Wednesday, November 25, 2009

POINTS TO REMEMBER

The Palaeolithic culture of India developed in the Pleistocene period or the Ice Age, which lasted between one million and 10,000 years before the Holocene period
(the present geological period).
. The Holocene period began 10,000 years ago.
. The Lower Palaeolithic phase existed between 2,50,000
BC and 1,00,000 BC; the Middle Palaeolithic between 1,00,000 BC and 40,000 BC; and the Upper Palaeolithic between 40,000 BC and 10,000 BC.
. The Mesolithic culture continued to be important roughly
from 9,000 BC to 4,000 BC. .
. The microliths are the characteristic tools of the Mesolithic
age.
. Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh is a striking site of both
the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic paintings.
. The Mesolithic people lived on hunting, fishing and food
gathering.
. In the Belan valley (Uttar Pradesh), all the three phases
of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic have been
found in sequence.
. Adamgarh (Madhya Pradesh) and Bagor (Rajasthan)
provide the earliest evidence for the domestication of
animals.
. The Neolithic Age or the New Stone Age began in 9000
BC. But in the Indian continent, the earliest Neolithic
settlement was in Mehrgarh (Baluchistan, Pakistan). T Mehrgarh settlement emerged around 7000 Be.
. The Neolithic people used tools and implements
polished stone.
. Burzahom means the "place of birth", while Gufla
means the "cave of the potter". Burzahom and Gufla
were the prominent Neolithic settlements in Kashm
. The Neolithic people in Kashmir also used bones
making numerous tools and weapons.
. The Neolithic settlers were the earliest farming comm
nities. Neolithic people of Mehrgarh produced whe
and cotton.
. The Homo sapiens, the modern man, emerged in tl
Upper Palaeolithic period.
. The earliest evidence of cultivation of plants occurs i
the region of Rajasthan in India.
. Large scale farming activities were undertaken by th
communities belonging to the Chalcolithic cultures i
peninsular India.
. The Jorwe culture (1400 BC-7oo BC) covered moder
Maharashtra.
. The Ahar culture (2100 BC-1500 BC) lay in the Banas rive
valley in Rajasthan.
. Black and Red Ware (BRW) was the most widel] prevalent pottery form in the Chalcolithic period.
COPPER PHASE

More than 40 copper hoards consisting of rings, celts, hatchets, swords, harpoons, spearheads and human-like figures have been found in a wide area ranging from Bengal and Orissa in the east to Gujarat and Haryana in the north­west, and from Andhra Pradesh in the south to Uttar Pradesh in the north. The largest hoard comes from Gungeria in Madhya Pradesh. But nearly half of the hoards are concentrated in the Ganga-Yamuna doab. They presuppose good technological knowledge on the part of the copper~ smith, and cannot be the handiwork of nomadic people or primitive artisans. At places these objects have been dis­covered in association with ochre-coloured pots and some mud structures. Stone tools have also been found in excavations. This suggests that the people of this culture led a settled life, and were one of the earliest Chalcolithic agriculturists and artisans to settle in a good portion of the doab.
CHALCOLITHIC POTTERY The Chalcolithic period was marked by the use of two types of potteries - OCP and BRW.

Ochre Coloured Pottery (OCP) In 1950, a new pot type was discovered during excavations at Bisauli (Bade and Rajpur Pursu (Bijnor) in Uttar Pradesh, both of tl being copper hoard sites. The pottery was called 0 Coloured Pottery (OCP) because it had a wash of oc Made up of medium grained clay, the pottery's col ranges from orange to red. The Chalcolithic sites associe with this type of ware are ascribed to OCP culture. At 100 such sites have so far been discovered in Uttar Pradt The period covered by OCP culture may roughly be pIa between 2000 BC and 1500 BC. The OCP culture is succeel by Black and Red Ware.

Black and Red Ware (BRW) Excavations at Atranjikl1 in Uttar Pradesh in the early 1960s revealed a disti pottery. Similar pottery system was later excavated at ot
places. This pottery is called Black and Red Ware (BR and is sandwiched between OCP and Painted Grey W (PGW). The characteristic features of BRW are the b1 colour inside and near the rim on the outside, and : c910ur over the rest of the body. This colour combinat has been produced by inverted firing. Though majority the potteries are wheel turned, there are some handme potteries also. Made of fine clay, BRW has a fine fabric w thin walls. BRW pottery with paintings has also been fou in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

BRW pottery has a wide regional distribution. It a covers a vast time span from 2400 BC to the early centur of the Christian era.
CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD

The end of the Neolithic period saw the use of metals of which copper was the first. Consequently, several cultures came to be based on the use of stone and copper imple­ments. Such a culture is called chalcolithic which means the stone-copper phase.
The most extensive excavations have been done at the Chalcolithic sites like Jorwe, Nevasa, Daimabad, Inamgaon, Prakash, Nasik, etc. in Maharashtra. Several Chacolithic sites have been found in Allahabad district, Chirand (near Patna) and Pandu Rajar Dhibi and Mahishadal in Bengal.

The Chalcolithic people used tiny tools and weapons of stone in which the stone-blades and bladelets occupied an important position. In certain settlements copper objects are found in good numbers, e.g., at Ahar and Gilund m Rajasthan. The characteristic pottery of the Chalcolithic phase was black-and-red. People domesticated animals and practised agriculture. They seem to have eaten beef but not
pork. Occasionally their houses were made of mud bricks, but mostly they were constructed with wattle and daub, and seem to have been thatched. However, the people in Ahar lived in stone-built houses.

The Chalcolithic people made tools, weapons and bangles of copper, manufactured beads of semi-precious stones such as carnelian, steatite, and quartz because spindle whorls have been discovered in Malwa. Discovery of cotton, flax and silk threads shows that they knew the manufacture of cloth.

Regional differences in regard to cereals, pottery, etc., appear in this phase. The dead were buried. Terracotta figurines of women suggest that the Chalcolithic people venerated the mother goddess. Probably, the bull was the symbol of a religious cult. Both the settlements and burial practices suggest existence of social inequalities.
Chronologically, there are several series of Chalcolithic settlements in India. Some are pre-Harappan, others are contemporaries of the Harappan culture and still others are post-Harappan. Pre-Harappan strata on some sites in the Harappan zone are also called early Harappan to distin­guish them from the mature urban Indus civilisation. Thus the pre-Harappan phase at Kalibangam in Rajasthan and Banwali in Haryana is distinctly Chalcolithic. So is the case with Kot Diji in Sind. The Kayatha culture in Madhya Pradesh (2000-1800 Be) is a junior contemporary of the Harappan culture. It has some pre-Harappan elements in pottery, but it also shows Harappan influence. Several post­Harappan Chalcolithic cultures in these areas are influenced by the post-urban phase of the Harappan culture.

Several other Chalcolithic cultures, though younger in age than the mature Harappan culture, are not connected with the Indus Civilisation. The Malwa culture (1700-1200
BC) found in Navadatoli, Eran and Nagda is considered to be non­Harappan. So is the case with the Jorwe culture (1400-700 BC) which cov­ers the whole of Maharashtra except parts of Vidarbha and Konkan. In the southern and eastern' parts of India, Chalcolithic settlements existed inde­pendently of the Harappan culture. In south India they are found invariably in continuation of the Neolithic settle­ments. The Chalcolithic settlement of the Vmdhyan region, Bihar and Bengal Pre-Harappan Chalcolithic cultures spread farming communities in Sind, Baluchistan, Rajasthan, etc., and cre­ated conditions for the rise of the urban civilisation.

