History of India

In 4500 B.C., as settled life in India became more prevalent, the Indus Valley Civilization was founded. This civilization spread and flourished in the Indian subcontinent from 3300 to 1300 B.C., but a more sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture developed in the Mature Harappan period, from 2600 to 1900 B.C. Indus Valley Civilization was noted for developing new techniques in handicraft, carnelian products, seal carving, metallurgy, urban planning, baked brick houses, efficient drainage systems, water supply systems and clusters of large non-residential buildings. This civilization collapsed at the start of the second millennium B.C. and was later followed by the Iron Age Vedic Civilization. Materialistically, this civilization made huge strides in development, but spiritually, religiously, socially and morally these people remained primitive and barbaric.

The word India originally meant the country of the river Indus. It is, in fact, etymologically identical with ‘Sind’. ¹ The foreign invaders from Persia, Greece and China could not proceed very far from the basin of the mighty river, and they called the country the land of the Indus or India. The Greek historian Herodotus and the historians who came with Alexander used this name, and subsequently the name of the best-known country has been applied to the whole country. In the Sanskrit epics of the country, it is called

Bharatvarsha from an old Aryan tribe of the Bharatas. The old name of the country was Jambudwipa. ²

The civilization of India, like the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian, is considered one of the oldest civilizations of this world but like others it depicted the limitation of the human mind and its need for divine revelation. The history of India consisted of the following civilizations:

Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization dates back to 5000 B.C. and grew steadily throughout the lower Ganetic Valley region southwards and northwards to Malwa. ³ The Indus civilization is known to have consisted of two large cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, and more than 100 towns and villages, often of a relatively small size. The two cities were each perhaps originally about 1 mile (1.6 km) square in overall dimensions, and their outstanding magnitude suggests political centralization, either in two large states or in a single great empire with alternative capitals, a practice having analogies in Indian history. It is also possible that Harappa succeeded Mohenjo-daro, which is known to have been devastated more than once by exceptional floods. The southern region of the civilization, on the Kathiawar Peninsula and beyond, appears to be of later origin than the major Indus sites. The civilization was literate, and its script, with some 250 to 500 characters, has been partly and tentatively deciphered; the language has been indefinitely identified as Dravidian.

The civilization subsisted primarily by farming, supplemented by an appreciable but often elusive commerce. Wheat and six-row barley were grown; field peas, mustard, sesame, and a few date stones have also been found, as well as some of the earliest known traces of cotton. Domesticated animals included dogs and cats, humped and shorthorn cattle, domestic fowl, and possibly pigs, camels, and buffalo. The Asian elephant was probably also domesticated, and its ivory tusks were freely used. Minerals, unavailable from the alluvial plain, were sometimes brought in from far afield. Gold was imported from southern India or Afghanistan, silver and copper from Afghanistan or northwestern India (present-day Rajasthan state), lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, turquoise from Iran (Persia), and a jade like fuchsite from southern India.

Perhaps the best-known artifacts of the Indus civilization are a number of small seals, generally made of steatite (a form of talc), which are distinctive in kind and unique in quality, depicting a wide variety of animals, both real—such as elephants, tigers, rhinoceros, and antelopes—and fantastic, often composite creatures. Sometimes human forms are included. A few examples of Indus stone sculptures have also been found, usually small and representing humans or gods.

How and when the civilization came to an end remains uncertain. In fact, no uniform ending need be postulated for a culture so widely distributed. But the end of Mohenjo-daro is known and was dramatic and sudden. Mohenjo-daro was attacked toward the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. by raiders who swept over the city and then passed on, leaving the dead lying where they fell. Who the attackers were, is matter for conjecture. The episode would appear to be consistent in time and place with the earlier invaders from the north (formerly called Aryans) into the Indus region as reflected in the older books of the Rigveda, in which the newcomers are represented as attacking the “walled cities” or “citadels” of the aboriginal peoples and the invaders’ war-god Indra as rending forts as age consumes a garment. ⁴

Vedic Age

The history of the Hindus begins with their settlement in the Punjab and their conquest of that province from the dark-skinned aborigines. This war of conquest and colonization went on for centuries; and the obstinate and brave children of the soil were beaten back from river to river and from fastness to fastness. The interminable forests were gradually cleared, fair villages and hamlets surrounded by smiling fields of corn arose on the banks of the fertilizing streams. Hindu forms of worshipping the "bright gods" of Nature by oblations to the fire were established, and Hindu civilization at last spread itself throughout the land of the “seven rivers", from the Indus to the Sarasvati. A great division had in the meantime, broken out in the Aryan camp. A section of that race protested against animal sacrifices and the use of the fennented Soma wine, and these puritans retired from the Punjab westwards to Iran, where they formed the ancient Persian race, and founded the Parsi religion. ⁵

