A History Textbook for Class XI Ram Swaran Snaraa aor ae catia uifta Winer stderr atk sftrarr aitez NATIONAL COUNCIL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND TRAININGFirst Edition June 1999 Asadha 1921 Reprinted August 2004 Shravana 1926 PD 34T RS \ National Council of Educational Research and Training, 1999 - ‘ALL RIGHTS RESERVED *] 2 Noperta ns puicason mey be repreduced, toed ina ratieval sytomer rename, in ny former by any ‘meare,eecrric mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise witout pro persona the pbahe. (©. Tisbookis sok subject th condion that shal not by way otra, Belen, resold hired outor otherwise -apoued of iho the pushers consent, nay orm blading ox cover other tan tatin whichis pushed. (2. Thecaxrec pie of fis pulcaton iste price rnd on is pope, Any revised price inccalad byansbber stamp or ‘bye char orby any oer means lncorect and should be unacooptate. [OFFICES OF THE PUBLICATION DEPARSWENT, NERY | INcERT canoes 108 108Foai Read Navan Tht Bilang CNC Camis “CWC Complex ls aurccido Marg Howdakre Hal Exonsen PO. Navpvan ‘Opp. Obanal Bus Slop Malgpon |New Debi 10018 Barasherkad Stage Ahmedabad 330 014 Ponhat ‘Gowan 7012s ° ‘Bangalore 560085 shat 700 114 Cover. : Kalyan Banerjee Front Cover : A slab from Nagarjunakonda (third century A.D.) in which a stupa is depicted BackCover : A:seal from Mohenjodaro / Rs 45.00 Printed on 70 GSM paper with NCERT watermark Published atthe Publication Department by the Secretary: National Council of Educational Reseach and Training, ‘Sei Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi 110 016, lasertypeset inhouse and printed by SPA Printers (P) Ltd, B-17/3, Okchla Indl. Area, Ph I, New Dethi 110.020Foreword al AFTER TEN Years of general education, the two years of higher secondary stage aim at initiating the pupil into the study of courses in a few subjects of her/his choice: This stage aims at equipping the pupil to pursue higher academic studies in a few selected subjects, and helping those who cease their formal education after this stage enter the world of work. For the first ten. years of schooling, history forms a part of an undiversified curriculum in general education and aims at introducing the pupil to the main trends and developments in the history of India and of the world. At the higher secondary stage (ClaSses XI-XI), the pupil is initiated into a systematic study of the subject and introduced to the rigours of the discipline. This implies that the pupil at this stage is helped to develop an attitude of studying-the past objectively. The National Policy on Education—1986 (revised in 1992) lays stress on many objectives and areas of knowledge which are closely related to the study of history. Promoting an understanding of India's cultural heritage, combating superstition and obscurantism, and promoting a humane and forward-looking outlook are among the major objectives of education which are also the basic objectives of teaching- history. The first version of the textbook on the history of ancient India was prepared by Professor R.S. Sharma under the auspices of an Editorial Board comprising Professor Satish Chandra (Chairman), Professor R.S. Sharma, Professor Barun De, Professor M. G.S. Narayanan, Professor S.H. Khan and Professor Arjun Dev (Convenor) and was published in 1977. A revised edition of this book was brought out in 1980. Following adoption of the National Policy on Education in 1986 and the formulation of the National Curriculum Framework and new syllabuses by NCERT in various subjects, Professor Sharma prepared a new version which was first published in 1990. Since then several reprints of the 1990 version have been brought out in English, Hindi and Urdu. NCERT is grateful to Professor Sharma for undertaking the preparation of the present version keeping in view the comments and suggestions made by experts,’ teachers, students and general readers as well as the findings of historical researches in recent years. ‘The book covers the history pf ancient India from prehistoric times to about the eighth century. An effort has been made in this book to highlight the forces and factors behind the rise, growth and spread of civilization and culture in ancient India rather than present details of dynastic history. The growth and diffusion of various aspects of civilization, the peculiar form of social system that developed in India and state formation have been treated clearly. Special attention has beeri paid to the growth and spread of material culture. The book brings out the significant changes that have marked the main stages in the development of Indian society in ancient times. It alsoiv highlights the contribution of ancient Indians to polity, art, literature, philosophy, religion, and science and technology. 1 am thankful to my colleague Ms Mily Roy and to Shri Mahesh Kumar Singh for their help in bringing out this version. They worked with great diligence and competence in the preparation of the final press copy and at other stages of the publication of this volume. I am also thankful to my ‘colleagues Professor Arjun Dev and Professor (Ms) Indira Arjun Dev for extending their help in the finalization and publication of the previous as well as this version of the book. Our special thanks are due to K. Arundhoti Banerji and Shri A.K. Ghosh of the Archaeological Survey of India, the former for her help ih selecting illustrations and the latter for preparing drawings and maps, and to the Archaeological Survey of India for providing tis with photographs which have been included in the textbook. The exercises of this book have been prepared with the help of NCERT's Department of Measurement and Evaluation, particularly Dr Qamaruddin. I am grateful to them. ‘This volume on ancient Indian history is one of the series of textbooks on history which have been brought out by NCERT for the higher secondary stage. The volumes dealing with the medieval and modern periods of Indian history and with contemporary world history have also been brought out. *, NCERT would welcome comments and suggestions on any aspect of the present volume. ALK. Suarma Director New Delhi National Council of Educational June 1999, Research and TrainingAcknowledgements . Iv upanne and preparing the matter for this edition, I have received help from Professor Sita Ram Roy and Dr. Anjani Kumar. Professors Indira Arjun. Dev and Arjun Dev have read the script, and Ms. Mily Rey and Mahesh Kumar Singh have helped at various stages of its finalization. My sincere thanks to all these scholars. :2. fa) (b) {c) (d) fe) (fl (9) (h) (i) to) 7 [SOVEREIGN ‘SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC | and to secure to al its citizens: HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION. ARTICLE 51A Fundamental Duties - It shall be the duty of every citizen of India— THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA PREAMBLE WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into’a SJUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the ? (unity and integrity of the Nation }; IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do ‘Subs. by the Cons (wet. 3.1.1977) ‘Subs. by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1876, Sec.2, for “Unity of the Nation” (wet. 3.1.1977) tian (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, Sec.2, for “Sovereign Democratic Republic” Part IVA Fundamental Duties to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem; to cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedoms to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of india; to defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so; to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst. all the people. of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women; to value-and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture; to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers, wild life and to have compassion for living creatures; to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform; to safeguard public property and to abjure violence; to strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement.Foreword Contents Acknowledgements List of Mlustrations List of 1 Carrer 2 Cuarrer 8 ‘The Importance of Ancient Indian History Unity in Diversity — Relevance of the Past to the Present Modern Historians of Ancient India Colonialist Views and Contribution — Nationalist Approach and Contribution — Shift to Non-Political History Types of Sources and Historical Construction Material Remains — Coins — Inscriptions — Literary Sources — Foreign Accounts — Historical Sense — Constructing History The Geographical Setting The Stone Age : The Early Man "The Palaeolithic Period: Hunters and Food Gatherers — Phases in the Palaeolithic Age — The Mesolithic Age: Huniters and Herders — Prehistoric Art — The Neolithic Age: Food Producers Chalcolithic Farming Cultures ‘Chalcolithic Settlements — Importance of the Chalcolithic Phase. — Limitations of Chalcolithic Cultures — The Copper Hoards: and the Ochre-coloured Pottery Phase The Harappan Culture: Bronze Age Civilization Geographical Extent — Town Planning and Structures — Agriculture — Domestication of Animals — Technology and Crafts — Trade — Political Organization — Religious Practices — ‘The Male Deity in the Indus Valley — Tree and Animal Worship — The Harappan Script — Weights and Measures — Harappan Pottery — Seals — Images — Terracotta Figurines — Origin, Maturity and End — Post-Urban Phase of the Harappan Culture Advent of the Aryans and the Age of the Rig Veda Original Home and Identity — Trial Conflicts — Material Life — ‘Tribal Polity — Tribe and Family — Social Divisions — Rig Vedic Gods 1k 33 42Cuarter 10 Cuaprer 12 Cuaprer 14 Cuarter 16 Cuarrer 17 vill The Later Vedic Phase: Transition to the State and Social Orders Expansion in the Later Vedic Period (c.1000-500 B.C.) —The PGW-Iron Phase Culture and Later Vedic Economy — Political Organization — Social Organisation — Gods, Rituals and Philosophy - Jainism and Buddhism (Causes of Origin — Vardhamana Mahavira and Jainism — Doctrines of Jainism — Spread of Jainism — Contribution of Jainism — Gautama Buddha and Buddhism — Doctrines of Buddhiom — Special Features of Buddhism and the Causes of Its Spread — Causes of the Decline of Buddhism — importance and'influence of Buddhism Territorial States and the First Magadhan Empire ‘The Mahajanapadas — Rise and Growth of the Magadhan Empire — Causes of Magadha's Success Iranian and Macedonian Invasions Iranian Invasion — Results of the Contact — Alexander's Invasion — Effects of Alexander's Invasion State and Varna So¢iety in the Age of the Buddha ‘Material Life — Administrative System — Army and Taxation — ‘The Republican Experiment — Social Orders and Legislation ‘The Age of the Mauryas Chandragupta Maurya — Imperial Organization — Ashoka (273- 282 B.C.) — Ashokan Inscriptions — Impact of the Kalinga War —Internal Policy and Buddhism — Ashoka’s Place in History Significance of the Maurya Rule State Control — Eeonomic Regulations — Art and- Architecture = Spread of Material Culture and State System — Causes of the Fall of the Maurya Empire — Brahmanical Reaction — (Crisis — Oppressive Rule — New Knowledge in the Outlying ‘Areas — Neglect of the North-West Frontier and the Great Wall of China Central Asian Contacts and Their Results ‘The Indo-Greeks — The Shakas —.The Parthians — The Kushans — Impact of Central Asian Contacts — Structure and Pottery — Better Cavalry — Trade and Agriculture — Polity — New Elements in Indian Society — Religious Developments — ‘The Origin of Mahayana Buddhism — Gandhara and Mathura Schools of Art — Literature and Learning — Science and ‘Technology The Age of the Satavahanas Political History — Aspects of Material Culture — Social Organization — Pattern of Administration — Religion — Architecture — Language 78 89 101 108 112 122 130 140 154* Cuaprer 18 Cuarrer 19 Cuaprer 20 Cuaprer 21 Cuaprer 22 (Cuarrer 23 Cuaprer 24 Cuaprer 25 Cnarrer 26 CuarTeR 27 Cuarrer 28 ix The Dawn of History in the Deep South ‘The Megalithic Background — State Formation and Rise of Civilization — Three Early Kingdoms — The Purse and the ‘Sword — Rise of Social Classes — Beginnings of Brahmanism — Tamil Language and Sangam Literature — Social Evolution from Sangam Texts Crafts, Trade and Towns in the Post-Maurya Age Crafts — Foreign Trade — Money Economy — Urban Settlements ‘The Rise