History India’S Story Is One of the Grand Epics of World History
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© Lonely Planet Publications 39 History India’s story is one of the grand epics of world history. Throughout thousands of years of great civilisations, invasions, the birth of religions and countless cataclysms, India has time and again proved itself to be, in the words of its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads’. Indian history has always been a work-in-progress, a constant process of reinvention and accumulation that can prove elusive for those seeking to grasp its essential essence. And yet, from its myriad upheavals, a vibrant, diverse and thoroughly modern nation has emerged, as enduring as it is dynamic and increasingly well equipped to meet the challenges of the future. INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION The Indus Valley, straddling the modern India–Pakistan border, is the cradle of civilisation on the Indian subcontinent. The first inhabitants of this land Harappa (www.harappa were nomadic tribes who cultivated land and kept domestic animals; indeed, .com) provides an it is no leap of the imagination to wonder whether in some parts of rural illustrated yet scholarly India, little has changed. Over thousands of years, an urban culture began coverage of everything to emerge from these tribes, particularly from 3500 BC. By 2500 BC large you need to know about cities were well established, the focal points of what became known as the the ancient Indus Valley Harappan culture, which would flourish for more than 1000 years. civilisations, including a The great cities of the Mature Harappan period were Moenjodaro and link to recent Harappa (both excavated in the 1920s) in present-day Pakistan, and Lothal archaeological ( p728 ) near Ahmedabad. Lothal can still be visited and from the precise, discoveries. carefully laid-out street plan, some sense of this sophisticated 4500-year-old civilisation is still evident. Harappan cities often had a separate acropolis, suggesting a religious function, and the great tank at Moenjodaro may have been used for ritual bathing purposes. The major Harappan cities were also notable for their size – estimates put the population of Moenjodaro as high as 40,000 to 50,000. By the middle of the 3rd millennium BC the Indus Valley culture was the equal of other great civilisations emerging at the time. The Harappans traded with Mesopotamia, and developed a system of weights and measures and a highly developed art in the form of terracotta and bronze figurines. Recov- ered relics, including models of bullock carts and jewellery, offer the earliest evidence of a distinctive Indian culture. Indeed, many elements of Harappan Like so many periods of culture would later become assimilated into Hinduism: clay figurines found Indian history, Harappan at these sites suggest worship of a Mother goddess (later personified as Kali) culture carries a strong and a male three-faced god sitting in the attitude of a yogi (the prehistoric element of mystery – the Shiva) attended by four animals. Black stone pillars (associated with phallic Harappan script has never worship of Shiva) and animal figures (the most prominent being the humped been deciphered. bull; later Shiva’s mount) have also been discovered. EARLY INVASIONS & THE RISE OF RELIGIONS The Harappan civilisation fell into decline from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Some historians attribute the end of the empire to floods or decreased rainfall, which threatened the Harappans’ agricultural base. The TIMELINE 3500–2000 BC 1500–1200 BC Indus Valley civilisation known as the Harappan culture Vedic-Aryan period during which the Hindu sacred scriptures were written and the caste system formalised 40 HISTORY •• Early Invasions & the Rise of Religions lonelyplanet.com MAP-DRAWING ARYAN-STYLE While historians dispute the origins of the Aryan presence in northern India, there is little argu- ment that the subsequent Aryan kingdoms adhered to one of history’s more curious forms of territorial demarcation. Under the highly formalised ritual of asvamedha (horse sacrifice), a horse was allowed to roam freely, followed by a band of soldiers. If the horse’s progress was impeded, the king would fight for the land in question. At the end of the prescribed period, the entire area over which the horse had wandered was taken to be the king’s unchallenged territory. The horse was rewarded for its success or failure – which, it didn’t matter – by being sacrificed. The system must have worked, because the ritual was still being performed centuries later by dynasties such as the Chalukyas of Badami ( p926 ) to demonstrate the ruler’s complete control over his kingdom. more enduring, if contentious, theory is that an Aryan invasion put paid to the Harappans, despite little archaeological proof or written reports in the ancient Indian texts to that effect. As a result, some nationalist historians argue that the