Western India disappeared by 1200 BC or so; only the Jorwe culture continued until 700 Be. However, in several parts of the country the Chalcolithic black­and-red ware continued till the second century BC. The eclipse of the Chalcolithic habitation if! attributed to a decline in rainfall from about 1200 BC onwards. In fact, the Chalcolithic people could not continue for long with the digging stick in the black soil area which is difficult to break in the dry season. In the red soil areas, especially in eastern India, however, the chalcolithic phase was immediately followed, without any gap, by the iron phase which gradually transformed the people into full-fledged agriculturists. Similarly, at several sites in southern India Chalcolithic culture was transformed into megalithic culture using iron.

The Chalcolithic people were the first to use painted pottery. They used both Iota and thali. In South India, the Neolithic phase imperceptibly faded into the Cha1colithic phase, and so these cultures are called Neolithic-Chalcolithic. The Chalcolithic communities founded the first large villages in peninsular India and cultivated far more cereals than is known in the case of the Neolithic communities. The settlements at Kayatha and Eran in Madhya Pradesh and Inamgaon in western Maharashtra were fortified. No plough or hoe has been found at Chalcolithic sites. The rate of infant mQrtality was very high. Although most Chalcolithic cultures existing in the major part of the country were younger than the Indus Valley civilisation, they did not derive any substantial benefit from the advanced techno­lQgical knowledge of the Indus people.

IMPORTANT NEOLITHIC SITES ON THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

IMPORTANT NEOLITHIC SITES ON THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT Given below are some of the Neolithic sites in the Indian Subcontinent.

North-western The earliest evidence of the cultivation of wheat and barley has been found in present-day Afghani­stan and Pakistan. Punjab, Kashmir, West-Pakistan, and Afghanistan were the original places of bread-wheat and spelt-wheat cultivation. Excavations at Mehrgarh in Baluchistan have revealed the evidence of cultures ranging from pre-pottery Neolithic to the mature Harappan period. The Neolithi. levels at Mehrgarh have been classified into two phases: (i) the early aceramic without pottery (Period I); and (ii) the later phase (Period ll). The cereals at the site included two varieties of barley and three varieties of wheat. Plum and date seeds have also been found. The beginning of the pre-pottery settlement phase in Mehrgarh has been fixed at about 6000 Be. Period II represents the Chalcolithic phase (5000 BC). It is assumed that the Harappans inherited the knowledge of wheat, barley, and cotton cultivation from their ancestors in Mehrgarh.

Kashmir Burzahom and Gufkral in the Kashmir valley, where village settlements appeared by about 2500 Be, are other important Neolithic sites in Kashmir. The Neolithic culture in the valley is characterised by pit-dwellings with well made floors smeared with red-ochre, and dwellings in the open. The eastern phase in Gufkral is aceramic (pre­pottery), discovered for the first time in India. According to C-14 dates, the Neolithic culture in th Kashmir valley existed between 2500 and 1500 BC.

Uttar Pradesh The important excavated sites of th Belan valley (Belan river is tributary of Tons which jom the Ganga near Allahabad) include Chopani-Mand< Koldihawa and Mahagara. Excavations at these sites incU cate transition from the food-gathering stage to the food producIng stage. At Chopani-Mando, a three,.phase cultur, sequence-epi-Palaeolithic, late-MesolithA.c and proto Neolithic, has ~ discovered. The excavations at Koldihaw. have also revealed a three-fold cultural sequence: Neolithi Chalcolithic and Iron Age. The combined evidence fron Chopani and Koldihawa indicates sedentary life, and do mestication of rice and of cattle and sheep / goat. It has been suggested (though the idea has not beel accepted by..all) that Belan valley emerged as the earlies rice-farming community in India (6000 BC).

Bihar The Gangetic valley of Bihar was occupied bJ sedentary village settlements much later-2000-1600 Be Chirand (Saran district), Chechar, Senuwar (Rohtas district) Taradih, etc are the important Neolithic sites. They thrO\\ significant light on the life pattern of the Neolithic peop" of the region. Chirand and Senuwar are known for their remarkable bone tools. The grains cultivated at Chiranc were wheat, barley, rice and lentil.
South India The Neolithic settlements in South Indi, are found on the hilly and dry Deccan plateau. Importanl excavated sites include Sangankallu, Nagarjunakonda, Maski. Brahmagiri, Tekkalakota, Piklihal and Hallur.

Ragi (millet) was one of the earliest crops cultivated by the South Indian Neolithic farmers. It is believed thai the domesticated ragi came from East Africa. Other crop~ cultivated in the region included wheat, horsegram and green gram (moong). Domesticated animals like cattle, sheep and goat, buffalo, ass, and fowl are also reported from same sites.

Abundance of cattle and other kinds of food articles suggest that the economy of South Indian Neolithic people was agriculture-cum-pastoral. According to C-14 dates, the Neolithic culture of South India has been placed between 2600 and 1000 BC.

NEOLITHIC PERIOD

NEOLITHIC PERIOD

In the world context, the Neolithic Age began in 9000 Be. The only Neolithic settlement in the Indian subcontinent attributed to 7000 Be lies in Mehrgarh in Baluchistan. Some Neolithic sites fOW1d on the northern spurs of the Vindhyas are as old as 5000 Be. The tools and implements were now made of polished stone. An important Neolithic site is Burzahom, which means 'the place of birth', near Srinagar.

The term 'Neolithic' was coined by Sir John Lubbock in his book Prehistoric Times, first published in 1865. The term denotes an age in which stone implements were made more skilfully and were more varied in form than earlier. V. Gordon Childe defined the Neolithic-Chalcolithic culture as a self­sufficient food economy. Miles Burkit put forward the following four characteristics a culture should fulfil to be known as a Neolithic culture: (i) agriculture practice, (ii) animal domestica­tion, (iii) grinded and polished stone tools, and (iv) pottery manufacture.
The Neolithic people lived there by a lakeside in pits, and probably had a hunting and fishing economy.. Besides stone implements, the people of Burzahom also used bone imple­ments (the only other site in India known for bone imple­ments is Chirand near Patna). They used coarse grey pottery, and buried domesticated dogs with their masters in the graves. Pit-dwelling and burial of dogs in their masters' graves were not practised in any other part of India.
The Neolithic people of South India usually settled on the tops of the granite hills or on plateaus near the river banks. Fire-baked earthen figurines suggest that they kept a large number of cattle. They used rubbing stone querns, which shows that they were acquainted with the art of producing cereals. Neolithic sites in Allahabad district are noted for the cultivation of rice in the sixth millenium Be.
The Neolithic phase in South India seems to have covered the period from about 3000 Be to 1000 Be.

The Neolithic settlers were the earliest farming com­munities. They lived in circular or rectangular houses made of mud and reed. Pottery first appears in this phase-black burnished ware, grey ware and mat-impressed ware. A few villages also appeared.

MESOLITHIC PAINTINGS

MESOLITHIC PAINTINGS

Rock paintings and engrav­ings by the Mesolithic people describe a good deal about their social life and economic activities. Bhimbetka, Adamgarh, Pratapgarh and Mirzapur are rich in Mesolithic art. In the paintings at these sites, hW1ting, food-gathering, fishing and other human activities are reflected. Particularly striking are the paintings of Bhimbetka. Many animals such as boar, buffalo, monkey and nilgai are frequently depicted. Activities like sexual union, childbirth, rearing of children and burial ceremony are depicted in the Mesolithic paint­ings and engravings. It suggests that social organisation had become more stable during the Mesolithic period.

MESOLITHIC SITES

MESOLITHIC SITES Mesolithic sites are fOW1d in good numbers in Rajasthan, Gujarat, southern and eastern Uttar Pradesh, and South India.

Rajasthan The Pachpadra basin and the Sojat area in Rajasthan are rich in microliths-small stone tools. Bagor on the river Kothari is the largest Mesolithic site in India. The site has been horizontally excavated and it gives evidence of three cultural phases. Phase I or the earliest phase has been placed between 5000 and 2000 Be. Tilwara, another important Mesolithic site in the state, has two cultural phases: Phase I (presence of microliths and hence Mesolithic) and Phase II (presence of pieces of iron together with microliths).

