Interesting facts about Ancient India

There is so much to know about ancient India that if volumes were written, it will not suffice. So I continue this incredulous journey of revisiting India in its ancient glory. We are now moving to 6^th century BC, when a second urbanization seemed to have taken place, the first one being in Indus Valley civilization of 2500 BC.

At this time in the north-east India, gana-sanghas have come to be, which were confederacy of clans governed through an assembly. They gave equal status to all people within their sangha (Assembly) and did not follow the Vedic rituals or varnas. Chiefdoms and kingdoms also arose, transition from chiefship to king not being very distant. Kingdoms had a centralized system of governance with the sovereign king at the center.

Earlier the kings were from Kshatrya caste, but very soon kings arose from shudra caste also. These required legitimization, which was done by the Brahman priests for gifts and money, conducting huge brahmanical rituals. Thus throne and priesthood were mutually supportive of each other, just as in would be in the later cases of Christendom and Islamic Caliphates.

Four rival states arose in northern India, three kingdoms of Kashi, Kosala and Magadha, and one gana-sangha, Vrijjis. Of these by 550 BC, Magadha will emerge prominent after overpowering the other states. Along with that administrative systems began, collection of land revenue, one sixth of the produce as belonging to the king and other trappings of power. Village was the basic unit and official assessment of the tax was made by the officials of the kingdom on the produce.  

Varna hierarchy became consolidated with Brahmans laying down the rules reinforced by their ritual powers; kshatryas, through rulers had to depend on Brahman priests to legitimize their sovereignty through Vedic rituals; next in importance came traders, the vaishyas, and then the shudras, who managed to get incorporated as Kshatryas when opportunities presented and also as traders and land owners.

Below all of them were the out castes or the untouchables, who were actually the forest dwellers in the margins of the settlements, which either pushed them deeper into the forests or eke out their living as marginalized people at the fringes of the settlements. They were forced to do manual jobs and the dirty jobs for the community and were accommodated as the lowest of the low in the caste system.

As landless and displaced people they had no voice. They were not allowed to have any weapons. The combination of hereditary status with economic deprivation and social disabilities ensured a permanent and subjugated labor force, for the rest of the community – a very convenient form of slavery, which continued for millennia, in some rural parts of India even today. It is nothing but a curse on Indian social ethos, which got ingrained into Indian social system as early as 600 BC.

Magadha Kingdom came into being with Bimbisara by 550 BC and his son Ajatashatru, who died in 461 BC. Their capital was Rajagriha; Pataliputra was an important town. As a means of conquest of the neighboring kingdoms and sanghas, they had to keep a standing army. They controlled the nodal points in Ganges river system, dominating the river trade. Land was fertile in the Ganges valley and the land tax and tax from trade kept their treasuries full.

This was followed by Shishunga dynasty which didn’t last very long and Nanda, a shudra, usurped and established his own Nanda dynasty. He would be the first of many non-Kshatrya kings. Nandas built canals for irrigation even up to Kalinga (Orissa). Mauryas usurped the Nanda throne in 321 BC.

In the north-western India, even more interesting things were happening. During 6^th century BC, north-western India was a part of Achaemenid Empire. In 530 BC Cyrus, Achaemenid Emperor of Persia crossed over Hindu Kush and received tribute from the kings of Kamboja and Gandhara. These became his provinces ruled by local satraps. It is the same Cyrus mentioned in the Bible, who permitted by an imperial order, the Jews living in exile in Babylon to return to their land, Palestine and helped them rebuild their Temple. Check out Ezra[1] in the Bible, the book starts with Cyrus the king of Persia!

Bible makes reference to the Persian king again in the Book of Esther, where it states that the King of Persia, Xerxes, ruled over 127 provinces, stretching from India to Cush (Upper Nile region).[2] Esther’s story happened around 483 BC, when Xerxes was the Emperor.