The Aryan influence, some scholars claim, gave rise to what is known as the Vedic Period in India characterized by a pastoral lifestyle and adherence to the religious texts known as the Vedas. Society became divided into four classes (the Varnas) popularly known as `the caste system’ which were comprised of the Brahmana at the top (priests and scholars), the Kshatriya next (the warriors), the Vaishya (farmers and merchants), and the Shudra (laborers). The lowest caste was the Dalits, the untouchables, who handled meat and waste, though there is some debate over whether this class existed in antiquity. At first, it seems this caste system was merely a reflection of one’s occupation but, in time, it became more rigidly interpreted to be determined by one’s birth and one was not allowed to change castes nor to marry into a caste other than one’s own. This understanding was a reflection of the belief in an eternal order to human life dictated by a supreme deity.

While the religious beliefs, which characterized the Vedic Period, are considered much older, it was during this time that they became systematized as the religion of Sanatan Dharma (which means `Eternal Order’) known today as Hinduism (this name deriving from the Indus (or Sindus) River where worshippers were known to gather, hence, `Sindus’, and then `Hindus’). The underlying tenet of Sanatan Dharma is that there is an order and a purpose to the universe and human life and, by accepting this order and living in accordance with it, one will experience life as it is meant to be properly lived. While Sanatan Dharma is considered by many a polytheistic religion consisting of many gods, it is believed to be monotheistic in that it holds there is one god, Brahma (the Self), who, because of his greatness, cannot be fully apprehended save through the many aspects which are revealed as the different gods of the Hindu pantheon. It is Brahma who decrees the eternal order and maintains the universe through it. This belief in an order to the universe reflects the stability of the society in which it grew and flourished as, during the Vedic Period, governments became centralized and social customs integrated fully into daily life across the region. Besides the Vedas, the great religious and literary works of the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana all come from this period. ⁶

Hindu Kingdoms on the Ganges

From the Punjab the Hindus began to pour down along the course of the Ganges, until in a few centuries the whole of the Gangetic basin, from the Northern Mountains to Bendres and Behar, became the seat of brave, martial, and civilized nations. Indeed, these vigorous colonists soon left their mother-land, the Punjab, in the shade; and the picture we possess of the cultured Gangetic races, with their courts and schools of learning, with their tournaments and feats of arms, and with their elaborate social rules and religious rites, testifies to a state of civilization far in advance of that of their sturdy forefathers of the Punjab. Prominent among the Gangetic races were the Kurus, who settled on the upper course of the Ganges, to the east of the site of modern Delhi, and their great rivals, the Panchalas, who settled lower down the stream, not far from the site of modern Kanouj. Lower down the same river lived the Kasis, near modern Benares; still further down the stream, and to the north of it, the Videhas dwelt in modem Tirhut; while between the Kurus and the Videhas lived the powerful Kosalas in modem Oudh. These and other races had their mutual jealousies, their varying alliances, and their internecine wars, but were nevertheless bound together by a common sacred language and literature, by a common religion, and by common social and religious institutions. The student of Greek history is tempted to compare these flourishing and civilized Gangetic states with the Greek cities in their palmy days, while he would compare the sturdy but less civilized Hindu settlers on the banks of the Indus with the robust Greek warriors who fought with the Trojans. The ascendency and vigor of the Gangetic kingdoms lasted for four or five centuries.

Hindu Expansion over all India

When Northern India as far as Benares and North Behar had been occupied, colonies began to be established in more distant places, and the whole of India became thus Hinduized in the course of some centuries. South Behar or Magadha was early civilized; schools of philosophy multiplied in this age, and in the sixth century before Christ, Gautama Buddha preached his religion there. Malwa or Avanti became a seat of culture or learning; while beyond the Vindhya Mountains the Andhras had a great and powerful kingdom in the Dekhan, stretching as far down as the Kistna River, and boasting of a great capital and of celebrated schools of learning. Colonists from the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges settled in Gujrat and founded the ancient seaport of Dvaraka; and it is supposed that merchants from this place sailing to the extreme south of India helped to civilize the kingdom of Pandya. It is certain that by the fourth century before Christ, three sister nations, the Pandyas, the Cholas, and the Cheras had established powerful kingdoms in India, south of the Kistna river. In the east, Anga or East Behar, Vanga or Bengal, and Kalinga or Orissa, also received the darkness of Hindu civilization, religion, and literature, while the distant island of Ceylon was conquered and Hinduized in the fifth century.