Gujarat Akhaj, Valasana, Hirpur and Langhnaj, situ­ated on the eastern bank of River Sabarmati, have yielded many Mesolithic tools. Langhnaj is the most extensively
studied site in the state.

Uttar Pradesh Sarai Nahar Rai in the Allahabad­Pratapgarh area of Uttar Pradesh is the most extensively studied Mesolithic site in the state. Morhana Pahar and Lekhahia are two other important Mesolithic sites.
Madhya Pradesh Bhimbetka and Adamgarh (Hosangabad) are among the prominent Mesolithic sites in this state.

Eastern India Chhota Nagpur plateau Oharkhand); Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and SW1dergarh (Orissa); Birbhanpur (West Bengal); and Sehalgiri 2 in Garo Hills (Meghalaya) have yielded Pre-Neolithic and Neolithic microliths.
South India The Krishna and Bhima rivers have produced many microliths. The Godavari delta is also rich in microliths. Microliths have also been reported from RenigW1ta (Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh).

MESOLITHIC PERIOD

MESOLITHIC PERIOD

In the Mesolithic Age, the climate became warm and dry. Climatic changes brought about changes in faW1a and flora and made it possible for human beings to move to new areas. Since then, there have not been any major changes in climate. This age intervened as a transitional phase between the Palaeolithic Age and the Neolithic Age which began aroW1d 9000 Be. The Mesolithic people lived on hW1ting, fishing and food-gathering; at a later stage they also domesticated animals. Characteristic tools are microliths. Adamgarh in Madhya Pradesh and Bagor in Rajasthan provide the earliest evidence for the domestication of animals (aroW1d 5000 Be). The cultivation of plants aroW1d 7000-6000 Be is suggested in Rajasthan from a study of the deposits of the former salt lake, Sambhar.

The Mesolithic culture roughly spanned the period, 9000 Be to 4000 Be.
In the Belan valley all the three phases of the Palaeolithic followed by the Mesolithic and then by the Neolithic have been fOW1d in sequence. Similar is the case with the middle part of the Narmada Valley. But in several areas the Neolithic culture succeeded the Mesolithic tradition which continued at places till 1000 Be.

PALAEOLITHIC PEOPLE

PALAEOLITHIC PEOPLE Palaeolithic human beings were primarily in a hW1ting and gathering stage. HW1ting practices were concentrated on large- and middle-sized mammals, especially W1gulates (hoofed animals). Deer, rhinoceros and elephant also seem to have been hW1ted. The subsistence patterns of hW1ter-gatherers were adapted to a dry season/wet season cycle of exploitation of animal and plant foods. Working out the diet pattern of Palaeolithic people is difficult as the evidence of people and plant relationship for the past is lacking.

Rock paintings and carvings by the Palaeolithic people also throw light on their subsistence economy and social life. Bhimbetka (in Madhya Pradesh) is the most striking site where more than 500 painted rock shelters of different periods are extant. The paintings of Upper Palaeolithic stage are - done in green and dark red colours. They are usually large. The paintings are predominantly of bisons, elephants, tigers, rhinos and boars which show the importance of these animals in the hW1ting life of Palaeolithic people. These paintings also show that Palaeolithic people lived in small groups.

PALAEOLITHIC SITES IN INDIA

PALAEOLITHIC SITES IN INDIA The major Palaeolithic sites in India are as follows.

North A Palaeolithic hand-axe was discovered near Pahalgam in Kashmir on the Lidder river. The Sohan Valley (PW1jab), besides the banks of rivers Beas, Bangange and Sirsa, has also yielded Palaeolithic tools.
West Chittorgarh, Kota and Negarai (Rajasthan) have yielded Palaeolithic tools. The Wagoon and Kadamali river basins in Mewar are rich in Middle Palaeolithic sites. The rivers Sabarmati, Mahi and their tributaries, Bhader, Narbada have yielded many Palaeolithic artefacts. So have the rivers Tapti, Godavari, Bhima and Krishna. Chirki (near Nevasa), Koregaon, Chandoli and Shikarpur in Maharashtra have reported many Palaeolithic tools.

East The river Raro (Singhbhum, Jharkand) is rich in Palaeolithic tools. The Damodar and the Suvarnarekha valleysJn the state have also yielded Palaeolithic tools. In Orissa, some Palaeolithic tools have been fOW1d on the banks of the rivers, Baitarani, Brahmani and Mahanadi.

South Anagawadi and Bagalkot are two most impor­tant Palaeolithic sites on the Ghatprabha river basin in Karnataka. The rivers, Palar, Penniyar and Kaveri in Tamil Nadu are rich in Palaeolithic tools.

It, therefore, appears that Palaeolithic sites are fOW1d on many hilly slopes and in river valleys of the cOW1try, and are absent in the alluvial plains of the Indus and the Ganga.

PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD

PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD
In the Palaeolithic Age (which lasted 1 mi,llion and 10,000 years ago) the human beings used stone tools, roughly dressed by crude chipping, which have been discovered throughout the country except the alluvial plains of the Indus, Ganga and Yamuna rivers. They barely managed to gather their food and lived on hunting. They had no knowledge of cultivation and house-building. This phase continued till about 9000 BC.

The Palaeolithic Age in India is divided into three phases according to the nature of the stone tools used by the people and also according to the nature of change in the climate. The Lower (early) Palaeolithic Age covers the greater part of the Ice Age; its characteristic tools are hand­axes, cleavers and choppers. In this period climate became less humid. The Middle Palaeolithic industries are mainly based upon flakes; the principal tools are varieties of blades, points, borers and scrapers made of flakes. Irl the Upper Palaeolithic phase, the climate became warm and less humid. This phase is marked by burins and scrapers. In the world context, it marks the appearance of new flint industries and of men of the modern type (Homo sapiens).

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Pre-History

The earth is nearly 4000 million years old. It evolved in four stages. Man is said to have appeared on the earth in the early Pleistocene stage of the Quaternary Age when true ox, true elephant and true horse also originated. But recent finds suggest that this event occurred in Africa about 2.6 million years back.

The fossils of the early human being have not been found in India. A hint of the earliest human presence in India is indicated by stone tools of about 250,000 BC obtained from the deposits. However, recently reported artefacts from Bori in Maharashtra suggest the appearance of human beings in India around 1.4 million years ago.

From their first appearance to around 3000 BC humans used only stone tools for different purposes in life. This period is, therefore, known as the Stone Age, which has been divided into Palaeolithic (early or Old Stone) Age, Mesolithic (Middle Stone) Age, and Neolithic (New Stone) Age.

POINTS TO REMEMBER

. Charcoal, because of its high content of carbon, is the
most common material utilised for radiocarbon dating.
. The study of coins is called numismatics.
. Ancient coins were made of copper, silver, gold or lead. . The Guptas issued the largest number of gold coins. . Most of the Mauryan, post-Mauryan and Gupta inscrip­
tions have been published in a series of collections called Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum.
. The earliest inscriptions are found on the seals of Harappa belonging to about 2500 BC, but the earliest inscriptions deciphered so far were issued by Asoka.
. Firuz Shah Tughlaq found Asokan inscription in Meerut
and Topra (Haryana).
. Mahabharata possibly reflects the state of affairs from the
tenth century BC to the fourth century AD.
. Kautilya's Arthashastra is divided into 15 books. It
provides rich material for the study of ancient Indian
polity and economy.
. The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (in Greek), by an unknown author, Ptolemy's Geography (in Greek) and Pliny's Naturalis Historical (in Latin) provide valuable data for the study of ancient geography and commerce.
. Manusmriti was translated into English and was called 'A Code of Gentoo Law'. Williams Jones translated Abhijnanasha-kuntalam into English in 1789. Wilkins trans­lated the Bhagavad Gita into English in 1785.

