Greek writers who traveled with Alexander the Great during his campaigns in India around 326 BC left much detail concerning their impressions and the conditions in South Asia. Architecture, art, and even the coinage expressed the blend of Indian and Hellenic culture that occurred over the next several hundred years. Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy owe their origin to Indian thought and spirituality. The Samkhya-Vendanta thought of India is known to have influenced Orphic religion, Pythagorean philosophy, and Neo-Platonism. Persia was the central area or middle ground for India and Greece in the pre-Christian era. Brahmins and Buddhists visited Greece even before the times of Socrates. During Alexander's time, Greece became a learning center and a place for commerce. It is even known that many of India's archers fought with their long bows and alongside Persia's Darius against Alexander and Greece.

Pythagoras' ideas about passage of the soul from body to body may have its roots in India with its theory of cosmic cycles. History has noted that Hindu ascetics visited Greece. Many Greek writers have shown considerable knowledge about Indian religions. Scylax, a sea captain whom Darius commissioned to explore the Indus, may have written the first Greek book about India. The kings Magadha and Malwa were reported to have exchanged ambassadors with Greece, and a Maurya ruler even invited a Greek to join his court.

Similarities between Greece and India do not end with philosophy, but are apparent in religion and language as well. This indicates that these two peoples may have either been in close contact at some early period or had a common origin, even if there is no recollection of those times. An example would be that of the Gods, Varuna being Ouranos the Sky God, Dyaus, the Chief God or father of Indra being Zeus and the dawn, Ushas or Aurora. These were all common to the Greek and Indian. They all drove out evil and were all-powerful. The Vedic and Olympian beliefs of the Greek have that common background.

Alain Danielou (1907- 1994), who has published many works on Hinduism, history, philosophy and the art of India, wrote, “the Greeks were always speaking of India as the sacred territory of Dionysus and historians working under Alexander the Greek clearly mentions chronicles of the Puranas as sources of the myth of Dionysus." He quotes Clement of Alexandria who admitted, "We the Greeks have stolen from the Barbarians their philosophy."

The adaptability of Hinduism to changing conditions is illustrated here with the Greeks adopting the culture from India while offering their own.