INDIA. Although explicit references to India occur only in late Jewish writings, Biblical evidence seems to indicate that Pal. had established commercial relations with the subcontinent much earlier. Some interpreters have contended that the River Pishon (Gen 2:11) in the land of Havilah refers to India. The suggestion also has been made that the goods brought from Ophir such as sandalwood (almug trees, 1 Kings 10:11; 2 Chron 2:8) and ivory and apes were Indian. The Tyrian merchandise mentioned in Ezekiel 27:15 may also have been Indian, while the land of Cush (Isa 11:11; Jer 13:23) may be a name for that land. The mention of India in Esther 1:1; 8:9 seems to involve only the part of the sub-continent lying W of the Indus and forming the eastern part of the Pers. empire.

The NT makes no reference to India, but the apocryphal lit. of both OT and NT do mention it. Antiochus Eupator employed elephants ridden by Indians against the Jewish armies (1 Macc 6:38) and he eventually ceded India to the Romans, although, in fact, he had never owned it (1 Macc 8:8). The principal reference to India in the NT Apocrypha is to be found in the Gnostic Acts of Thomas which purports to tell of the apostle’s missionary journey to the Indo-Scythian kingdom of Gundaphorus. There is, however, little indication that it offers any actual historical information. Some Christian missionary may have gone to India in the 1st or 2nd centuries, and this perhaps formed the foundation of the story concerning Thomas. India has little significance in the Biblical record.

Bibliography RGG, III, 708; APOT; ANT.