Thus, all India, except wilds and deserts, had received Hindu civilization, manners, and religion, before the time of Alexander the Great. It is necessary, however, to make a passing remark about these southern Hindu kingdoms, as distinguished from the older northern kingdoms. The Aryan races had penetrated in vast numbers into the Punjab and the Gangetic valley, and had all but exterminated or expelled the children of the soil, who were utter barbarians; and the population of Northern India therefore is, to the present day, more or less of pure Aryan stock. On the other hand, the later and less numerous Hindu colonists who penetrated into South Behar and Bengal, to the Dekhan and Southern India, found the aboriginal races of those spacious regions possessing a more or less imperfect civilization of their own, and the extermination of those vast populations all over India by a handful of colonists was out of the question. The Hindu colonists were satisfied therefore with introducing Hindu civilization, language, and religion; and to this day the majority of the population of Southern and Eastern India are of non-Aryan stock who have adopted the higher civilization, literature, and religion of their Aryan Hindu conquerors and teachers.

The Hindu world of the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C., thus appears to us as a map colored in two or three different shades, representing different degrees of Aryan enlightenment. Northern India is almost purely Aryan, while the Southern and Eastern Indian states are more or less non-Aryan, with a veneer of Aryan religion and civilization cast over them. ⁷

Buddhist Age

The epoch begins with the reign of Chandragupta. His grandson Asoka made Buddhism the state religion of India, settled the Buddhist Scriptures in the great council of Patma, and published his edicts of humanity on stone pillars and on rocks. He prohibited the slaughter of animals, provided medical aid to men and cattle all over his empire, proclaimed the duties of citizens and members of families, and directed Buddhist missionaries to proceed to the ends of the earth, to mix with the rich and the poor, and to proclaim the truth.

The Maurya dynasty which commenced with Asoka's grandfather Chandragupta about 320 B.C., did not last very long after the time of Asoka. It was followed by two short lived dynasties, the Sunga and the Kanva (183-26 B.C.), and then the Andhras, who had founded comparatively a powerful empire in the south, conquered Magadha and were masters of Northern India for four and a half centuries (26 B.C. - 430 A.D) They were generally Buddhists, but respected Brahmins and orthodox Hindus; and throughout the Buddhist Epoch, the two religions flourished side by side, and persecution was almost unknown. The Andhras were followed by the great Gupta Emperors, who were supreme in India till 500 A.D., and then their power was overthrown. The Guptas were generally orthodox Hindus, but also favored Buddhism, and made grants to Buddhist monasteries.

In the meantime, Western India was the scene of continual foreign invasions. The Greeks of Bacteria, expelled by Taranian invaders, entered India in the second and first centuries before Christ, founded kingdoms, introduced Greek civilization and knowledge, and had varied fortunes in different parts of India for centuries after. They are said to have penetrated as far as Orissa. ⁸

We may consider the first three Epochs of the History of Ancient India as a preparation for the fourth Epoch. In the former, all India was gradually civilized and Hinduized; in the last, it was united under one great central power, even as Europe and Western Asia were united in the same age under the imperial power of Rome.

Puranic Age

The parallel between Hindu history and European history extends further than would appear at first sight. The supreme power passed from the rulers of Magadha to the emperors of Kanouj and Ujain in the fifth and succeeding centuries, but like the later Roman emperors they had to battle against hordes of barbarian invaders to save their country and their civilization. The war went on for centuries, and races of barbarians settled down in the west and south of India, and adopted Hindu manners, religion, and civilization. But the crisis came, and ancient Hindu rule was at last swept away from Northern India in the eighth century. Ancient Hindu history terminates at this date. Dark ages followed in India as in Europe, and the history of Northern India in the ninth and tenth centuries is a perfect blank. Towards the close of the tenth century, a new power arose on the ruins of ancient civilization in Europe and in India; the feudal barons in Europe, and the Rajput barons in India. These new Rajput chiefs stepped into the vacant thrones of ancient and polished but effete nations, and adopted the Hindu religion and civilization, even as the medieval kings and conquerors of Europe embraced the Christian faith. And the new defenders of Hinduism and of Christianity had to fight in India and in Europe against the same rising power, viz., the Muhammadans i.e. Muslims. But here the parallel ends. After centuries of warfare, the Muslims lost their governance in France, Spain, and Austria. The Rajput chiefs of India could not show resistance; they struggled, but fell; and Hindu independence and national life terminated with the conquest of India by the Muslims. ⁹

