History of Ancient India Upto 1000 A.D DHIS101 Edited by Dr. Manu Sharma Dr. Santosh Kumar HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA Edited By: Dr Manu Sharma and Dr Santosh Kumar Printed by LAXMI PUBLICATIONS (P) LTD. 113, Golden House, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002 for Lovely Professional University Phagwara SYLLABUS History of Ancient India Objectives: • To provide an understanding to Ancient Indian Civilization such as Indus and Vedic. • To understand the historical developments and changes in the Indian religion and society during Ancient times. • To understand the political developments, imperialism and monarchial polity of ancient India. • To help the students to prepare for various competitive exams. Sr. No. Topics 1. Evidences of Ancient Indian History: Literature, archaeology, Epigraphy, Numismatics, foreign travellers account. Physical Features: Physical features of India and their influence on the Indian history 2. The Pre-Historic Cultures: Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic. 3. Indus Valley Civilization: Extent, Chronology, Origin, Society, Religion and Causes of decline. 4. The Vedic Age: Original homelands, The Aryans, Political, Social, Religious and Economic Life, Difference and similarities between Indus Civilization and Vedic culture. 5. The Later-Vedic Age: Political, Social, Religious and Economic Life. 6. The Mauryas: ChandraGupta, Bindusara, Ashoka (Ashoka dhamm: its nature and propagation), Successors of Ashoka 7. The Golden period: Guptas and their successors( to c.750 A.D.):Changes in political organization of empire, Economy and Society, Literature and Sciences, Arts. Samuragupta 'The Indian Napoleon': Extent of the empire, battles and Administration, Disintegration of the Gupta Empire. 8. Religious movements: Jainism and Buddhism, Vardhamana Mahavira’s and Gautama Buddha’s contribution. Causes of decline of Jainism, Factors for the spread of Buddhism, Stupa architecture, Buddhist customs and manners. 9. Bhagvatism, Shaivism and Brahmanism: Main Characteristics, important leaders, extent in India. 10. State Formation and Urbanization: Urbanization, Society, political history, Mahajanapadas, Monarchies and Republics, Administration in Monarchies, Maps:- Important Historical places of Indus Valley Civilization, Ashoka’s Empire, Empire of Samundragupta, Extent of Gupta’s Empire CONTENT Unit 1: Sources of Ancient Indian History 1 Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Amandeep Singh, Lovely Professional University Unit 2: Pre-Historic Age (Stone Age) 17 Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Amandeep Singh, Lovely Professional University Unit 3: Indus Calley Civilization (3250-1750 BC) 28 Santosh Kumar, Lovely Professional University Amandeep Singh, Lovely Professional University Unit 4: The Vedic Age 49 Santosh Kumar, Lovely Professional University Amandeep Singh, Lovely Professional University Unit 5: Later-Vedic Period 65 Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Amandeep Singh, Lovely Professional University Unit 6: Maurya Period: Chandragupta, Bindusar, Ashoka 79 Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Vijay Kumar, Lovely Professional University Unit 7: Ashoka: Social, Economic and Religious Reforms 115 Santosh Kumar, Lovely Professional University Vijay Kumar, Lovely Professional University Unit 8: Gupta’s Empire 125 Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Vijay Kumar, Lovely Professional University Unit 9: India in Gupta’s Age 153 Santosh Kumar, Lovely Professional University Vijay Kumar, Lovely Professional University Unit 10: Religious Movements 173 Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Vijay Kumar, Lovely Professional University Unit 11: Jainism and Buddhism 179 Santosh Kumar, Lovely Professional University Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Unit 12: Bhagvatism, Shaivism and Brahmanism 208 Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Unit 13: State Formation and Urbanization 228 Santosh Kumar, Lovely Professional University Unit 14: Maps 259 Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Ripudaman Singh, Lovely Professional University Amandeep Singh, Lovely Professional University Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Unit-1: Sources of Ancient Indian History Notes Unit-1: Sources of Ancient Indian History CONTENTS Objectives Introduction 1.1 Sources of Ancient Indian History 1.2 Geographical Environment 1.3 Geographical Effects on Indian History 1.4 Ancient Ethno-Linguistic Groups 1.5 Summary 1.6 Keywords 1.7 Review Questions 1.8 Further Readings Objectives After study of this unit, the students will be able to: • To know about sources of ancient Indian history, • To understand geographical setting of Indian history. Introduction History of each nation is a heritage for its future