and Growth of the Gupta Empire Background Chandragupta I (A.D. 319-334) — Samudragupta (A.D. 335-380) — Chandragupta Il (A.D. 380-412) — Fall of the Empire Life in the Gupta Age System of Administration — Trends in Trade and Agrarian Economy — Social Developments — State of Buddhism — Origin and Growth of Bhagavatism — Art — Literature — Science and Technology Spread of Civilization in Eastern India Signs of Civilization — Orissa and Eastern and Southern Madhya Pradesh — Bengal — Assam —The Formative Phase Harsha and His Times Harsha's Kingdom — Administration — Hsuan Tsang's Account — Buddhism and Nalanda Formation of New States and Rural Expansion in the Peninsula The New Phase — States of the Deccan and South India — Conflict between the Pallavas and the Chalukyas — Temples — Demands on the Peasantry — Rural Expansion — Social Structure Developments in Philosophy Goals of Life — Samkhya — Yoga — Nyaya — Vaisheshika — Mimamsa —Vedanta — Materialist View of Life India’s Cultural Contacts with the Asian Countries Transformation of the Ancient Phase Social Crisis and Agrarian Changes — Rise of Landlords — New Agrarian Economy — Decline of Trade and Towns — Changes in the Varna System — Cultural Development — Bhakti and Tantricism Sequence of Social Changes ‘Tribal and Pastoral Phase — Agriculture and the Origin of Upper, Orders — Varna System of Production and Government — Social Crisis and Rise of Landed Classes — Summary 162 171 180 186 198 204 209 219 223 227 234Cuserte.29 Bibliography Index x Legacy in Science and Civilization Religion — The Varna System — Philosophical Systems — Crafts and Technology — Polity — Science and Mathematics Medicine — Geography — Art and Literature 240 246 253Pape x 10. 11. 12. 13 14. 15. 16, 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. List of Illustrations Iuwsreamion 5.1 Iuusteanon 5.2 Tuwstration 5.3 Iuwusrranion 5.4 Intustranion 5.5 Inwustramion 6.1 Tuustranion 6.2 IuwusrraTion 6.3 Iuwstration 6.4 Tuustration 6.5 Iustraion ‘7.1 Inustration 7.2 Iuustranion 7.3 Intustraion 7.4 Iuustration 7.5 Iuustranion 7.6 Iustranon 7.7 Iuustramion 7,8 Tuwstearion 7.9 Iuustaxnion 7.10 InustraTion 9.1 Inwsrrarion 9.2 Palaeolithic Tools: Hand-axes, Choppers and Cleavers - Mesolithic Tools from Birbhanpur {West Bengal) and Tirunelveli (Tamil Nadu) Neolithic Tools Burzahom Pit Dwelling Neolithic Bone Tools from Burzahom White-painted -black-and-red ware from Ahar, circa 1500 B.C. Pottery trom Navdatoli, circa 1500 B.C. Painted pottery, black-on-red, Jorwe, circa 1200 B.C. Inamgaon: Isometric Reconstruction of Houses Copper Tools from Ganga-Yamuna ‘oab Kalibangan: General View showing Excavated Trenches Harappa — Plan of the City Great Bath, Mohenjo-dare Isometric Projection of the Granary of Harappa Covered Drain, Mohe::jo-daro Mother-goddess,’ Monenjo-daro - Seal of Pashupati, Mohenjo-dare Pottery, Lothal Bull Seal. Mohenjo-daro Seals from Kalibangan Painted Grey Ware Iron. Objects from PGW layers at Atranjikhera 34 “35 37 38 38 42 BR 46 51 53 55 56 58 62 63 65 65 78 80| | 23. 24, 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31; 32. 33. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. BB 45. 46. 47. 48. Iu.ustration InwustRaTION Inwustration IuwustraTion Iuustraion InwstRaTIon IuuusTRaTION Iuwsreation -IwustRaTION Iuustration, IntustraTion ILLustRaTion tLustRATION IutustraTion IntustraTion Iutustration Twustranion ItwustraTion TuLusTRATION, InwustraTion Iuustration IntusrraTion IntustRaTion IttusTRATION Inwustranion IL.ustRaTION 10.1 14.1 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 16:1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 16.6 16.7 16.8 16.9 16.10 17.1 17.2 17.3 18.1 18.2 19.1 19.2 20.1 20.2 xii Punch-marked coins Rumindei Pillar Inscription of ‘Ashoka Ashakan Pillar, Lauriya-Nandangarh Bull Capital, Rampurva : Terracotta Figurine of the Maurya Period A View of the Lomasrishi Caves, Barabar Hills Ringed Soak-wells found at Ropar Indo:Greek Coins Copper-plate Inscription of about the first Century A.D, from Kulawan (near Taxila) Kanishka’s Coin Pillar of Heliodorus near Vidisha Aerial View of the Remains of the Ancient City of Taxila (first’ century A.D.) Image of the Buddha, Gandhara Sculpture from Mathura Sanchi Stupa — A view of the Gateway 4 Panel from Bharhut Silver Coins Chaitya at narle Sculpture depicting the worship of Buddha's Footprints — Amaravati Scene depicting Buddha's Sermon Nagarjunakonda Megalithic Burial Objects of carved ivory. belonging to the early centuries of the Christian era Tetracotta Figures found in Ter (Distt. Osmanabad) Remains of the Stadium at Nagarjunakonda The Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta (lines 30, 31 ‘and 33) Coins of Chandragupta I, Sarnudragupta and Chandragupta II 90 127 132 133 134 135 136 140 142 145, 147 148 149 150 151 152 152 159 160 160 163 165 177 177 181 18349, 51. 52, 53. 54. 55. 88893 61. Iuusreation 21.1 Inysteation 21.2 Iuwustration 21.3. Inuustration 21.4 InwstraTion 21.5 Iuustranion 21.6 Inusteanion 21.7 Inwusrration 23.1, Iuustranion 24.1 Iuustranion 24.2 Inustranion 24.3 Inustration 26.1 InwustraTion 26.2 xiii Image of Nara-Narayana from Deogarh Temple at Sanchi built during the Gupta period Image of the Buddha from Sarnath Image of Yamuna from Ahichhatra (istt. Bareilly) Image of the Buddha from Mathura Ajanta Painting of an Apsara Iron Pillar at Delhi Remains of a Stupa at Nalanda Cave Temple at Badami The Ratha Temples at Mahabalipuram Kailashanath Temple at Kanchi Statue of the Buddha at Bamtyan in Afghanistan General View of the Temple at Borobudur 190 190 191 191 192 192 isa 207 211 215 215 224 225SP PNRA pe pr Fioure 1 Ficure 2 Feure 3 Fioure 4 Ficure 5 Fioure 6 Ficure 7 Fioure 8 Fioure 9 Froure 10 . Froure 11 Froure 12 Froure 13 1. Ficure 14 Ficure 15 . Ficure 16 List of Maps India—Physical Features India—Annual Rainfall India—Copper, Iron Ore and Gold: Deposits Neolithic Cultures Chalcolithic Cultures Harappa Culture PGW Cultures ‘The Mahajanapadas tndia—NBP Sites Empire of Ashoka Central Asian Contacts India in about A.D. 150 India—cirea 200 B.C.