THE TEXTS, POLITICAL HISTORY and ADMINISTRATION Till C. 200 BC

THE TEXTS, POLITICAL HISTORY and ADMINISTRATION Till C. 200 BC

History of Ancient India Volume III THE TEXTS, POLITICAL HISTORY AND ADMINISTRATION Till c. 200 BC Editors Dilip K. Chakrabarti and Makkhan Lal Vivekananda International Foundation New Delhi Aryan Books International New Delhi Cataloging in Publication Data—DK [Courtesy: D.K. Agencies (P) Ltd. <[email protected]>] History of ancient India / editors, Dilip K. Chakrabarti and Makkhan Lal. v. 3 cm. Contributed articles. Includes index. Contents: v. 3. The texts, political history and administration, till c. 200 BC. ISBN 9788173054822 1. India—History. 2. India—Politics and government. I. Chakrabarti, Dilip K., 1941- II. Makkhan Lal, 1954- III. Vivekananda International Foundation. DDC 954 23 ISBN: 978-81-7305-482-2 © Vivekananda International Foundation All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, utilised in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior permission of the authors and the publishers. Responsibility for statements made and visuals provided in the various papers rest solely with the contributors. The views expressed by individual authors are not necessarily those of the editors or of publishers. First Published in 2014 by Vivekananda International Foundation 3, San Martin Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi - 110 021 Tel.: 24121764, 24106698; Fax: 91-11-43115450 E-mail: [email protected] www.vifindia.org in association with Aryan Books International Pooja Apartments, 4B, Ansari Road, New Delhi - 110 002 Tel.: 23287589, 23255799; Fax: 91-11-23270385 E-mail: [email protected] www.aryanbooks.co.in Designed and Printed in India at ABI Prints & Publishing Co., New Delhi. Foreword ix Contents Editorsí Preface xix Part I THE VEDIC TEXTS AND RELATED ISSUES I.1. The Aryan Hypothesis: Theories 3 and Arguments ó Makkhan Lal I.2. The Horse and the Aryan Debate 30 ó M. Danino I.3. Genetics and the Aryan Issue 44 ó M. Danino I.4. India of the Vedic Texts 65 ó Dilip K Chakrabarti I.5. Traditional Political History 112 ó Dilip K Chakrabarti Part II THE BUDDHIST AND JAINA TEXTS II.1. The Buddhist and Jaina Texts 127 ó K.T.S. Sarao and Anita Sharma Part III POLITICAL HISTORY AND ADMINISTRATION TILL c. 200 BC III.1. Janapadas, Mahajanapadas, 183 Kingdoms, and Republics ó K.T.S. Sarao III.2. The Achaemenid Expansion 205 to the Indus and Alexanderís Invasion of the North-West ó Cameron A. Petrie and Peter Magee The Texts, Political History and Administration till c. 200 BC vi III.3. The Mauryas 231 VII.3. Charsadda 512 ó Ranabir Chakravarti ó Cameron A. Petrie III.4. Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas 276 VII.4. Hathab 523 ó K.Rajan ó Milisa Srivastava Part IV VII.5. Jhusi (Pratishthanpur) 525 IRON AGE TO EARLY HISTORY ó J.N. Pal IV.1. Ganga Plain and North-Central 301 VII.6. Kapilavastu-Lumbini 541 Vindhyas ó Rakesh Tewari ó Rakesh Tewari VII.7. Kausambi 551 IV.2. Peninsular and Southern India 343 ó J.N. Pal ó R.K. Mohanty and Tilok Thakuria VII.8. Mahasthangarh 566 IV.3. Early Agriculture in the Middle 379 ó Sufi Mostafizur Rahman Ganga Plain VII.9. Mathura 574 ó K.S. Saraswat ó Vinay Gupta Part V VII.10. Pataliputra 593 INSCRIPTIONS AND COINS ó B.R. Mani and Vinay Gupta V.1. Asokan and Post-Asokan 413 VII.11. Rajagriha 599 Inscriptions (up to c. 200 BC) ó B.R. Mani and Vinay Gupta ó Ashvini Agrawal VII.12. Sarnath 609 V.2. Evolution of Coinage and 422 ó B.R. Mani Early Indian Coins VII.13. Sisupalgarh 617 ó Devendra Handa ó B.B. Lal, R.K. Mohanty and Part VI Monica Smith THE GROWTH OF EARLY HISTORIC CITIES VII.14. Sravasti 629 AND STATES ó Ashok K Singh VI.1. Early Historical Urbanism and 435 State Formations VII.15. Sugh 635 ó Makkhan Lal ó Devendra Handa VII.16. Sunet 643 Part VII SITE REPORTS ó Devendra Handa VII.1. Ayodhya 501 VII.17. Taxila 652 ó Ashok K Singh ó Cameron A. Petrie VII.2. Chandraketugarh 506 VII.18. Tosali 664 ó Dilip K Chakrabarti ó Dilip K Chakrabarti Contents vii VII.19. Vaisali 668 VII.21. Wari-Bateshwar 681 ó Ashok K. Singh ó Sufi Mostafizur Rahman VII.20. Varanasi 673 Contributors 691 ó Ashok K Singh Index 693 Editorial Note I.3. Genetics and the [There cannot be anything more unpleasant in the study of human affairs than the concept of race and the Aryan Issue enormous literature built around it. The modern DNA studies have cast doubt on the validity of many of the earlier assumptions, and in this paper Danino demonstrates how the notion of the Aryans has not been supported by these studies in any way. This paper by Danino also provides an excellent introduction to the relevant DNA literature, including the opinions of M. Bamshad, P. Majumdar and others who seem to be keen on justifying the nineteenth century assumptions of race and language through something as sophisticated as molecular biology. He, however, makes it abundantly clear through his literature review that such attempts are thoroughly belied by the researches of scholars like