Herodotus, early historian of renown, names Gandhara as the most populous and wealthy satrapy in Achaemenid kingdom. It is understood from these writings that Indian provinces provided mercenaries for the Persian army to fight against the Greeks in 5^th century BC. Xerxes attacked Greece and won at Thermopylae in 481 BC, but got defeated at Salamis in 480 BC. Indian warriors were dressed in cotton clothes and carried red bows, spear and arrows tipped with iron. Wow, imagine that! Indians taking part in the battle of Thermopylae in Greece! World was quite small even then, I suppose!

There were other cities in north-western India, Tahshashila (Taxila) for example, which was described by Greeks as a cosmopolitan center, where Greek, Iranian and Indian knowledge and learning mingled. Persian coins were copied in India. Even the rock inscriptions of Ashoka, a later Mauryan Emperor, were influenced by the rock inscriptions of Persian King Darius. King Darius also is mentioned in the Bible as one of the Kings served by Daniel,[3] en exile from Israel, who rose to very high positions under Persian Emperors.  

The script used in north-western India around this time was Kharoshthi, derived from Aramaic, the official language of the Persian Acheamenid Empire. Recall, Jesus and his disciples spoke in Aramaic in the first century AD![4]

Acheamenid Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great from Macedonia in 330 BC. Alexander, wanting to conquer the farthest eastern provinces of Persian Empire, came to north-west India and campaigned for two years. As his soldiers refused to go any further, he traveled along the Indus river up to its delta and sent one part of his army back via Persian Gulf and the other took the coastal land route.

It is this latter part of his army that met stiff resistance from Indian kings, especially Porus (Puru), who fought Alexander’s forces at the Battle of Hydaspes (Jhelum River) and was vanquished, but maintained his dignity. Appreciating his valor, Alexander appointed him as his satrapy and left.

Alexander had brought along literate Greeks, who have left their impressions of India, both facts and fable. The invasion opened up routes along which trade and communication flourished. India established connections with Mesopotamia even, through Afghanistan and Iran/Persia.

There was cultural exchange between these countries, for Indian enlightened gurus, munis or sophists are said to have accompanied Alexander to Babylon. Indian thought definitely influenced those of Greek and Persian and in turn borrowed from them too, leading to enrichment all over. Greeks were called Yavana in Sanskrit and Yona in Prakrit.

Another interesting fact: early trade in India was facilitated by setthis, entrepreneurs of trade and finances. Where do you think our Shettys in Mangalore, Chettiars in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and Shets from north India come from! From these ancient Setthis only. Talk about the ancient roots of castes in India!

---

[1] The Book of Ezra, chapter 1, verse 1. (Ezra 1:1)

[2] The Book of Esther, 1:1

[3] Book of Daniel 9:1

[4] Gospel of Mark 5:41 reports Jesus called out to the girl who was dead, Talitha Koum, which meant ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up,’ and she arose! Then Mark reports in Mark 7:34, of Ephphatha, meaning ‘Be opened,’ which Jesus used while giving sight to a blind man; Jesus called his heavenly Father as Abba, meaning Father. Mark 14:34.

The Wonder that India was!

It is a long time since I read Indian history, especially the ancient history of India. So it was a pleasure to read the well researched latest book by Romila Thaper[1] on the subject.

We know that Indians were not very good at writing historical treaties. Anything in writing comes only from 300 BC onward. Having said that I must add quickly that the absence of such historical documents has well been compensated by other more reliable evidences like coins, inscriptions and archaeological findings.  

To start at the very beginning, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in Indus valley have been excavated and it brought to the world’s notice that there was a flourishing civilization, an urban one at that, around 3000 to 2600 BC in India. It is amazing to find out that the Indus Valley civilization had contacts with their contemporary Mesopotamian civilization in the Fertile Crescent.

Harappa seals, beads and weights have been found there, confirming trade in those remote times between civilizations far apart. Coastal shipping from western India along Gulf to the Tigris- Euphrates delta has been evolving ever since. Contacts with Afghanistan and Iran were maintained through the mountain passes, in the North West of India.

In Harrapan civilization bead-making was an extensive industry, using gold, copper, shell, semi-precious stones, and ivory. Etched carnelian bead was its trade mark. The cities show a sophisticated sense of civic planning and organisation.