-A.D. 300 Ancient Trade Routes The Gupta Empire, circa A.D. 400 Deccan and South India—A.D. 300-750 24 27 31 39 57 81 102, 113 126 141 155, 172 174 182 210CHAPTER 1 The Importance of Ancient Indian History ‘Tue stupy of ancient Indian history is important for several reasons. It tells us how, when and where people de- veloped the earliest cultures in. our country. It indicates how they started agriculture which made life secure and settled. It shows how the ancient In- dians discovered and utilized natural resources, and how they created the means for their livelihood. We come to now how they took to farming, spin- ning, weaving, metal-working, and so on; how they cleared forests; and how they founded villages, cities, and fi- nally large kingdoms. People are not considered civilized unless they know writing. The differ- ent forms of writing prevalent in India today are all derived from the ancient scripts. This is also true of the lan- guages that we speak today. The lan- guages we use have roots in ancient times, and have developed through the ages. Unity in Diversity Ancient Indian history is interesting because India proved to be a crucible of ethnic groups. The pre-Aryans, the Indo-Aryans, the Greeks, the Scythians, the Hunas, the Turks, etc. made India their home. Each ethnic , group contributed its mite to the evo- lution of Indian social system, art and architecture, and literature. All these peoples and their cultural traits mixed up so inextricably with one another that at present none of them can be clearly identified in their original form. A remarkable feature of ancient Indian culture has been the commin- gling of cultural elements from the north and the south, and from the east and the west. The Aryan elements are equated with the Vedic and Sanskritir culture of the north and the pre-Arya. with Dravidian and Tamil culture of the south. But many Dravidian and non-Sanskritic terms occur in the Vedic texts ascribed to 1500-500 B.c. They indicate ideas, institutions, prod- ucts and settlements associated with the peninsular and non-Vedic India. Similarly many Pali and Sanskrit terms signifying ideas and institutions developed in the Gangetic plains ap- pear in the earliest Tamil texts called the Sangam literature which is roughly used for the period 300 B.C.- A.D. 600. The eastern region inhabited by the pre-Aryan tribals made its own con- tribution. The people of this area spoke Munda or Kolarian languages. Several terms that signify the use of cotton, navigation, digging stick, etc., in Indo- Aryan languages are traced to the Munda languages by the linguists. Although there. are.many Munda2 pockets in Chhot: lateau, the rémnants of the Munda culture are not so strong as those of the Dravidian cul- ture. Many Dravidian terms are also used found. in the Indo-Aryan lan- guages. It is held that changes in the phonetics and vocabulary of the Vedic language can be explained as much on the basis of the Dravidian influence as that of the Munda influence. India has since ancient times been the lard of several religions. Ancient India witnessed the birth of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism; but all these cultures and religions intermingled and acted and reacted upon one an- other in such a manner that though people speak different languages, practise different religions, and ob- serve different social customs, they follow certain common styles of life throughout the country. Our country shows a deep underlying unity in spite of great diversity. ‘The ancients strove for unity. They looked upon this vast subcontinent as one land. The name Bharatavarsha or the land of Bharata was given to the whole country after the name of an ancient tribe called the Bharatas, and the people were called Bharatasantati or the descendants of Bharata. Our ancient poets, philosophers and writ- ers viewed the country as an integral unit, They spoke of the land stretch- ing from the Himalayas to the sea as the proper domain of a single univer- sal monarch. The kings who tried to establish their authority from the Himalayas to the Cape Comorin and from the valley of the Brahmaputra in the east to the land beyond the Indus in the west were universally praised. They were called Chakravartins. This f i ANCIENT INDIA kind of political unity was attained at least twice in ancient tinjes. In the third century B.C. Ashoka extended his empire over the whole country, except for the extreme south. Again, in the fourth century A.D. Samudragupta carried his victorious arms frpm the Ganga to the borders. of the Tamil land. In the seventh century, the Chalukya king, Pulakeshin defeated Harshavardhana who was called the Jord of the whole of north India. In spite of lack of political unity political for- mations all over the country assumed more or less the same shape. The idea that India constituted one single geo- graphical unit persisted in the minds of the conquerors and cultural lead- ers. The unity of India was also recog- nized by foreigners. They first came into contact with the people living on the Sindhu or the Indus, and so they named the whole country after this river. The word Hind is derived from the Sanskrit term Sindhu, and in course of time the country came to be known as ‘India’ which is very close to the Greek term for it. It came to be called ‘Hind’ in Persian and Arabic lan- es. We find continuous efforts for.the linguistic and cultural unity, of the country. In the third century B.c. Prakrit served as the lingua franca of the country. Throughout the major portion of India, Ashoka's inscriptions were written in the Prakrit language and Brahmi script. Later Sanskrit acquired the same position and served as the state language in the remotest parts of the country. The process be- came prominent in the Gupta period in the fourth century A.D. Although politically the country witnessed‘THE IMPORTANCE OF ANCIENT INDIAN HISTORY 3 numerous small states in the post- ‘Gupta period, the official documents were written in Sanskrit. “ Another notable fact is that the an- cient epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, were studied with the same zeal and devotion in the land of the Tamils as in the intellectual circles of Banaras and Taxila. Originally com: posed in Sanskrit, these epics came to be presented in different local lan- Guages. But whatever the