F. Max Mueller, a German scholar, provided the greatest
push to Indological studies.
. History of the Dhilrmasastra was written by Pandurang
Varman Kane.
. AI-Beruni's Kitab-ul-Hind is considered the finest foreign
account of medieval India.
. Minhaj-us-Siraj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri gives useful informa­
tion regarding the slave dynasty of Delhi, while Zia-ud­din Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi gives the history of the first six years of Firuz Shah Tughlaq's reign.
. The reigns of Bengal Sultans, especially of the 14th to 16th centuries, have been explained solely on the basis of epigraphic sources (inscriptions).

­

PERIODISATION

PERIODISATION

In a strictly logical view, the history of any country is an indivisible unity in which ideas, events, and personalities act and react on one another, often in an obscure and intangible manner. But such complex wholes do not lend themselves to clear exposition or convenient study until they are broken up into manageable units, and this process is bound to be somewhat arbitrary and conventional. Indian history is broadly divided into ancient, medieval and modem periods. However, there are further divisions of these periods.

Man lived through scores of centuries in India as elsewhere before recorded history begins. And though the Indus Valley Civilisation has yielded some hundreds of pictographs, particularly on seals, they have not yet been deciphered, and therefore historians generally include that civilisation also in pre-history or, better, proto-history. Though that civilisation may be shown to have contributed History of India
some notable elements to the historic civilisation of India, the continuous history of the country is seen as beginning mainly after the settlement of the Aryans around 1500 Be. The Aryanisation of the Deccan and the Far South must be put much later.

The period 1500-1000 BC is called the early Vedic period, the details of which we get from the Rigveda. Then starts the later Vedic period (Circa 1000-600 BC) in which the rest of the three Vedas (Sama, Yajur and Atharva), the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, the Upanishads, etc. were com­posed. Around 600 BC starts the Buddha period or the period of Mahajanapadas when small kingdoms appeared, and this continued till the establishment of the Mauryan empire (322 BC).

The Mauryan period (322 BC-185 BC) was followed by the period of foreign invasions (Greeks, Shakas, Pahlavas, Kushanas, etc.). This period is mainly known for the Shaka, Kushana and Satavahana rules. The following period is known as the Gupta period (320 AD-6oo AD). In the post-Gupta period (600-1206 AD) there appeared and disappeared numerous dynasties including those of the Rajputs, Palas, Pratiharas, Rashtrakutas, and Senas, among others.

It is d 'Sp led whether the medieval period began with the establis ent of Muslim rule in India. Many scholars believe th certain characteristics of the medieval period, e.g., feudalism, appeared towards the end of the Gupta period.

The period in which India had Muslim rulers can be broadly divided into the Delhi Sultanate (AD 1206-1526) and the Mughal period (AD 1526-1857). But there is overlapping between the medieval period a..'ld the modem period. By the time of the Battle of Plassey (AD 1757), Mughal rule had almost decayed, and towards the end of t};le 18th century modem education, and modem political and socio-eco­nomic ideas had begun to percolate into the country. The period AD 1857-61 is significant in that British paramountcy came to be clearly established. British rule in India came to an end on August 15, 1947, and with that ends our concern for periodisation.
(Note: In the next few chapters, we have discussed the history of India as a continuous process without dividing it into the conventional 'periods'.)

PERIODISATION

PERIODISATION

In a strictly logical view, the history of any country is an indivisible unity in which ideas, events, and personalities act and react on one another, often in an obscure and intangible manner. But such complex wholes do not lend themselves to clear exposition or convenient study until they are broken up into manageable units, and this process is bound to be somewhat arbitrary and conventional. Indian history is broadly divided into ancient, medieval and modem periods. However, there are further divisions of these periods.

Man lived through scores of centuries in India as elsewhere before recorded history begins. And though the Indus Valley Civilisation has yielded some hundreds of pictographs, particularly on seals, they have not yet been deciphered, and therefore historians generally include that civilisation also in pre-history or, better, proto-history. Though that civilisation may be shown to have contributed History of India
some notable elements to the historic civilisation of India, the continuous history of the country is seen as beginning mainly after the settlement of the Aryans around 1500 Be. The Aryanisation of the Deccan and the Far South must be put much later.

The period 1500-1000 BC is called the early Vedic period, the details of which we get from the Rigveda. Then starts the later Vedic period (Circa 1000-600 BC) in which the rest of the three Vedas (Sama, Yajur and Atharva), the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, the Upanishads, etc. were com­posed. Around 600 BC starts the Buddha period or the period of Mahajanapadas when small kingdoms appeared, and this continued till the establishment of the Mauryan empire (322 BC).

The Mauryan period (322 BC-185 BC) was followed by the period of foreign invasions (Greeks, Shakas, Pahlavas, Kushanas, etc.). This period is mainly known for the Shaka, Kushana and Satavahana rules. The following period is known as the Gupta period (320 AD-6oo AD). In the post-Gupta period (600-1206 AD) there appeared and disappeared numerous dynasties including those of the Rajputs, Palas, Pratiharas, Rashtrakutas, and Senas, among others.

It is d 'Sp led whether the medieval period began with the establis ent of Muslim rule in India. Many scholars believe th certain characteristics of the medieval period, e.g., feudalism, appeared towards the end of the Gupta period.

The period in which India had Muslim rulers can be broadly divided into the Delhi Sultanate (AD 1206-1526) and the Mughal period (AD 1526-1857). But there is overlapping between the medieval period a..'ld the modem period. By the time of the Battle of Plassey (AD 1757), Mughal rule had almost decayed, and towards the end of t};le 18th century modem education, and modem political and socio-eco­nomic ideas had begun to percolate into the country. The period AD 1857-61 is significant in that British paramountcy came to be clearly established. British rule in India came to an end on August 15, 1947, and with that ends our concern for periodisation.
(Note: In the next few chapters, we have discussed the history of India as a continuous process without dividing it into the conventional 'periods'.)

CHANGING TRENDS IN HISTORICAL WRITINGS

CHANGING TRENDS IN HISTORICAL WRITINGS

Ancient Indians, it is generally held, lacked historical sense. Of course, they did not write 'history' in the manner it is done today, or in the way the Greeks did. But on closer examination, we do find some sort of historical sense amongst the ancient Indians. Though encyclopaedic in content, the Puranas provide dynastic history up to the beginning of the Gupta rule. They mention the places where events took place and sometimes discuss their causes and effects. The authors of the Puranas were not unaware of the idea of change, which is the essence of history. The Puranas speak of four ages called krita, treta, dvapara and kali. The importance of time, a vital element in history, is indicated. Several eras, according to which events were recorded, were started in ancient India. The Vikrama Samvat began in 58 BC, the Shaka Samvat in AD 78, and the Gupta era in AD 319.

Inscriptions record events in the context of time and place. During the third century Be, Asokan inscriptions record events of his reign. Similarly, in the first century BC, Kharavela of Kalinga records a good many events of his life, year-wise, in the Hathigumpha inscription.

Indians display considerable historical sense in bio­graphical writings, though these are fraught with eulogies and exaggerations. Banabhatta's Harshacharita is a typical example. Sandyakara Nandi's Ramcharita (twelfth century AD) narrates the story of the conflict between the Kaivarta peasants and the Pala prince, Ramapala, resulting in the latter's victory. The Mushika Vamsa, written by Atula in the eleventh century, gives an account of the dynasty of the Mushikas which ruled in northern Kerala.

Although educated Indians retained their traditional history in the form of handwritten epics, Puranas and semi­biographical works, modem research in the history of ancient India started in the second half of the eighteenth century, partially because of the natural interest of the British and other Western scholars and partially because of the needs of the colonial administration.