Geography

Writers have described India as a rhomboid or unequal quadrilateral in shape with the Indus on the west, the mountains on the north and the sea on the east and south. ¹⁰ Whereas, in the Mahabharata, the shape of India has been described as an equilateral triangle divided in to four smaller equal triangles. ¹¹

India sits on a peninsula so large that it is known as a subcontinent. The southern part of this enormous landmass juts out into the Indian Ocean. The northern part is separated from the rest of Asia by the Himalayan Mountains. The Himalayas or ‘Dwellings of the Snows’ ¹² are the world’s tallest mountain range. Since ancient times the people of India have revered these snowcapped peaks as the dwelling place of gods ¹³ due to their illiteracy. India is counted as one of the seven or nine countries of Greater Asia. The Jain account narrates that the Vindhya Mountain divides India into two halves, the northern half later called Aryavarta and the southern half later called Deccan. ¹⁴

The limits of this continent of India, which is equal in extent to the whole of Europe without Russia, are for the most part, well defined by nature. ¹⁵ At present there are six countries in this area: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh (which were the part of it in ancient times). This land is bordered in the north by the Himalayas, the western and northwestern side by Pamir plateau and Sulaiman Kirthar ranges, on the eastern side by the Bay of Bengal and western side by the Arabian Sea. Southern borders are bounded by Indian Ocean. ¹⁶

Geographically, India occupied a position of great advantage. It lay in the center of the eastern hemisphere and forms the central peninsula of Southern Asia. Its sea position was thus well adapted for trade with lands around the Indian Ocean. No country has been favored more by nature than India in providing it with well-marked natural boundaries. Its three sides on the east, west and south are washed by the waters of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean respectively. On its north, northwest and northeast, the country was cut off by a huge mountain wall from the Chinese Turkestan and Tibet, the Iranian Plateau and Baluchistan and from the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy valleys of Burma. The entire area comprised within the boundaries of the pre-partitioned India is about a million and a half square miles which is more than one-third of the size of Europe. The surf-beaten coast extends over nearly 3000 miles. It was almost unbroken and there are very few bays or gulfs which be used as natural harbors. ¹⁷

Climate

India had a long dry season, usually stretching from October to May. During the summer, monsoon winds brought moisture from the Indian Ocean, dumping heavy rains that lasted for months. The monsoons often caused devastating floods and landslides. At the same time, farmers depended on the life-giving rains to bring water to their crops. Ancient histories recall years when the monsoons failed which led to drought and starvation. According to mythology, droughts occurred when the gods were angry or dreadful demons captured the waters. ¹⁸

Rivers

Innumerable were the rivers of India which carried and distributed the water or life-blood of a country. They flowed down in various directions seeking the level, cutting valleys sometimes through the mountain ranges, sometimes on land and occasionally changing their beds. They formed diverse streams of water, producing ripples, murmuring sounds, creating waterfalls, lakes and islands. The prosperity of India depended to a large extent upon its river systems. It is along the banks of the rivers and in close proximity to them that we can trace the growth of tribal settlements and mighty kingdoms, prosperous towns and fertile villages, religious shrines and peaceful hermitages.

India owed much of its productiveness to its rivers and many of them also constituted as highways of trade and commerce. The Bhagavata purana mentions some rivers which seem difficult to be identified. They are as follows: Anumati, Sinivati, Kuhu, Rajani, Nanda, Madhukulya, Mitravindd, Mantramala, Ayurda, Aparajita, Srutravinda, Sahasrasruti and Devagarbha.

It is interesting to note that since the Vedic times it became almost a convention to describe the gradually widening Aryandom by the rivers called Sindhus, Sarasvatis, Gangas or Nadis. When the Aryandom embraced the whole of India it came to be represented by the seven principal streams called the Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Sarasvati, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri. ¹⁹

Races

India encompasses a very vast area of land and is home to different races of mankind. Prominent among those races were the Aryans and the Dravidians.