form in which Indian cultural values and ideas were expressed, the substance remained the same throughout the country. Indian history deserves our atten- tion because of a peculiar type of so- cial system which developed in this country. In north India arose the /caste system which. came to prevail almost all over the country. The caste system affected even the Chris- tians and the Mi is. The converts belonged to some caste, and even when they left Hirlduism to join the new religion they continued to main- tain some of their old caste practices. Relevance of the Past to the Present ‘The study of India's past assumes special significance in the context of the problems we face in modern times. Some people clamour for the restora- tion of ancient culture and civilization, and a good many are sentimentally swayed by what they consider to be the past glories of India. This is differ- ent from the concern for the preserva- tion of ancient heritage in art and ar- chitecture. What they really want to bring back is the old pattern of soci- ety and culture. Such a situation de- mands ‘a far better understanding of the past. There is no doubt that an- cient Indians made _.remarkable_ progress in different fields of life, but ‘these advances cannot enable us to compete-with the achievements of modern science and technology, We cannot ignore the fact that the tt Indian society was marked by gross social injustice. The lower orders, particularly the shudras and untouch- ables, were encumbered with disabili- ties which are shocking to the mod- ern mind. The restoration of the old “vay of life will naturally revive and strengthen all, these inequities. An- cient India’s march to civilization was - accompanied by the growth of social discriminations. The success of the ancients in surmounting the difficul- ties presented by nature and human factors can build our hope and confi- dence in future, but the attempt to -bring back the past will mean the per- petuation of social inequity which plagued the country, All this makes it necessary to know what the past means. We have many survivals of ancient, medieval and later times persisting in the present. The old norms, values, social customs and ritualistic prac- tices are so deeply ingrained in the minds of the people that they cannot easily get rid of them. Unfo.tunately these survivals inhibit the develop- ment of the individual and the coun- try. They were deliberately fostered in a colonialist situation. India cannot develop speedily unless such vestiges of the past are removed from its soci- ety. The caste system and sectarian- ism hinder the integration and: devel-. opment of the country on-democratic lines. Caste barriers and prejudices do4 not allow even the educated people to ‘appfegiate, the dignity of manual L wdabour and prevent our unity for a common cause. Though women have been enfranchised, their age-long so- cial subordination prevents them from playing ‘their due role in social progress. This is also true of the lower | _ orders of society. The study of ancient India helps us to go deeply into the roots of these prejudices. We can find ANCIENT INDIA out the causes that sustain the caste | system, subordinate women, and pro- mote narrow religious sectarianism. The study of ancient Indian history, therefore, {s relevant not only to those who want to understand the true nature of the past that some people want to relive but also to those who want to appreciate the nature of ob- stacles that hamper the development of the country. | EXERCISES _ 1. Explain the meaning of the following terms and concepts: Ethnic groups, Sanskritic culture, Varna, ‘Unity in Diversity’, Chakravartin. 2. Discuss how the study of ancient Indian history is relevant to an understanding of contemporary India. 3. Do you think that it is desirable to think in terms of restoring the past? Why, or Why not? Discuss. 1 4. Give examples of commingling of different cultures in the context of ancient Indian history.CHAPTER 2 L Modern Historians of Ancient India Colonialist Views and Contribution AurHoucH educated Indians retained their traditional history in the form of hand-written ‘epics, Puranas and semi-biographical works, modern, re- search in the history of ancient India started in the second half of the elgh- teenth century because of the needs of the colonial administration set up by the British. When Bengal and Bihar came under the rule of the East India Company in 1765, they found it diffi- cult to administer the Hindu law of inheritance. Hence, in 1776, Manusmriti, (the law book of Manu). which was considered most authori- tative, was translated into English as A Code of Gentoo Laws. The pandits were associated with British judges to administer the civil law of the Hindus and the maulavis to govern the same law of the Muslims. The initial efforts to understand ancient laws and cus- toms, which continued largely. until the eighteenth century, culminated in the establishment of the Asiatic Soci- ety of Bengal in 1784 in Calcutta. It was set up by a civil servant of the East India Company, Sir, William Jones (1746-1794), who translated the drama known as the Abhijnana- shakuntalam into English in 1789; the Bhagvadgita, the most popular reli- gious text of the Hindus, had been rendered into English by Wilkins in 1785. The Bombay Asiatic Society was set up in 1804, and the Asiatic Soci- ety of Great Britain was set up in London in 1823. William Jones emphasised the point that originally European languages were very much similar to Sanskrit and Iranian Jan- guages. This aroused the interest of Germany, France, Russia and other European countries in Indological studies. In the first half of the’ nine- teenth century chairs in Sanskrit were established in England and several other European countries. The greatest push to Indological studies was given by the German-born scholar F. Max Mueller (1823-1902) who spent most of his time in England. The Revolt of 1857 was a great eye- opener. It was strongly realised in Britain that it badly needed a deeper knowledge of the manners and social systems of an alien people over whom. it had to rule. Similarly, the Christian missionaries wanted to find out the vulnerable points in the