India

The earliest civilization of India was an urban civilization that grew up in the Northwestern part of present day India and Pakistan. So far about 1400 sites have been uncovered from as far north as Afganistan to Goa in the south. More sites are being unearthed and recent excavations have brought a lot of lost Indian history to light. This Indian civilization is known as the Indus-Swarasvati civilization or the Harappan civilization (as Harappa was one of the first cities discovered). This ancient civilization was a remarkably advanced one with the largest and most sophisticated cities.

The civilization flourished in the third millennium BC according to modern archaeology but there are several problems to the modern dating. The civilization was highly sophisticated and traded with the other ancient civilizations. Among the ancient civilizations, this was largest and the biggest trading nation. They traded overland in the begining with ancient Sumer and a place near the Black Sea. They were also the first seafarers (Lothal: ancient docks). This probably evolved out of need. Their land trade routes were attacked by nomadic peoples. By sea they went to the Gulf region of Arabia and set up colonies. They also went as far as Egypt and China. (Interesting Note: READ) Their ancestors might have even reached Australia by sea.

This civilization was the creation of Dravidian Indians or Dravirs. The Dravirs were a shorter, darker skinned people. They are proto-Australoid people, as are the Aborigines of Australia, original peoples of Indonesia, Malaysia and the ancient Sumerians. Today's Indians are mixed basically between the Aryans and the Dravirs. Much of modern Indian customs, beliefs and pacifism seem to have originated here. It has been noted that there was no warfare between the thousand cities and towns and very few weapons have been excavated.

The cities of the civilization were comparable to 17th century cities. They exhibit high degree of architectural and engineering knowledge. Their engineering technology and measurement system may indicate the existence of a mathematical system. The cities were not haphazard developments but seem to have been centrally planned. They were divided into commercial, residential, craft and industrial sections. The streets were straight, with wider main roads and narrower alleys for residential areas. The narrower streets left at right angles from the main street. The residences faced front on the sideroads and not on the main road to avoid the busy noisy trafic. The Indus houses were two storied and were made out of fired clay bricks.These cities were also the first to have indoor plumbing and sewer system.

The Indus civilization also had standard weight systems and possibly other measurements. The system was basically hexagecimal but when larger numbers were used it seems to have been decimal. The hexagecimal system is used in India even today (of course the metric system is coming into vogue now.) Even the monetary system was hexagecimal. It also appears that the time measurement was hexagecimal, that is the day was divided into 16 parts. Some might disagree with this as it is generally said "8 Prohors make a day". More on Time Measurement?

Some huge rectangular tanks have been discovered in the cities. Some suggest that could have been public baths, which is a possibility but the houses had their own baths attached, making such a public baths redundant. Of course we can not rule out the possibility that the culture might have used huge public swimming pools just as we do. Some suggest that they might have had religious significance. The simplest idea is that they could have been water reservoirs.

This high degree of planning of the cities may indicate two things. First, it seems obvious that they had a central government making it an empire but not much archaeological evidence supports this. Otherwise it was an anarchist civilization with no centralized control but centralized coordination. Since there is a seeming equity in the Indus society, it might thus have been a natural anarcho-socialist nation as opposite of centralized socialist nations of the 20th century.

Second, when a civilization grows the cities develop unplanned from pre-existing villages. If we take as example the European Urbanization, the old cities were built haphazardly in a maze. But when these Europeans had enough experience with the cities, and they built new cities, for example, in the new world, the cities were highly planned. The northern Europeans did not even have cities until the end of the first millennium AD, even with the examples from the Romans and the Greeks just south of them. They achieved mastery of city building and built masterly planned cities only in the 20th century. So apparently it takes time to start building cities after having villages and it takes another millennium to build sophisticated, centrally planned cities. So that is yet another problem to the modern dating of the Indus civilization. The degree of organization of these ancient cities of India shows that these people had a history of experience in building cities before they even built the organized and planned cities of the earliest civilization. The time period given to the civilization is too short to acquire such experience and acomplish such high degree of organisation.

