byzantine ethnographical and geographical perception of India.