Hindu reli- gion to win converts and strengthen the British empire. To meet these needs ancient scriptures were trans- lated on a massive scale under the editorship of Max Mueller. Altogether. fifty volumes, some in several parts,6 were published under the Sacred Books of the East series. Although a few Chinese and Iranian texts were included, really the ancient Indian texts predominated in the series. In the introductions to these vol- umes and the books based on them, Max Mueller and other western schol- rs made certain generalisations about the nature of ancient Indian history and society. They stated that the ancient Indians lacked a sense of history especially of the factor of time and chronology. They added that the Indians were accustomed to despotic rule. Further, the natives were en- grossed in the problems of spiritual- ism or of the next world, and least bothered about the problems of this world. The caste system was consid- ered to be the most vicious form of social discrimination. The western scholars stressed that the Indians had neither experienced feelings of nation- hood nor any kind of self-government. Many of these generalisations ap- peared in Early History of India by Vincent Arthur Smith (1843-1920), who prepared the first systematic his- tory of ancient India in 1904. His book which was based on a deep study of the available sources gave primacy to political history. It served as a text- book for nearly fifty years and is still used by scholars. Smith's approach to history was pro-imperialist. As a loyal member of the Indian Civil Ser- vice he emphasised the role of foreign- ers in ancient India. Alexander's in- vasion accounted for almost one-third of his book. India was presented as a | land of despotism which did not ex- | perience political unity until the es- | tablishment of British rule. As he ob- a ancient inpia 7” serves: Autocracy is substantially the only form of government with which the historian of India is concerned". In sum, British interpretations of Indian history served to denigrate Indian character and achievements, and justify the colonial rule. A few of + these observations appeared to be somewhat valid. Thus compared to the Chinese, the Indians did not show any strong sense of chronology although in the earlier stage important events were dated with reference to the death of Gautama Buddha. However, generalisations made by historians were either false or grossly exagger- ated. They could serve as good propa- ganda material for the perpetuation of the despotic British rule. Their em- phasis on the Indian tradition of one- man rule could justify the system which vested all powers in the hands of the viceroy. Similarly, if the Indi- ans were obsessed with the problems of the other world, the British colo- nial masters had no option but to look after their life in this world. Without any experience of self-rule in the past, how could the natives manage their affairs in the present? At the heart of all such generalisations lay the need of demonstrating that the Indians were incapable of governing them- selves. Nationalist Approach and Contribution All this naturally came as a great challenge to Indian scholars, particu- larly to those who had received west- er. eriucation. They were irked by the colonialist distortions of their past history ‘and at the same time dis- tressed by the contrast between the >MODERN HISTORIANS OF ANCIENT INDIA decaying feudal society of India and the progressive capitalist society of England. A band of scholars took upon themselves not only the mission to reform Indian society but also to reconstruct ancient Indian history in such a manner as to make case for social reforms and, more importantly, for self-government. In doing so most historians were guided by the nation- alist ideas of Hindu revivalism, but there was no dearth. of scholars who adopted a rationalist and objective approach. To the second category belongs Rajendra Lal Mitra (1822~ 1891), who published some Vedic texts and wrote a book entitled Indo-Aryans. A great lover of ancient heritage, he took a rational view of ancient society and produced a forceful tract to show that in ancient times people took beef. Others tried to prove that in spite of its peculiarities the caste system was not basically different from the class system based on division of labour found in pre-industrial and ancient’ societies of Europe. -In Maharashtra, Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar (1837-1925) and Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade (1869-1926) emerged as two great dedicated scholars who pieced to- varied sources to reconstruct the social and political history of the country. R.G. Bhandarkar recon- structed 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 marriages and castigated the evils of the caste system and child marriage. With his unadulterated passion for research, V.K. Rajwade went from 7 village to village in Maharashtra in search of Sanskrit manuscripts and sources of Maratha history; the sources came to be published in twenty-two volumes. He did not write much, but the history of the institu- tion of marriage that he wrote in Marathi in 1926 will continue to be a classic because of its solid base in Vedic and other texts, and also be- cause of the author's insight into the stages in the evolution of marriage in India. Pandurang Vaman Kane (1880— 1972), a great Sanskritist wedded to social reform, continued the earlier tradition of scholarship. His monu- mental work entitled the History of the Dharmasastra published in five vol- umes in the twentieth century 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 diligently studied polity and political history to demonstrate that India did have its political history and that the Indians possessed expertise in administration. Here due credit should be given to Devdatta Ramakiishna Bhandarkar (1875-1950), an epigraphist, who published books on Ashoka and on ancient Indian political institutions. More valuable work was done by Hemchandra Raychaudhuri (1892- 1957), who reconstructed the history of ancient India from the time of the Bharata (Mahabharata) war, i.e. the tenth century B.C. to the end of the Gupta empire. Being