In the wake of the 1857 Revolt, it was strongly realised by British rulers that they needed a deep knowledge of the manners and social systems of an alien people over whom they had to rule. Similarly, the Christian missionaries wanted to find out the vulnerable points in the Hindu religion to win converts and strengthen the British empire. To meet these needs, the ancient scriptures were translated on a massive scale under the editorship of Max Mueller. Altogether fifty volumes, some in seven parts, were pub­lished under the Sacred Books of the East series. Although a few Chinese and Iranian texts were included, the ancient Indian texts predominated in the series.

In the introductions to these volumes and the books based on them, Max Mueller and other Western scholars made certain generalisations about the nature of ancient Indian history and society. They stated that the ancient Indians lacked a sense of history, especially the factor of time and chronology, and were accustomed to despotic rule. The 'natives', it was opined, were engrossed in the problems of spiritualism or of the next world, and were least bothered about the problems of this world. The caste system was considered to be the most vicious form of social discrimi­nation. The Western scholars stressed that the Indians had neither experienced feelings of nationhood nor any kind of self-government.

Many of these generalisations appeared in the Early History of India by VA Smith (1843-1920), who prepared the first systematic history of ancient India in 1904. Smith's approach to history was pro-imperialist: he emphasised the role of foreigners in ancient India. Alexander's invasion accounted for almost one-third of his book. India was presented as a land of despotism which did not experience political unity until the establishment of British rule.

In sum, British interpretations of Indian history served to denigrate Indian characters and achievements, and to justify the colonial rule. Indian scholars who received Western education were irked by colonialist distortions of their past even as 'they were distressed by the contrast between the decaying feudal society of India and the progressive capitalist society of England. Many, therefore, started writing ancient Indian history in a nationalist tone, advocating social reform and self-government. There were others who adopted a ratio­nalist and Objective approach.

To the rationalist category belongs Rajendra Lal Mitra (1822-1891), who published some Vedic texts and wrote the Indo-Aryans. He produced a forceful tract to show that in ancient times people took beef. In Maharashtra, RG. Bhandarkar reconstructed the political history of the Deccan of the Satavahanas and the history of Vaishnavism and other sects. A great social reformer, through his researches he advocated widow marriage and castigated the evils of the caste system and child marriage. V.K. Rajwade went from village to village in Maharashtra in search of Sanskrit manuscripts and sources of Maratha history; these sources came to be published in twenty-two volumes. The history of the institution of marriage that he wrote in Marathi in 1926 continues to be a classic because of its solid base in Vedic and other texts, and also because of the author's insight into the stages of the evolution of marriage in India. P.V. Kane (1880-1972), a great Sanskritist wedded to social reform, wrote the History of the Dharmashastras published in five volumes, which is an encyclopaedia of ancient social laws and customs. It enables us to make a study of social processes in ancient India.

The Indian scholars keenly studied the past to dem­onstrate that India did have its political history and that the Indians possessed expertise in administration. D.R Bhandarkar (1875-1950), an epigraphist, published books on Asoka and on ancient Indian political institutions. H.C. Raychoudhury (1892-1957) reconstructed the history of ancient India from the time of the Mahabharata war (tenth century BC) to the end of the Gupta empire (6th century AD). However, his writings show a streak of militant Brahmanism when he criticises Asoka's policy of peace. A strong element of Hindu revivalism appears in the writings of RC. Mazumdar (1888-1980).

Most writers on early Indian history did not give adequate attention to South India. K.A. Nilkanta Shastri (1892-1975) took the initiative when he wrote the History of South India. Under his leadership, several research mono­graphs were produced on the dynastic history of South India.

Until 1960, political history attracted the largest num­ber of Indian scholars, who also glorified the histories of their respective regions on dynastic lines.
Those who wrote history on a pan-India level were inspired by the idea of nationalism. The nationalist histo­rians gave much less importance to Alexander's invasion and placed stress on the importance of the dialogue of Porus with Alexander and Chandragupta Maurya's liberation of north-western India from Seleucus. Some scholars such as K.P. Jayaswal (1881-1937) and AS. Altekar (1898-1959) overplayed the role of the Shakas and the Kushanas. However, K.P. Jayaswal exploded the myth. of Indian despotism and showed that republics existed in ancient times and enjoyed a measure of self-government.

A Sanskritist by training, AL. Basham (1914-86) ques­tioned the wisdom of looking at ancient India from the modem point of view. He believed that the past should be read out of curiosity and pleasure. His book The Wonder That Was India (1951) is a sympathetic survey of the various facets of ancient Indian culture and civilisation, and is free of the prejudices that prevail in V.A Smith or other British writers. It is a shift from political to non-political history. The same shift is evident in D.D. Kosambi's books. His treatment follows the materialist interpretation of history. Kosambi presents the history of ancient Indian society, economy and culture as an integral part of the development of the forces and relations of production.
During the last twenty-five years, there has been a sea­change in the methods and orientation of those working on ancient India. Greater stress is now laid on social, economic, and cultural processes and on relating them to political developments.

SOURCES FOR MODERN INDIA

SOURCES FOR MODERN INDIA

There is no shortage of source-material for constructing the history of modem India. There is plenty of information available on the political, socio-economic and cultural developments in the country.

LITERARY SOURCES Top priority among literary sources should be given to official records, Le., the papers of government agencies at different levels. The records put down by the East India Company give a detailed account of trading conditions during this period. The official records cover all levels of administration, from the district to the supreme government, apart from those relating to the Court of Directors and the Board of Control. The British Crown, when it took over the reins of administration, also kept a large variety and volume of official records. By reading this material, one can trace every important development stage­by-stage and follow the processes of decision-making.

Records of European Companies The records of the Portuguese, Dutch and French companies are useful for constructing the history of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies. They are important primarily from the' point of view of economic history, but much can also be gathered about the political set-up.

Indigenous Literary Sources Persian chronicles con­tinue to prove useful for this period. Special mention may be made of Siyar-ul-mutakherin by Ghulam Hussain Tabatabai. Marathi newsletters are also important in this regard. The most important source-book written in the Tamil language is the diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, who records the vicissitudes of south Indian politics during a crucial period relating to Dupleix.

Miscellaneous Works There are many contemporary or semi-contemporary works such as memoirs, biographies, travel accounts which give us interesting and useful glimpses into the history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, news­papers had made their appearance and these provide valuable information.

SOURCES FOR STUDYING MEDIEVAL INDIA

SOURCES FOR STUDYING MEDIEVAL INDIA

LITERARY SOURCES State papers and official or pri­vate documents written in Persian provide much informa­tion for reconstructing the history of the period. Though most of it has been lost, those found in private collections throw much light on the administration, economy and society of the time.
Chronicles Chronicles have provided ample informa­tion with regard to the history of medieval India. 'Minhaj­us-Siraj's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri gives useful information regarding the slave dynasty of Delhi up to the year 1267 AD. Zia-ud­din Barani's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi gives the history of the first si~ years of Firuz Shah Tughlaq's reign.

Firuz Shah's own composition, Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi gives a record of his administrative achievements. Isami's Futah-us Salatin deals with the period extending from the rise of the Ghaznavids to the reign of Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq. Babur's famous Memoirs originally written in Turki gives important infor­mation about the natural environs of the country. The Memoirs of Jahangir is an excellent source of history. Gulbadan Begum's Humayun-nama gives insight into the affairs of the royal harem. Abul Fazal's Ain-i-Akbari and Akbar-nama are the two most important works dealing with the reign of Akbar. Another important contemporary work is Badauni's Muntakhab-ul-Tawarikh. Two official chronicles i.e., Padishah-nama and Alamgir-nama cover the reign of Shah Jahan and the early years of Aurangzeb's reign. For the latter part of Aurangzeb's reign there is the Masir-i-Alamgiri. Khafi Khan's Muntakhab-ul-Lubab supplies us with many facts which were earlier suppressed by Aurangzeb.The defects of the Persian chronicles are: (i) lack of objectivity, bias towards royalty; (ii) lack of interest in common people.