generations to come. Glorious works done by the predecessors inspire next generations. After analyzing their mistakes, decide their course of actions and effort of regaining the glorious past is done. Any society can’t save its cultural heritage by staying away from its past. Hence, every society is connected with its past and plans for the future on the basis of its past. This is the reason, each nation attaches prime importance to the study of its history. When we study the importance of Indian history, then many characteristics of that time come across, which we don’t get from any other nation’s ancient culture. Firstly, India is the only country which made humans cultured and civilized fi rst. The time, when other people of civilized and developed nations were living in forests living life of animals, India had already developed high class culture. Secondly, India is the only country, whose cultural lifeline has been fl owing since very ancient periods. In all other countries, where developed any specifi c culture, have been lost in times and their existence ended. Today, they are only a subject of history. Famous poet of Urdu Iqbal said, “Greek, Egypt, Rome all got extinct, but there is something that our existence does not end.” It means that all cultures of LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 1 BBookook 11.indb.indb 1 229/07/139/07/13 110:030:03 PPMM History of Ancient India Notes Greece, Rome and Egypt got extinct and replaced by new culture, which has got nothing to do with old culture. But India is the only country in the world, which is living up with its old tradition and culture with its great values being intact. Iqbal says that there is something fundamental l in having this continuity of Indian culture. Student of history must study these superior values and elements else, we can’t study India as India, and this can only be done by studying ancient Indian history. Thirdly, this is the quality of Indian culture only that has to power to give secular and spiritual satisfaction both, i.e. it has the ability to have all round human development. Due to this only India was called ‘golden bird’ and had the honor of being called ‘World Guru’. Fourthly, Indian culture has the power to establish peace as this has seen the entire world as a family and has inspired Indians to put in efforts for the development of its peace and prosperity. Thus, people here done great job of making other people excel in their lives. Self Assessment Fill in the Blanks: 1. Only country of the world, which made humans cultured and civilized fi rst is ............... 2. Greece, Rome, Egypt all got extinct, but there is something special that our existence is intact. ............... said this. 3. ............... is called Father of History. With above characteristics in context of our great ancient history, we can analyze the importance of ancient Indian history. In the absence of such study, student of India can’t ever know that he is part of such great cultural heritage. Student shall feel proud towards glorious Indian culture and tradition. British have deformed Indian history and presented in such manner that Indian students feel inferior and their courage recede. Glorious Indian past can inspire Indian students to do great work and ambition of rekindling ancient glory of Indian history can be achieved. 1.1 Sources of Ancient Indian History India is an ancient country. As per many Indian scholars, Indian culture is the oldest in the world. Indians pondered over all aspects of life and being expert in writing, they composed literature on poetry, philosophy, art, science and other topics. As per foreign scholars too, Indian culture is older than china, Egypt, Mesopotamia etc. Despite having such great scholars in greatly civilized ancient country, India does not have a written chronology of history, this looks surprising. Some foreign historians have gone to the extent and said that Indian historian lacked historical sense. Reaching to conclusion that there was no historical creation in ancient Indian time, would be wrong. Actually, there were no such important historical development in that period that could be recorded. Actually this can be considered as truth that Indians were neutral to history and politics and they used to study these subjects under other social disciplines only. As per Dr. R.C. Majumdar, “One of the greatest defects of Indian culture is the aversion of Indians to write history. They applied themselves to all conceivable branches of literature and excelled in many of them, but never seriously took to writing history.” Alberuni says, Hindus don’t pay much attention to the historical order of things. As regards knowing Indian resources, sources to history prior to 6th century BC are limited, but post that period we have enough sources. Researches till now have dug out suffi cient ancient