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historical documents has well been compensated by other more reliable evidences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.
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