Foreign travellers Travellers from abroad give us in­teresting information regarding the political, social and economic conditions in medieval India. AI-Beruni's account of India during Sultan Mahmud Ghazni's conquest in his Kitab-ul-Hind is considered to be the finest foreign account of medieval India. Marco Polo who visited South India in the latter part of the thirteenth century has given useful information. The best known foreigners who visited India during the pre-Mughal period were the Moroccan, Thn Batuta, an Italian, Nicolo Conti, who visited Vijayanagar around AD 1294, a Persian, Akbar Razzaq who was the ambassador of Shah Rukh of Samarqand at the court of the Zamorin of Calicut and visited the Vijayanagar kingdom (around AD 1442), and a Russian, Athanasius Nikitin who visited South India in AD 1470. From the sixteenth century onwards, the European travellers who came to Iridia have left a mine of information for us. The works of Jesuit missionaries and European travellers like Barbosa, Ralph Fitch, Roe, Taverneir, Berneir, and Manucci have described the conditions of the people, the state of trade and com­merce, and the magnificence of the court and the camp.

COINS Coins have given useful information regarding the state of polity and economy during the Sultanate and Mughal periods. The coins of Muhammad-bin- Tughlaq have revealed much about his reign and his kingdom. The coins of provincial rulers such as those of Bengal, for instance, with their dates and mint-marks, are specially valuable as resources of information not fully dealt with in the general chronicles.

EPIGRAPHIC SOURCES Inscriptions are of greater use for the pre-Mughal rather than the Mughal period. The reigns of the Bengal Sultans, Shams-ud-din Firuz, Ala-ud­din Firuz, and the Nizam Shahi king, Burhan m, have been established by studying inscriptions alone. The Bengal Sultanate, especially from the 14th to 16th centuries, has been understood solely on the basis of epigraphic sources. In many an instance, the full titles of kings and queens and the history of minor dynasties have been revealed by studying inscriptions. The inscriptions that reveal India's medieval history throw light on political aspects as well as social life.

MONUMENTS Monuments testify to the growth of material prosperity and the development of culture. They do not help us much in constructing political history.

FOREIGN ACCOUNTS

FOREIGN ACCOUNTS

The foreign accounts supple­ment the indigenous literature. There is no mention of Alexander's invasion in Indian sources; we come to know about his exploits from Greek sources. The Greek writers mention Sandrokottas (identified with Chandragupta Maurya), a contemporary of Alexander. This has served as the sheet-anchor in ancient Indian chronology, as we place the accession of Chandragupta around 322 Be.

A precise account of interior India is first obtained from an account by Megasthenes, Seleucus' envoy to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, which has been preserved only in fragments quoted by subsequent classical writers like Arrian, Starbo and Justin. These fragments, when read together, furnish valuabl~ information not only about the adminIstration but als01bout social classes and economic activities in the MauryaIi period.

Greek and Roman accounts of the first and second centuries AD mention many Indian ports and enumerate items of trade .between India and the Roman empire. The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (by an unknown author, AD 80­115) and Ptolemy's Geography (AD 150)-both written in Greek-provide valuable data for the study of ancient geography and commerce. Pliny's Naturalis Historia (first century AD) in Latin describes trade between India and Italy.

Chinese accounts have proved a valuable source for information on the Gupta period and the years immediately following the end of Gupta rule. The Chinese travellers, Fa­hsien (Record of the Buddhist Countries) and Hsuan Tsang (Buddhist Records of the Western World) who came to India to visit Buddhist shrines and study Buddhism, describe the social, economic and religious conditions of the country in the fourth-fifth and seventh centuries respectively. Hwuili's Life of Hsuan Tsang, and Itsing's A Record of the Buddhistic Religion as Practised in India and Malay Archipelago, which refers to Sri Gupta, are valuable for studying North India in the 7th century AD.

The accounts of Arabs such as the merchant Sulaiman who visited India during the time of Bhoja I (AD 851), Abu Zaid, Abul Qasim (died AD 1070) who authored Tubaqat ul-Umam, a book on ancient Indian culture and science, Shahriyar, Ibn Batuta and Ibn Nazim are valuable sources for the study of ancient Indian history.
In constructing the history of medieval and British periods, we are amply helped by the various extant archi­tectural remains, historical books, letters, diaries, etc.

LITERARY SOURCES

LITERARY SOURCES

The ancient Indians knew writing at least as early as 2500 Be, but no manuscripts older than the 4th century are available. The manuscripts were written on birch bark and palm leaves, but in Central Asia, where Prakrit had gone from India, manuscripts were also written on sheep leather and wooden tablets. The Vedas and related books were put into writing quite late. The Rig Veda describes the period 1500-1000 Be, and the later Vedic literature gives glimpses of the history of about 1000-600 Be. Buddhist literature, the two epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, and other books help us to know about the subsequent periods. We mainly rely on literary sources for the history of India just before the Mauryas.

Later, literary sources began to supplement other sources. The Puranas are regarded by some as having been written historically, though this view is disputed by other scholars. However, generf}lly the first 'historical' writing by an Indian is attributed to Kalhana who wrote the Rajatarangini in the twelfth century, giving a dynastic chronicle of the kings of Kashmir. Some important ancient works that are important source materials include Asvaghosa's Buddhacharita (AD 100) in Pali, the Gaudavaho in Prakrit by Bappaira which talks .of King Yasovarman (AD 750), and the Harshacharita by'Bana which is an account on the life of King Harsha (AD 606­47). The Sangam literature gives an insight into the social, economic and political life of the people of deltaic Tamil Nadu in the early Christian centuries. Its information regarding trade and commerce of the time is attested to by foreign accounts and archaeological finds.

INSCRIPTIONS

INSCRIPTIONS

Inscriptions are more important than coins in historical reconstruction. The study of inscriptions is called 'epigraphy', and the study of old writing is called 'palaeography'. Inscriptions are writings carved on seals, stone pillars, rocks, copper plates, temple walls and bricks or images.
The vast epigraphic material available in India pro­vides the most reliable data for studying history. Like coins, inscriptions are preserved in various museums, but the largest number is under the Chief Epigraphist at Mysore. The earliest inscriptions found were written in Prakrit in the 3rd century Be. Sanskrit became an epigraphic medium in the 2nd century AD. Regional languages also came to be employed in inscriptions from the 9th-10th centuries on­wards. Many inscriptions pertaining to the history from the Maurya to Gupta times have been published in a series of collections called 'Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum'. In South India, topographical lists of inscriptions have been published. The earliest inscriptions are found on the seals of Harappa, which, however, remain undeciphered. The oldest inscriptions deciphered so far are the Prakrit inscrip­tions, in Brahmi and in Kharosthi, of Asoka (third century BC).

COINS

COINS

Though numerous coins have been found on the surface, many have been found while digging the mounds. The study of coins is called 'numismatics'. Nu­mismatics was used for historiography as far back as the 12th century by Kalhana, the author of Rajatarangini. The earlier coins discovered in India a,re of copper and silver. However, ancient coins of gold, lead, etc., have also been found. The earliest coins of India contain a few symbols, but the later coins mention the names of kings and gods or dates.

Ancient people would store money in earthenware or brass vessels. Many such hoards, containing both indig­enous coins and those minted abroad such as in the Roman empire, have been discovered indifferent parts of the country. The areas where they are found indicate the region of their circulation. These coins have enabled us to recon­struct the history and extent of several ruling dynasties, especially of the Indo-Greeks. About 31 of the Indo-Greek kings and queens have been known mainly from coins alone. Much of the history of the Kushanas has been revealed to us through their coins. Much of the political life of the Sakas of Ujjain comes to us only through coins.