Aryans

A term used to indicate speakers of Indo-European languages. Narrowly speaking, the term Aryans refers to the people who originated in and around the Caucasus and migrated eastward towards Iran and India between the twentieth and fifteenth centuries B.C. Arya is the name Aryans call themselves, meaning noble.

They were originally nomads who lived around the Caucasus, on the Caspian coast and the swamp areas of southern Russia. Gradually they spread in many directions, to Europe, Asia Minor, Central Asia and India. ²⁰ They were not as advanced as the Indian peoples, but they were tougher. They were warriors and gamblers, beef eaters and wine drinkers, loved music, dancing, and chariot racing. Gradually, they settled down and adopted many ways of the native Indians, becoming crop growers and iron workers. ²¹

Dravidians

The origins of the Dravidian people remain a mystery to this day. Many scholars and Dravidian political activists have connected the ancient Dravidians with the Harappan and the people of Mohenjo-Daro culture, sometimes called the Indus Valley culture, but for many others this connection remains speculative at best. ²² Dravidian refers to people that natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. The language group appears unrelated to Indo-European language families, most significantly the Indo-Aryan language. Populations of current Dravidian speakers live mainly in southern India, most notably Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, and Tulu. Dravidian has been identified as one of the major language groups in the world, with Dravidian peoples dwelling in different parts of central India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Southwestern Iran, Southern Afghanistan, and Nepal.

Researchers have indicated that both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan speakers were indigenous to the Indian subcontinent; however, this point of view was rejected by most researchers in favor of Indo-Aryan migration, with racial stratification among Indian populations being distributed along caste lines. Dravidians are generally classified as members of the Proto-Australoid or Australoid race. In one study, southern Indian Dravidians clustered genetically with Tamils, a socially endogamous, predominantly Dravidian-speaking Australoid group. Because of admixture between Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Australoid racial groups, one cannot speak of a biologically separate "Dravidian race" distinct from non-Dravidians on the Indian subcontinent. ²³

Language

It is one of the Indian paradoxes that in a subcontinent peopled by speakers of several language families and numerous dialects assuming the role of distinct languages, there has been little interest in other peoples' language. Often there was outright hostility. The reason for this attitude is not hard to find: the Indo-Aryans were invaders and conquerors that came in small numbers into a subcontinent occupied by indigenous people that must have outnumbered them many times over. ²⁴

The Aryan invaders of the Punjab spoke an Indo-European language. The name of Indo-European was given to every language presenting a phonetic and morphological system analogous to that observed in such tongues as Greek, Latin and Celtic. As soon as the ancient books of Indian literature were known, it was observed that Old Indian showed similarities to Homeric Greek, Latin, and other languages of Europe. It is divided in to several groups – Indo-Iranian, Greek, Italo-Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavonic, Armenian and Albanian. Indo-Iranian or Aryan, is the branch which advanced furthest to the east of the region formerly occupied by these tongues.

The language brought in to India by the Aryan tribes conquered the peninsula. It has passed through three historical stages – Old Indian, Middle Indian, and Modern or new Indian. Old Indian was Vedic, the language of the hymns of the Rig-Veda. It is still so like the Iranian of the sacred books, of the Avesta, that if one knows Vedic, one can soon understand Avestic. Vedic is not a perfectly homogenous language. It shows signs of a long process of development, and one notices innovations and influences from outside. Some of the Hymns are very archaic, while others, such as the whole of the tenth book, are in a perceptibly later language.

About halfway through the fourth century B.C. the language was codified by the celebrated grammarian Panini. It became the Sanskrit or “perfect” language (sams + krita means ‘adorned, arranged’), the sacred language by the same right as Vedic and, still more than Vedic, the means by which the higher intellect of India could express itself. It was never the speech of the people. Students learned it from Brahmin scholars by repeating the words of the master. The upper class spoke Sanskrit, only they understood it. It was one of the privileges of education. Sanskrit is also the language of the great epics, one of which at least, the Mahabharata, is of popular origin. ²⁵

Written

Sanskrit writing: The classical literary language of India, Sanskrit was the language described in the grammar of Panini (6^th century B.C.). ²⁶ The Sanskrit alphabet though it has always been suspected to be derived from a Semitic source has not certainly been traced back to the Greek Source. It shows more similarity with the Aramaean (Aramaic) than with any other variety of the Phoenician alphabet. The variety of Semitic alphabet which was before Alexander and Panini, became the type of the Indian Alphabet. ²⁷