Harappans worshiped goddesses and fertility cult was prevalent as shown by female figurines. But there were no horses on seals or anywhere else as our present government sponsored historians would like to prove, for horse was not indigenous to India. It was around 2000 BC that Indo-Iranian borders show the arrival of horses, chariots and spiked wheel into India from north west India. 

The Hindu Kush Mountains in the northwest India were the route immigrants, traders and conquerors took from time immemorial to reach India. The Bolan and Khyber passes served as passages, the corridors of communication, through which missionaries from Persia, caravans of merchants from Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan and invading armies all found their way to India.

In the north east, Himalayan Mountains being at higher altitude and difficult terrain, not much traffic or trade was evidenced, but Central Asian Silk Route passed through it. Southern peninsula had Vindhaya Mountains to filter in the armies and immigrants, but trade did pass through. Central India was peopled by tribal societies and forest people.

The people speaking Indo-Aryan language poured into North West India through these passes in the Second millennium. By 1500 BC, they had become dominant, not necessarily due to military conquest, but mainly because they had advanced technology, including the swift horse, and claim to ritual authority. They spread in the Indus valley and slowly migrated towards the Gangetic valley in the east.

There is affinity in the language used in the Vedic corpus authored by these immigrants and the Iranian Avasta. Both have derived from Central Asian Indo-European group of languages.

The Vedic corpus, Mahabharata, Ramayana, the well known epics of Aryan settlers along with Puranas, began as oral traditions and was written down in the present textual form only in the early first millennium AD, after many centuries. Just imagine, the teachings of Jesus of 33 AD were written down within 30-40 years after his death and resurrection!

Rig Veda and its associated writings were primarily manuals of ritual and commentaries on these, composed by 1500 BC. Central Asia was the original habitat of these Indo-Aryan people, who migrated to Iran and into India. Avasta, the religious book of Zoroastrianism and Rig-Veda bear many similarities. Horses arrived with them. They disapproved fertility cult of the farmer inhabitants, but had their own fertility cult involving the wife of the ruler, the Queen and the horse of Ashwameda yagna sacrifice.

Worship of fire became central to the rituals as in Iran and India, and women were kept under control. The wife of a Kshatrya warrior went on to the funeral pyre of the husband. Wow, look at the deep roots of Sati! Why then some of the Rajasthan people are objecting to the depiction of mass immolation of the wives of the warriors, including the Queen, whose husbands faced Kilji and got defeated as portrayed in Padmavat, the recent movie?

Upanishads arrive around 800 BC, carrying with them the explanation for present day suffering as due of the past sins and repeated births and deaths, samsara, to pay off the penalty; Karma theory and a justification of the caste system, which by that time had developed into four familiar varnas and got entrenched in the psyche of Indians.

So caste is not a creation of the British as some would want us to think. It was developed in India since 500-800 BC.

How grateful should believers in Christ be, for their penalty was paid by Christ on the cross, and all that they had to do was to accept Christ and what he did on the cross. No karma theory or samsara entanglement for them.

The Golden Age of Vedic period was said  to be from 1200 to 600 BC by which time the corpus was completed. Sanskrit, the language of the Vedic corpus, had evolved by borrowing many elements of Dravidic and Austro-Asiatic languages which were prevalent in India that time. Very soon the India-Aryan language Sanskrit became the dominant language, reflecting the Aryan speaking people.

Panini wrote his grammar treatise Ashtadhyayi around fifth century BC. The upper castes were familiar with Sanskrit, but preferred use of Prakrit for general and routine matters.

Social codes like Dharmasutras came in by this time and the Brahmanical religion based on Vedic corpus, caste system, karma and samsara and varnashramadharma came to be the dominant cultural milieu in India by the second half of the last millennium, 500 BC.

Well, that is a great historical beginning. If you would like to know what happened from 600 BC onward in the Gangetic plain, where a second urbanization took place, with the emergence of small kingdoms and clans, you need to wait for my next blog.

Good bye till then.  

---

[1] Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India: From Origins to AD 1300, Penguin Books, India, 2003.