Oppenheim, Kivisild, Sahoo, Sengupta, Raychaudhuri and many others.] h BACKGROUND Until the mid-twentieth century, anthropology was rooted in the concept of race. It took World War II and the horrors perpetrated in the name of an Aryan Herrenfolk for racialóand, generally, racistótheories to collapse. Rather late in the day, anthropologists realized that race cannot be scientifically defined, setting at naught over a century of scholarly divagations on ìsuperiorî and ìinferiorî races. Following in the footsteps of pioneers like Franz Boas (1912), scientists such as Ashley Montagu (1942) now strongly criticized the ìfallacy of raceî. Despite notable exceptions (e.g., Datta 1935), Indian anthropologists, building on nineteenth-century work (especially that of H.H. Genetics and the Aryan Issue 45 Risley, see Trautmann 1997; Chakrabarti 1997), study, Mortimer Wheelerís claim that skeletons went on listing imaginary Indian racesó found in the streets of Mohenjodaro were including the fabled Aryan and Dravidian evidence of a massacre by invading Aryans. In racesófor a few more decades, and indeed further research, Kennedy questioned the whole some of them occasionally linger on in todayís Aryan construct from an anthropological history textbooks. Until the 1960s, for example, standpoint, calling the said Aryans ìillusiveî skeletal studies from Mohenjodaro and Harappa (Kennedy 1999: 182) and asking, ìHow could found it natural to stick colourful labels on the one recognize an Aryan, living or dead, when different ìracesî supposedly going into the the biological criteria for Aryanness are non- composition of the Harappan population: existent?î (Kennedy 1995: 61) His conclusion Caucasoid, Mediterranean, Caspian, Proto- was emphatic: Australoid, Mongoloid, etc. (Sewell & Guha 1931; Bose et al. 1962) Such a method, or lack Biological anthropologists remain unable to lend support to any of the theories concerning an Aryan of it, left unanswered the big question at the biological or demographic entity.... What the heart of the Aryan debate in India: Could the biological data demonstrate is that no exotic races hypothesis of the entry into the subcontinent of are apparent from laboratory studies of human a new people (since we will henceforth shun remains excavated from any archaeological sites.... the word ìraceî) in the 2nd millennium BC be All prehistoric human remains recovered thus far proved or disproved on biological grounds? from the Indian subcontinent are phenotypically identifiable as ancient South Asians.... In short, there Only from about the 1970s did non-racial is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the anthropological work begin to provide reliable north-western sector of the subcontinent during and leads on Indiaís protohistory. Revisiting the immediately after the decline of the Harappan skeletal data, Pratap C. Dutta (of the culture. (Kennedy 1995: 60, 54) Anthropological Survey of India) found that however great the Harappansí internal diversity The last statement rules out the arrival of a may have been, there was ìa genetic continuum new people in the 2nd millennium BC as envisaged by the Aryan scenario. It was between the Harappans and the present-day endorsed by other experts, such as Brian people of the region.î (Dutta 1984: 73) While Hemphill and John Lukacs (Hemphill et al. Dutta refrained from drawing further 1991, 1997), who found only two pre-and conclusions, S.R. Walimbe was more protohistoric discontinuities in the populations forthcoming: of the Indus Valley, especially its western and Reassessment of the [Harappan] skeletal record northern fringes: ìThe first occurs between 6000 strongly indicates that the hypothesis of and 4500 BC... [with] another discontinuity at some identification of ìforeignî phenotypic element or point after 800 BC but before 200 BC.î (Hemphill unceremonious slaughter of native Harappans is not et al. 1991: 174) If, then, the biological supplemented by bone evidence. (Walimbe 1993: continuity extends from 4500 to 800 BC, it again 113) leaves no room for any mass immigration around Walimbeís conclusion was partly based on 1500 BC. the work of Kenneth Kennedy (1982, 1984) who Such conclusions are implicitly endorsed in had refuted, on the ground of a careful skeletal a 2007 study led by Jay T. Stock, which observes The Texts, Political History and Administration till c. 200 BC 46 a general level of homogeneity among the South sizeable invasions of the historical period failed Asian samples.... An analysis of South Asian to do so. More logically, other scholars still insist cranial morphology in the context of the global that ìthe Indo-Aryan immigrants seem to have pattern of human variation suggests that been numerous and strong enough to continue populations of the Indian subcontinent have a and disseminate much of their cultureî (Sharma relatively unique and homogenous pattern of 2001: 52), but they now find themselves on the cranial morphology...

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