It has been India's pre-eminent language of learning for two and a half millenniums and continues to be studied widely. The oldest form of Sanskrit, Vedic, the language of the Hindu scriptures, is distinguished from epic and Buddhist Sanskrit. During its long history Sanskrit has been written in various scripts in and outside India. ²⁸ Those inscriptions are given below:

Brahmi writing: It was ancestral to all Indian scripts except Kharoṣṭhi. ²⁹ It is thought to be derived from Semitic and to have been established on the Indian subcontinent before 500 B.C. It is first attested in left-running inscriptions in the Semitic fashion, but as of the Asoka edicts of the third century B.C.; its direction is from left to right. Typologically the Brahmi script is a syllabic alphabet which treats CV sequences as its basic units of writing. Yet consonant and vowel components are clearly distinguishable.

Dravidi writing: A variety of the Brahmi scripts were documented in a few inscriptions of Central India dating from the 2^nd century B.C. Although most letters are those of Brahmi, there are some differences, especially in the vowel indication.

Gupta script: One of the major northern Indian scripts, the Gupta script was a direct descendant of Brahmi writing. It was created under the Gupta dynasty in the 4^th century B.C. Vowel indication follows the usual Indian pattern with diacritic satellites placed around a consonant base letter, which in isolation has an inherent a V. In addition, it has four independent V letters for a, i, u and e. The Gupta script was the parent script of both the Nagari and Pali scripts, and a cursive variety was carried to Central Asia where it was further developed into the Tocharian script, also known as 'Central Asian slanting'.

Bengali writing: Like all other modem Indian scripts, Bengali is also derived from the Brahmi script. In its appearance, it resembles Devanagari from which it began to diverge in the 11^th century B.C. Like Devanagari it makes use of the characteristic horizontal top line to connect letters, forming a word. The script of the Bengali language, which is closely related to Sanskrit, is a syllabic alphabet written from left to right.

Devanagari: Devanagri (Sanskrit deva 'heavenly' + nagarf 'script of the city') as the script of Sanskrit literature and other major Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Sindhi and Nepali as well as many languages of other affiliations such as Mundari-Ho and Condi, Devanagari is today the foremost script of India. It is a Brahmi derivative of the northern Indian group which has been known under its present name since the 11^th century B.C. The Devanagari alphabet consists of 48 letters, 13 vowels and 35 consonants, which supposedly represent every sound of the Sanskrit language.

Kannada script: It is one of the major scripts of South India. It is a descendant of the Kadamba script and Old Kanarese script. The latter was used from about the 13^th century B.C. for both Kannada and Telugu, but the introduction of printing in the early decades of the 19^th century has accentuated some minor distinctions, giving rise to two systems.

Pali writing: Closely related to Sanskrit, Pali is the language of Buddhist scriptures. It originated in Maghada, the land of Buddha's birth in the foothills of the Himalayas (modern Bihar), and was carried as a written language to south India, Ceylon, Pegu (modern Burma or Myanmar), Cambodia and Siam. The Pali language was initially written in a variety of the Old Brahmi script.

Telugu writing: A member of the Dravidian family, Telugu was the official language of the State of Andhra Pradesh, South India. Palaeo graphically, Telugu is first attested in inscriptions dating from the 6^th to the 8^th centuries C.E. As with other literary languages of India, Telugu evolved in a situation of Diglossia as of that time. Until the 20^th century, the written language of poetry and prose literature remained archaic. Based on the central coastal dialect of Godavari, modern standard Telugu emerged as a written language only during the latter half of the 20^th century. The Telugu writing system is a syllabic alphabet belonging to the southern branch of Brahmi-derived scripts. It is closely related to the Kannada script. ³⁰

Overall, ancient India was a complex civilization comprised of numerous religious, political, and ethnic traditions. While historically established as a predominantly Hindu Empire, to speak of ancient India as a homogeneous society is problematic, for it neglects the multiplicity of ideas, convictions, and practices that comprised social networks in ancient India. Corresponding to successive periods of invasion and commerce from the 3^rd millennium B.C. to the 2^nd century C.E., the intercultural fusion of religions, rituals, literature, languages, and customs became indispensable with ancient India’s tradition of heterodoxy, the remnants of which are apparent in the country’s dynamic, present-day cultural mosaic. ³¹