Coins are a good source of administrative as well as constitutional history. The ancient coins celebrate the victory of republics in some cases. They thus confirm the preva­lence of a republican constitution in ancient India. The administration under the Sakas and the Pahlavas has been reconstructed largely on the basis of coins. The purity of the coins also reveals the economic conditions of a period. Coins also portray kings and gods, and contain religious symbols and legends, by which one can get an idea of the art and religion of the time. Portraits on some of the Indo­Greek coins are considered the best examples of ancient portraiture art.

SOURCES OF ANCIENT INDIAN HISTORY : MATERIAL REMAINS

SOURCES OF ANCIENT INDIAN HISTORY

On the basis of the finds of the foreign and Indian scholars, sources were identified which helped to construct the history of India in the proper way. Such sources can be classified into the following categories; material remains,
coins, inscriptions, literary sources and foreign accounts.

MATERIAL REMAINS

Though ancient Indians left innumerable material temains on the earth's surface, such as the stone temples in South India and the brick monas­teries in eastern India, the major part of these remains lies buried in mounds. Excavations of some mounds have revealed the cities established around 2500 BC in north­western India. Also revealed are the layout of the settle­ments, the types of pottery used by the people, the form of their houses, the kind of cereals consumed, the type of

their tools, implements or weapons, etc. Material remains excavated and explored are subjected to various kinds of scientific examination. Their dates are fixed according to the radio-carbon method; computers are also now used for the dating process. Through an examination of plant residues, especially through pollen analysis, the climate and vegeta­tion of a period of the past can be known. Such examination has established that agriculture was practised in Rajasthan and Kashmir around 7000-6000 Be. The metal artefacts obtained help us to know the stages of development of metal technology. Animal bones show whether the animals were domesticated or not, and the uses they were put to.

PIONEERS IN REDISCOVERY

PIONEERS IN REDISCOVERY

With the arrival of Sir William Jones in Calcutta (1783), the pace of the search into India's past increased. Before coming to India he had suggested that Persian and the European languages were derived from a common ancestor which was not Hebrew. With the aid of Charles Wilkins (1749­1836), an official of the British East India Company, and friendly Bengali pandits, Jones began to learn Sanskrit. He founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal on January 1, 1784 with himself as the president. In the journal of this society, Asiatic Researches, the first real steps towards revealing mdia's past were taken.

In November 1784, the first direct translation of a Sanskrit work into English, Wilkin's Bhagwad Gita, was completed. Wilkins followed this with a translation of the Hitopadesa in 1787. In 1789 Jones translated Kalidasa's Shakuntalam; he also translated Gita Govinda (1792) and the law-book of Manu (published posthumously in 1794 under the title Institutes of Hindoo Law). Jones and Wilkins could be called the fathers of Indology.


Interest in Sanskrit literature began to grow in Europe as a result of these translations. In 1795, the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes was founded in France, and Alexander Hamilton (1762-1824) at Paris became the first person to teach Sanskrit in Europe. It was from Hamilton that Friedrich Schlegel, the first German Sanskrit scholar, learnt the language. The first university chair of Sanskrit was founded at the College de France in 1814, and held by Leonard de Chezy, while from 1818 onwards the larger German universities set up professorships. Sanskrit was first taught in England in 1805 at the training college of the East India Company at Hertford. The earliest English chair was the Boden Professorship at Oxford, first filled in1832 by H.H. Wilson. Chairs were afterwards founded at London, Cambridge and Edinburgh, and at several other universities of Europe and America.

In 1816, Fraz Bopp (1791-1867), a Bavarian, succeeded in very tentatively reconstructing the common ancestor of Sanskrit and the classical languages of Europe, and com­parative philology became an independent science. The enormous Sanskrit-German dictionary (St. Petersburg Lexi­con) was produced by the German scholars, Otto Bohtlingk and Rudolf Roth, and published in parts by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences from 1852 to 1875.

The early work of the Asiatic Society of Bengal had been almost entirely literary and linguistic, and most of the 19th century Indologists concentrated mainly on written records. Early in the 19th century, however, the Bengal Society began to turn towards the material remains of India's past, e.g., temples, caves and shrines, together with early coins and copies of inscriptions and old scripts.

By working backwards from the current scripts the older ones were gradually deciphered. In 1937, James Prinsep, an official of the Calcutta Mint, and secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, interpreted for the first time the earliest Brahmi script and was able to read the Asokan edicts. Alexander Cunningham (called the father of Indian archaeology), who came to India in 1831 and retired in 1885, was appointed (1862) the first Archaeological Surveyor by the Government. After William Jones, Indology owes more to Cunningham than to any other worker in the area. He was assisted by several other pioneers, and though, at the end of the 19th century, the activities of the Archaeological Survey almost ceased, owing to the meagreness of govern­ment grants, by 1900 many ancient buildings had been surveyed, and many inscriptions read and translated.

In the 20th century, archaeological excavations began on a large scale in India. ('Archaeology' is the science which enables us to dig the old mounds in a systematic manner, in successive layers, and to form an idea of the material life of the people.) On Lord Curzon's initiatives, the Ar­chaeological Survey was reformed and enlarged, and John Marshall was /~ppointed its' director-general.

Under Marshall's directorship, the Archaeological Survey of India discovered the Indus Valley Civilisation. The first relics of the Indus cities were noticed by Cunningham, who found strange unidentified seals in the neighbourhood of Harappa (now in Pakistan). In 1921-22, an Indian officer of the Archaeological Survey, R.D. Banerjee, found further seals at Mohenjo-daro in Sind, and took them to be the remains of a pre-Aryan civilisation. Under Marshall's guidance, the sites were systematically excavated from 1924 to 1931. Further important discoveries were made at Harappa during the brief directorship of .R.E.M. Wheeler just after the
Second World War.

In the 19th century, Indians too began to participate in the efforts of revealing India's past. Sanskrit scholars and epigraphists like Bhau Daji, Bhagwanlal Indraji, Rajendralal Mitra and KG. Bhandarkar are illustrious examples.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL BASE

THE GEOGRAPHICAL BASE

History without geography is considered to be rather incomplete and devoid of its vital substance, for it loses focus in the absence of the concept of space. History is thus regarded both as the history of mankind and the history of the environment. It is thus important as we go back in time to understand the geography and environment of regions that influenced Indian history. Three basic physiographical divisions may be identified in the Indian subcontinent: the Himalayan uplands; the Indo-Gangetic plains; and peninsular India.

The Himalayas are a chain of inountains which are still rising. Large amounts of alluvium are continuously carried down into the plains from these mountains due to weath­ering and erosion. The Himalayan snows feed the three great perennial river systems-Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra. The alluvial plains of northern India extend
in the form of an arc for about 3200 km from the mouth of the Indus to the mouth of the Ganga. The Indus plains gave rise to the first civilisation of the subcontinent, the Harappan, while the Ganga plains have sustained and nurtured city life, state, society and imperial rule from the first millennium BC

The northern plains and peninsular India are separated by a large intermediate zone, called central India, extending from Gujarat to western Orissa over a stretch of 1600 km. Th,e Arav~l1i hills in Rajasthan separate the Indus plain from the peninsula. The intermediate zone is characterised by the presence of the Vindhyan and Satpura ranges and the Chotanagpur plateau covering portions of Bihar, Bengal and Orissa. This region can be sub-divided into four: the land of the Rajputs between Udaipur and Jaipur; the Malwa plateau around Ujjain more popularly known as Avanti in ancient India; Vidarbha or the sub-region around Nagpur; and the Chhattisgarh plains in eastern Madhya Pradesh or Dakshina Kosala.