Aryans (from a Sanskrit word meaning noble) were in fact the original inhabitants of India and that the invasion theory was actually invented by self-serving foreign conquerors. Others say that the arrival of Aryans was more of a gentle migration that gradually subsumed Harappan culture. Those who defend the invasion theory believe that from around 1500 BC Aryan tribes from Afghanistan and Central Asia began to filter into northwest India. Despite their military superiority, their progress was gradual, with successive tribes fighting over territory and new arrivals pushing further east into the Ganges plain. Eventually these tribes controlled northern India as far as the Vindhya Hills. Many of the original inhabitants of northern India, the Dravidians, were pushed south. The Hindu sacred scriptures, the Vedas (see p65 ), were written during this period of transition (1500–1200 BC) and the caste system became formalised. As the Aryan tribes spread across the Ganges plain in the late 7th century BC, many were absorbed into 16 major kingdoms, which were, in turn, amalgamated into four large states. Out of these states arose the Nanda dynasty, which came to power in 364 BC, ruling over huge swathes of North India. During this period, the Indian heartland narrowly avoided two inva- sions from the west which, if successful, could have significantly altered the path of Indian history. The first was by the Persian king Darius (521–486 BC), who annexed Punjab and Sindh (on either side of the modern India– Emperor Ashoka’s ability Pakistan border). Alexander the Great advanced to India from Greece in to rule over his empire 326 BC, but his troops refused to go beyond the Beas River in Himachal was assisted by a Pradesh. Alexander turned back without ever extending his power into standing army consisting India itself. of 9000 elephants, 30,000 The period is also distinguished by the rise of two of India’s most signifi- cavalry and 600,000 cant religions, Buddhism ( p68 ) and Jainism ( p69 ), which arose around 500 infantry. BC. Both questioned the Vedas and condemned the caste system, although, unlike the Buddhists, the Jains never denied their Hindu heritage and their faith never extended beyond India. 321–184 BC AD 319–510 The Mauryan empire Golden age of the Gupta empire lonelyplanet.com HISTORY •• The Mauryan Empire & Its Aftermath 41 THE MAURYAN EMPIRE & ITS AFTERMATH If the Harappan culture was the cradle of Indian civilisation, Chandragupta Maurya was the founder of the first great Indian empire. He came to power in 321 BC, having seized the throne from the Nandas, and he soon expanded the empire to include the Indus Valley previously conquered by Alexander. According to From its capital at Pataliputra (modern-day Patna), the Mauryan empire Megasthenes, an encompassed much of North India and reached as far south as modern- ambassador to the day Karnataka. The Mauryas were capable of securing control over such Mauryan court, a vast realm through the use of an efficient bureaucracy, organised tiers Pataliputra was 33.8km of local government and a well-defined social order consisting of a rigid in circumference, making caste system. it the largest city in the The empire reached its peak under emperor Ashoka (see the boxed text, world at the time. below ). Such was Ashoka’s power to lead and unite that after his death in 232 BC no-one could be found to hold the disparate elements of the Mauryan empire together. The empire rapidly disintegrated and collapsed altogether in 184 BC. None of the empires that immediately followed could match the stability or enduring historical legacy of the Mauryans. The Sungas (184–70 BC), Kanvas (72–30 BC), Shakas (from 130 BC) and Kushanas (1st century BC until 1st century AD, and into the 3rd century in a diminished form) all had their turn, with the latter briefly ruling over a massive area of North India and Central Asia. Despite the multiplicity of ruling powers, this was a period of intense development. Trade with the Roman Empire (overland, and by sea through the southern ports) became substantial during the 1st century AD; there was also overland trade with China. AN ENLIGHTENED EMPEROR Apart from the Mughals and then the British many centuries later, no other power controlled more Indian territory than the Mauryan empire. It is therefore fitting that it provided India with one of its most significant historical figures. Emperor Ashoka’s rule was characterised by a period of flourishing art and sculpture, while his reputation as a philosopher-king was enhanced by the rock-hewn edicts he used to both instruct his people and delineate the enormous span of his territory. Some of these moral teachings can be still be seen, particularly the Ashokan edicts at Junagadh in Gujarat ( p749 ). Ashoka’s reign also represented an undoubted historical high point for Buddhism. He embraced the religion in 262 BC, declaring it the state religion and cutting a radical swathe through the spiritual and social body of Hinduism.