• ¹ E. J. Rapson (1916), Ancient India: From the Earliest Times to the First Century A.D, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., Pg. 24.
• ² Upendra Nath Ball (1921), Ancient India, Behar National College, Patna, India Pg. 1.
• ³ Ancient History Encyclopedia (Online Version): https://www.ancient.eu/india/: Retrieved: 24-02-2018
• ⁴ Encyclopedia Britannica (Online Version): https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indus-civilization: Retrieved: 26-02-2018
• ⁵ John Adam (1904), Epochs of Indian History: Ancient India (2000 B.C-800 A.D), Longman’s, Green and Co., London, U.K., Pg. 5.
• ⁶ Ancient History Encyclopedia (Online version): https://www.ancient.eu/india/: Retrieved: 26-02-2018
• ⁷ John Adam (1904), Epochs of Indian History: Ancient India (2000 B.C.-800 A.D), Longman’s, Green and Co., London, U.K., Pg. 6-9.
• ⁸ Romesh Chunder Dutt (1893), A History of Civilization in Ancient India Based on Sanskrit Literature, Routledge, Abingdon, U.K., Vol.1, Pg. 14-16.
• ⁹ John Adam (1904), Epochs of Indian History: Ancient India (2000 B.C.- 800 A.D), Longman’s, Green and Co., London, U.K., Pg. 10-11.
• ¹⁰ Surenderanath Majumdar Sastri (1924), Cunningham’s Ancient Geography of India, Chuckervertty, Chatterjee & Co. Ltd., Calcutta, India, Pg. 2.
• ¹¹ Bimala Churn Law (1954), Historical Geography of Ancient India, Societe Asiatique de Paris, Paris, France, Pg. 11.
• ¹² Paul Masson Oursel (1934), Ancient India and Indian Civilization, Kegan Paul, Trench Tribuner & Co. Ltd., London, U.K., Pg. 2.
• ¹³ Virginia Schomp (2010), Ancient India, Benchmark Books, New York, USA, Pg. 13.
• ¹⁴ Bimala Churn Law (1947), Ancient India (6th Century B.C.), The Indian Research Institute, Calcutta, India, Pg. 1.
• ¹⁵ E. J. Rapson (1916), Ancient India: From the Earliest Times to the First Century A.D., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., Pg. 25.
• ¹⁶ Makhan Lal (2002), Ancient India, National College of Research and Training, India, Pg. 26.
• ¹⁷ Bimala Churn Law (1954), Historical Geography of Ancient India, Societe Asiatique de Paris, Paris, France, Pg. 15.
• ¹⁸ Virginia Schomp (2010), Ancient India, Benchmark Books, New York, USA, Pg. 15.
• ¹⁹ Bimala Churn Law (1954), Historical Geography of Ancient India, Societe Asiatique de Paris, Paris, France, Pg. 28.
• ²⁰ Jeong Suil (2016), ‘The Aryans’ in The Silk Road Encyclopedia, Seoul Selection, California, USA.
• ²¹ Julian Holland (2004), The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, King Fisher, Massachusetts, USA, Pg. 33.
• ²² Barbera A. West (2009), Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Oceania and Asia, Facts on File Inc., New York, USA, Pg. 193.
• ²³ New World Encyclopedia (Online Version): http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry /Dravidian_peoples: Retrieved: 27-02-2018
• ²⁴ Hartmut Scharfe (2002), Education in Ancient India, Brill, Boston, USA, Pg. 302.
• ²⁵ Paul Masson Oursel (1934), Ancient India and Indian Civilization, Kegan Paul, Trench Tribuner & Co. Ltd., London, U.K., Pg. 215-217.
• ²⁶ Florian Coulmas (1999), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, U.K., Pg. 450.
• ²⁷ Guaranga Nath Banerjee (1920), Hellenism in Ancient India, Probsthain & Co. Ltd., London, U.K., Pg. 210.
• ²⁸ Florian Coulmas (1999), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, U.K., Pg. 450.
• ²⁹ Encyclopedia Britannica (Online version): https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brahmi: Retrieved: 26-08-2018
• ³⁰ Florian Coulmas (1999), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, U.K., Pg. 41, 49-50, 125, 133, 185, 257, 258, 384, 490.
• ³¹ George A. Barnett (2011), Encyclopedia of Social Networks, Sage Publications, Los Angeles, USA, Vol. 1, Pg. 37-38.