a teacher of European history, he adopted some of the miethods and comparative in- sights in writing this book. Although he did not discuss the problem of8 periodisation, his history of ancient India stopped with the sixth century A.D. Though he recognised the contri- bution of V.A. Smith to the reconstruc- tion’ of early Indian history, yet " Raychaudhuri criticised the British scholar at many points. His writings are marked by impeccable scholarship but show a streak of militant brahmanism when he criticises Ashoka's policy of peace. A stronger element of Hindu revivalism appears in the writings. of R.C. Majumdar (1888-1980), who was a prolific writer and the general editor of the multi- volume publication History and Cul- ture of the Indian People. Most writers on early Indian his- tory did not give adequate attention to south India. Even K.A. Nilakanta Sastri (1892-1975), the great historian from: south India, followed the same approach in his A History of Ancient India. This was more than rectified in A History of South India written by him. His style is terse, but his writing is lucid. In the presentation of facts he is as dependable as Raychaudhuri. However, his general observations on the nature of polity and society in South India are questioned by several scholars. Nilakanta Sastri emphasised the cultural supremacy of the brahmanas and also highlighted the harmony that prevailed in early Indian society. Under his leadership several Tesearch monographs were produced on the dynastic history of south In- dia. 5 Until 1960 political hisiory at- tracted the largest number of Indian scholars, who also glorified the histo- Ties of their'respective regions on dy- nastic lines. Those who wrote history ANCIENT INDIA at a pan-India level were inspired by the ideas of nationalism. In contrast to the book of V.A. Smith, who gave almost one third of the total space to Alexander's invasion, Indian scholars gave this subject much less space. On the other hand, they stressed 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/A.S. Altekar (1898-1959) over- played the role of the indigenous rul- ing dynasties in liberating the coun- try from the rule of the Shakas and Kushans, little realising that Central Asian and some other people became part and parcel of India’s life and did not exploit its resources for their origi- nal homeland. However, the greatest merit of K.P. Jayaswal lay in exploding the myth of Indian despotism. As early as 1910- 12, he wrote several articles to show that the republics existed in ancient times and enjoyed a measure of self- government. His findings finally ap- peared in Hindu Polity in 1924. Al- though Jayaswal is charged with pro- jecting modern nationalist ideas into ancient institutions, and the nature of the republican government pre- sented by him is attacked by many writers including U.N. Ghoshal (1886- 1969), his basic thesis regarding the practice of the republican experiment is widely accepted, and his pioneer work Hindu Polity, now in its sixth edition, is considered a classic. Shift to Non-Political History British historian, A.L. Basham (1914— 1986), a Sanskritist by training,MODERN HISTORIANS OF ANCIENT INDIA. questioned the wisdom of looking at ancient India from the modern, point of view. His earlier writings show his deep interest in the materialist phi- losophy of some heterodox sects. Later he believed that the past should be read out of curiosity and pleasure. His book. Wonder That Was India (1951) is a sympathetic survey of the various facets of ancient Indian culture and civilization free from the prejudices that plague the writings of V.A. Smith __or other British writers. Basham's book marks a great shift from political to non-political history. The same shift is evident in D.D. Kosambi's (1907-1966) book An Intro- duction to the Study of Indian History (1957), later popularised’ in The Civilisation of Ancient India in Histori- cal Outline (1965). Kosambi blazed a new trail in Indian history. His treat- ment follows the materialist interpre- tation of history, which is derived from the writings of Karl Marx. He presents the history of ancient Indian society, economy and culture as an integral part of the development of the forces and relations of production. His was the first survey book to show the stages of social and economic devel- opment in terms of tribal. and class processes. He was criticised by many scholars including Basham, but his book continues to be widely used. During the last twenty-five years there has been a sea change in the methods and orientation of those who, worl: on ancient India. They ‘lay greater stress an social, economic and cultural processes and try to relate them to political developments: ‘They., take account of the stratification of the texts and compare their conventional nature with archaeological and an- thropological evidence. All this bodes good for the future of historical stud- ies. Unfortunately a few Indian writ- ers magnify the role of religion, and believe that everything good and great, originated in their country. Western writers no longer insist that all such things came to India from outside. But some of them hold that religious ideas, rituals, caste, kinship, and tra- dition are the main forces in Indian history. They also underscore various divisive features which made for stag- nation. They are more concerned. about the problem of stability and continuity. They seem to be fascinated by old, exotic elements and want to preserve them for ever. Such an approach implies that Indian society has not changed and cannot. be changed. It means that underdevel- opment is an integral part of the In- dian character. ‘Thus, the chauvinists and sophis- ticated colonialists use the study of India's past to prevent its progress, It is, therefore, essential to take a bal- anced and objective view of ancient India:10 ANCIENT INDIA EXERCISES . Explain the meaning of the following terms and concepts: Indological studies, Sanskritists, ‘forces and relations of production’. . Make an assessment of the colonial historians’ views of ancient * Indian history. Give specific examples of their views while making your assessment. }. Discuss the contribution