Despite difficulty in communication and movement across the intermediate zone, contacts between' these four apparently isolated pockets, and between this region and other physiographic divisions, did take place.

On the southern edge of central India begins the formation called Peninsular India. The rocky formation gently slopes from west to east, and four major rivers flow into the Bay of Bengal. These four rivers-Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri have produced alluvial plains and helped the creation of nuclear areas in the plains and deltas enabling cultural growth to be sustained for prolonged periods through history.

The Narmada and the Tapti, however, have a westward flow and run into the Arabian Sea in Gujarat after running through hilly central India. The Deccan plateau is the well­known feature of the region. It extends from the Vindhyas in the north to the southern limits of Karnataka. The black soil in Maharashtra and in the adjoining parts of central India is especially rich. The soil yields good crops of cotton, millets, peanuts and oil seeds. It was this reason why the early farming cultures (Chalcolithic) in western and central India emerged here. In the west the plateau terminates with the Western Ghats and in the east its contours are marked by the Eastern Ghats. The Nilgiris and the Cardamom hills are regarded as offshoots of the basic peninsular formation.

The ancient Indians knew their country as Bharatavarsha (the land of Bharata). It was said to form part of a larger unit called Jambu-dvipa (the continent of the Jambu tree), the innermost of seven concentric island continents into which the earth, as conceived by Hindu cosmographers, was divided. Early Buddhist evidence suggests that Jambu­dvipa was a territorial designation actually in use from the third century BC at the latest, and was applied to that part of . Asia, outside China, throughout which the Mauryan empire had its influence.

However, the names 'Hindustan' or 'India' are of foreign origin. The ancient Persians (Iranians), while coming to India, had to cross the Sindhu (Indus) river which they began to pronounce as 'Hind'. With the Muslim invasion the Persian nanLe returned in the form of 'Hindustan', and those of its inhabitants who followed the old religion became known as Hindus. The form 'Hindustan', popular in modem India, is thus an Indo-Iranian hybrid with no linguistic justification. Also, the Persians passed the name 'Hindu' (i.e. Sindhu) to the Greeks who began to pronounce it the 'Indus'. From the term 'Indus' was derived the name 'India'. Ancient literature refers to a five-fold division of India.

In the mid-Indo-Gangetic plain was the Madhyadesa stretch­ing from River Sarasvati to the Rajmahal Hills. The western part of ~his area was known as the Brahmarshi-desa, and the entire region was roughly equivalent to Aryavarta as de­scribed in the Mahabhashya by Patanjali. To the north of the Madhyadesa lay Uttarapatha of Udichya (north-west India); to Its west, Aparanta or Pratichya (western India); to its south, Dakshinapatha or the Deccan; and to its east, Purva-desa or Prachya (the Prasii or Alexander's historians).

The term Uttarapatha was at times applied to the whole of northern India, and Dakshinapatha was, in some ancient works, restricted to the upper Deccan north of the river. Krishna, the far south being termed as 'Tamilakam' or the Tamil country.

Like any other country of the world, the course of Indian history has largely been shaped by the geographical features of India. The Ganga-Yamuna doab, the Middle Ganga valley, Malwa, Northern Deccan, Andhra, Kalinga (coastal Orissa) and the Tamil plains are the major perennial nuclear regions which emerged as bases of power quite
early. Smaller areas ,such as the Konkan, Kanara and Chhattisgarh have alscb made a mark. Some areas such as the Raichur Doab between the Krishna and Tungabhadra and Vengi between the Godavari and Krishna have been continuously contested for their agricultural resource po­tential.

High agricultural productivity and a rich population base have contributed to the dominance of the Gangetic basin in the Indian subcontinent. No other region has had a comparable power base. The Middle Ganga plains, cor­responding to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, emerged more successful than the Upper and Lower plains and by the time of the Mauryas had attained hegemony in the sub-continent. In the Middle Ganga Valley, where paddy was the crop grown, surplus generation was made possible by the deep ploughing iron ploughs share, an invention necessitated by the growing population. ­
The Upper Plains in western and central Uttar Pradesh, largely including the Doab, was an area of conflict and cultural synthesis. Besides the possibility of an extended Harappan culture flourishing here, this was also the centre of the Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture and great activity in the Later Vedic Period.

The Lower Plains correspond to the province of Bengal. High rainfall in low-lying plains created forest and marshy conditions making early settlements in Bengal difficult. The fertility of the heavy alluvial soil could be exploited only with the greater utilisation and control of iron technology. Thus urban culture spread into this region from the Middle Plains relatively late.

Iron-using Megalithic communities which followed the Neolithic-Chalcolithic cultures in Andhra and Northern Deccan, provided the base for settled agriculture and helped -in the transformation of these regions. High-yielding paddy cultivation was resorted to in the occupied coastal tracts of Andhra during the 5th-3rd century Be. The Megalithic burials suggest a rudimentary craft specialisation; a rudi­mentary exchange network, which transported mineral resources to the Northern Deccan and status differentiation.

Between 300 Be and 4th century AD the history of Orissa is one of internal transformation of the tribal society. The transition was partly autonomous and partly stimulated by contacts with the Sanskritic culture of the Gangetic plains, the beginnings of which can be traced back to the times
of Nandas and Mauryas.

From the 4th to the 9th centuries, a series of sub­regional states emerged in different pockets of the region. The process was not, however, uniform nor evenly spread. Due to their peripheral location, Sindh and Baluchistan were cut-off from the mainstream of cultural development. It was only from the Kushana period that these areas formed a part of a supra-regional political system which included a major part of northern India. The Gandhara region was the one exception.
As early as 6th century Be, Gandhara was one among the 16 mahajanapadas. The Magadhan king, Bimbisara, had contacts with the king of Gandhara. Taxila the capital was a seat of learning and a centre of trade with wide economic reach, with business relationships with the Romans and with Mathura and central India. Owing to its geographical
­
position, it was a meeting place of different people and a confluence of different cultures. It would be therefore seen that:
(a) In the north-west, Gandhara presented a different picture of development from that of Sindh and Baluchistan; and (b) In the early Christian era, the geographical setting of the place influenced its cultural profile.

The anthologies of early Tamil poems known as Sangam literature provide a vivid account of the transition to a state society in the ancient Tamil country of Tamilakam from an earlier tribal-pastoral stage. In the fertile river valleys of the Kaveri, Periyar and Vaigai, agricultural surpluses were produced and they were the strongholds of the three ancient clan chiefs, Chola, Chera and Pandya. The process of state formation was accelerated by: Roman trade, in the early Christian centuries; the rise of towns and the penetration of northern Sanskritic culture along with the Brahmans. Kerala was an integral part of Tamilakam during this early period.

At most periods of its history, India, though a cultural unit, was tom by internecine war. Famine, flood and plague killed millions of people. Inequality of birth' was given religious sanction, and the lot of the humble was generally hard. This, however, was true for any part of the ancient world of the time. Judged in the context of time, the relations among the people or between the people and the state were fair enough and humane.

Unlike Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, however, the traditions of India have been preserved without a break to the present day. To this day, legends known to the humblest Indian recall the names of shadowy chieftains who lived nearly a thousand years before Christ, and the orthodox Hindus in their daily worship repeat hymns composed even earlier. India and China have, in fact, the oldest continuous cultural traditions in the world.

Ancient Indians are charged with having had no sense of history as they did not write history in the way it is done tC'day or in the manner of the ancient Greeks. But with the advent of Europeans the situation began to change. A few Jesuits succeeded in mastering Sanskrit. One of them, Father Hanxleden, who worked in Kerala during 1699-1732, com­piled the first Sanskrit grammar in a European tongue. Another, Father Coeurdoux, was probably the first student to recognise in 1767, the kinship of Sanskrit and the languages of Europe, and suggested that the Brahmans of India were descended from one of the sons of Japhet.