The Indus Valley civilization was a literate civilization and many examples of their writing survives but is still undeciphered. Deciphering the ancient writing might answer many unanswered questions and show light on a connection between old and today's India. Two great minds are working on the Indus Script today. They are Iravatham Mahadevan and Asko Parpola. Ahmad Hassan Dani is another linguist and archaeologist but he has not yet accepted that the civilization and language was Dravir. Iravatham Mahadevan believes it was of Dravir origin and has come up with interesting theories. He also has had a break through with the arrow sign. (Visit Asko Parpola's Homepage)

In India, today there are three major scripts, the Devnagri, Bangla (Bengali) and the Pallavi. They originate from the Brahmi script used around 400 BC. Some believe that the Brahmi script did not come out of the original writing system in the Indus civilisation. They look for other sources, however the available theories are not substantiated. But it is true that no link is seen between the ancient Indian writing and today's writing.

There are a many other interesting facts about the Indus civilization. (Go to the amazing links on the right to investigate further.) I would like to point out three interesting things. They invented the potter's wheel, spoon and the game of chess. And here lies the root of modern Hindu or Sanatana Dharma (including Jain, Buddhism)

Around 1800 BC this civilization ends abruptly, with the influx of a new people into India. These were nomadic tribes from central Asia who moved in waves to Iran, Middle East, Europe and India. They are refered to as the Indo-European speaking peoples or Aryans (Arya, Arjo). Some evidence suggests that the first wave these peoples lived in the cities for a couple of centuries before new waves came. These peoples moved further inside. The Dravirs moved south and east.

India lost its urban culture for a while and there was much conflict between the two peoples, the Aryans and Dravirs. At this time the Aryans were mostly in the north, with Dravirs also in the north, south and east. The Dravirs continued being great sea-farers, with Bengal/Kalinga on the east, Gujarat, and Kerala on the west. From Kerala, ships travelled far and wide as far as Europe and might be the precursors of the Phoenecians opposed to popular ideas. On the east Bengals travelled all over the Indonesian and Malaysian archipelagoes and some indications say that they might even have gone to China (Taiwan) and Japan and possibly beyond.

Eventually it appears that the Dravirs were overrun by the warlike Aryans all over the land. But it was not the end of the Dravirs' culture. The nomadic Aryan tribes mixed with the Dravirs and like all later invaders, they became Indianized. Thus comes the Vedic period. This was the definitive period for the new comers. The Vedas show gradual seeping in of the Dravir culture.

Once again cities appeared and another beautiful culture started appearing. This was the second flourishing of civilization in India. The great epics of the world, Mahabharat, and Ramayan are composed along with an upheaval in the culture of India. Then great thinkers came and the old religions were challenged. The Upanishads, the first and greatest explosion of free thought, were written down as were some of the the Shastras. This explosion was probably the precursor of modern science and math. It was on European comparisions a renaissance. (Many of these Upanishads seems to have envisioned much of our time. Many of the sciences and math that we have discovered now were already included in the Upanishads. This era might reflect a resurgence of old Dravir ideas.

Here is a list of achievements by the ancients... verify the list yourself (the ancient books are available). They pose an interesting situation... were the references, in the epics, ancient science fiction or were they fact?)

In 326 BC Alexandre the great came, and came the scythians (chinese?), but India remained and Alexandre retreated fearing the powerful Magadha (Bihar), Gangaridai (Bengal) and Prasoi (Bengal).

After Alexandre left, the greatest of the Indian empires, the Mauryan empire came into existence. The Mauryans ruled most of India, with probably the exception of the extreme south and Gangaridai and Prasoi. The Mauryans defeated Alexandre's general and king of Babylon, Selucas and was probably the most powrful empire of their time. Indian culture and thought spread all over the East and also West during their rule. Buddhist and even Hindu missionaries went East and West. Many went as far as Greece in Europe, at that time rising. At that time India extended all the way upto Tashkhent, in Uzbekistan.

Around the 4th century CE, the society became more rigid.Varman Kings of Bengal were defeated by the second great empire of India, the Gupta empire. The Caste system was enforced and India became feudal. Even though it was not such a great period of history for the common people, this was the period when religion was patronized by the feudal lords. Great temples were built during this time. It was like the dark ages had come after the renaissance.

One of the last great empires was the Pal Empire of Bengal that ruled Eastern India (8th - 12th century AD). For a brief period the empire stretched all over north India and included Afganistan. During their time, the greatest centre of learning and spirituality was still India until the end of the first millennium. Nalanda in Bihar (East India) under Bengal Pal emperors and with great Buddhist sages became the greatest learning centre of the world. Nalanda is considered to be the first university of history. Great learning centres also appeared in Bengal in several cities. The Nalanda University was the greatest in the world at that time, where students from Greece, China and Persia came to study. Travellers would come to India to marvel... but one great traveller, Ibne Batuta, also foretold the end of India.

The eastern extent of Indian culture extended up to Indonesia and Vietnam. In Indonesia were Sumatra and the Sri Vijay(a) empire created probably by Bengal prince Sri Vijay Singh who also established the first kingdom of Sri Lanka (544 BC) which was called Singhala Dwip (The Singh Island) after his name. The Indonesian empires were probably created around the 5th/6th century BC but reached great heights around the 2nd to the 14th century AD dominating the region for over a millennium. The Mons of Burma (Brahma Desh) and Thailand (Syam Desh) were also dominated by the Bengal/Kalingas (200-300 AD).

Also later Bengals established an empire in Laos called the Champa (around 500 AD) whose capital, interestingly, was called Vijay(a). (Old Bengal, Gaur, capital was on the other hand called Champa.)

Around that period Kaundrya also established the first Indian (Bengal/Kalinga) empire in Cambodia (sometime between the 1st and 5th century AD), then the Varman kings of Bengal/Kalinga origin took the empire and created the great and powerful Khmer empire of Cambodia (8th century).

The end did come. India had become very inward and stagnant by the 10th century AD, too busy patting themselves on the back for being the greatest and did not care about the rest of the world much like USA today (though USA has just found itself ahead the last half of the last century of the last millennium). As early as the 11th century India was thoroughly over run by barbarians from Arabia and central Asia. At this time, Nalanda was sacked and the Bengal centres also mysteriously end (also possibly destroyed).

The last Indian empire in the South, Sri Vijaynagar Empire held out fiercely against the marauding Arabs and Turks until the 16th century. This empire kept the flame of India burning and continued her art and science. It was eventually defeated by the combined invasion of 4 Muslim empires. The ruins of this great empire are nostalgic reminders of India's great past.

More invaders came, and for a long time India was ruled by Muslims. Many of these muslim emperors today are portrayed as tolerant (a political decision to rewrite history) where they were brutally jealous about their faith. This era was very turbulent with the muslims converting conquered areas by the sword. Many people were killed, many temples were destroyed, and many converted to mosques. ( Evidence points to the Taj Mahal as a Shiv Temple rather than a structure built by a Moghul emperor. It is like many churches in Europe were temples converted or built on temple by pagan workers. READ.) The Islamic ocupation can be considered a holocaust.

The Indian science and learning was not, however, totally lost, as many Muslims learned the Indian science, medicine, math and other disciplines and spread it to Europe via the Moors in Spain causing the second upheaval in Intelectual fervor in Europe. Today, unfortunately much of the Indian learning is creditted to the Arabs and Moors.

The last Muslim empire of India, the Mogul empire came to a close during the 18th century. Then the British who were too weak to conquer India, used various schemes of treachery and deceit and war to take India piecemeal in a period of a hundred years. The British ruled for only 2 centuries but caused a lot of harm and may be some debatable good. They caused the final destruction of India. Their rule was trademarked by repeated famines and the economy of India was severely drained to fund the industrialization of England. Bengal which had survived since ancient times as a rich land and capital of fabric production (origin of silk, cotton, jute, and the legendary muslin) was so thorougly ravaged that it has become along with Bihar, the poorest in India. Bengal was even divided by the British to contain the Bengali spirit that refused to be ruled by them.

The British were the worst thing to happen to India. Today India has been so dismembered, and its history so obscured by invaders, that she exists as the core stump of what she was in south central Asia.

I have put good links that I spied on the net. The best one is the first one. It is a dependable source of information. Some people today confuse the earliest civilization with the later civilizations, for lack of knowledge or for political reasons. Some of the links will demonstrate that confusion, so I would ask the reader to be aware of that.

There are basically four racial substrata in India. They are:

An australoid-veddoid substratum.

Neolithic migrations from western Iran, probably proto-Dravidian.
The aryan expansion from north of Caspian sea via Turkmenia and Northern Iran.
A migration from the east of Austrasiatic and sino-tibetan language speaking groups.

I have here very rough flow charts showing the Aryan and the Dravir classification.