of nationalist historians to the study of ancient Indian history. + Organise a debate on the following topic: “Modern Indian historians have rectified the mistakes of colonial historians on ancient Indian history”.CHAPTER 3 Types of Sources and Historical Construction Material Remains ‘Tue ancient Indians Jleft innumerable material remains, The stone temples in south India and the brick monas- teries in eastern India still stand to remind us of the great building activi- ties of the past. But the major part of these remains lies buried in the mounds scattered all over the coun- try (The mound is an elevated portion of land remains of old habi- tations). It may be of different types— single-culture, major-culture and multi-culture. Single-culture mounds Tepresent only one culture through- out. Some mounds represent only Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture, others Satavahana. culture, and still others Kushan culture. In major-cul- ture mounds, one culture is dominant and the others are not so important. Multi-cuiture mounds represent ‘sev- eral important cultures in succession which occasionally overlap with one another. Like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, an excavated mound can be used for the understanding of successive layers in material and other aspects of culture. A mound can be excavated verti- cally or horizontally. Vertical excava- tion means lengthwise digging to un- cover the period-wise sequence of cultures; it is generally confined to a part of the site. Horizontal excavation means digging the mound as a whole or a major part of it. The method may enable the excavator to obtain a com- plete idea of the site culture in a par- ticular period. Since most sites have been dug vertically they provide a good chrono- logical sequence of material culture. Horizontal diggings, being very expen- sive. are very few in number, with the result that excavations do not give us a full and even adequate picture of material life in many phases of ancient Indian history. Even in those mounds which have been excavated, the ancient remains have been preserved in varying pro- portions, In the dry arid climate of western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and north-western India, antiquities are found ina better state of preservation, but in the moist and humid climate of the middle Gangetic plains and in the deltaic regions even iron implements suffer corrosion and mud structures become difficult to detect. It is only in the phase of burnt brick structures or stone structures that impressive and large-scale remains are found in moist and alluvial areas. Excavations have brought to light the cities which the people established around 2500 B.C. in north-westernIndia. Similarly they tell us about the material culture which was developed in the Gangetic plains. They show the layout of the settlements in which people lived, the types of pottery they used, the form of house in which they dwelt, the kind of cereals they used as food, and the type of tools and implements they handled. Some people in south India buried along with the dead, their tools, weapons, pottery and other belongings in the graves, which were encircled by big pieces of stone. These structures are called megaliths, although some megaliths do not fall in this category. By digging them we have come to learn of the life which people lived in the Deccan from the iron age onwards. The science which enables us to dig the old mounds in a systematic man- ner, in successive layers, and to form an idea of the material life of the people is called archaeology. Material remains recovered as a result of excavation’ and exploration are subjected to various kinds of sci- entific examination. Their dates are fixed by following the method of ra- diocarbon dating. Radiocarbon or Carbon 14 (C') is a radioactive iso- tape of carbon which is present in all living objects. It decays, like all radio- active substances, at a uniform rate. When an object is living, the process of the decay of C is neutralized by absorption of C** through air and food. However, when an object ceases to be alive, its C'* content continues to decay at a uniform rate but it ceases to absorb C™ from air and food. By measuring the loss of C'* content in an ancient object, its age can be de- termined. This is because, as stated ANCIENT INDIA earlier, the decay of C' takes place at a uniform rate. It is known that the half-life of C' is 5568 years. The half- life of a radioactive material is defined as-the period during which one-half of the radioactive content in an object disappears. Thus C™ content in an ‘object which ceased to live 5568 years ago would be half of what it was when it was living and in an object which ceased to live.11,136 years ago, its C* content would be one-fourth of what it was when it was living. The history of climate and vegeta- tion is. known through an examina- tion of plant residues, and especially through pollen analysis. Thus on this basis it is suggested that agriculture was practised in Rajasthan and Kash- mir around 7000-6000°B.C. The na- ture and components of metal arti- facts are analysed scientifically, and as a result the sources from where metals were obtained are located and the stages in the development of metal technology are identified. An exami- nation of animal bones shows whether the animals were domesticated, and also indicates the uses to which they were put. Coins Although a good number of coins and inscriptions has been found on the surface, many of them have been unearthed by ‘digging. The study of coins is called numismatics. Ancient Indian currency was not issued in the form of paper, as is being used these days, but as metal coins. Ancient coins were made of metal—copper, silver, gold, or lead. Coin moulds made of burnt clay have been discovered in large numbers. Most of them belongTYPES OF SOURCES AND HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTICN to the Kushan period, i.e. the first three Christian centuries. The use of such moulds in the post-Gupta peri- ods almost disappeared. Since there was nothing like the modern banking system in ancient times, people kept money in earthen ware and also in brass vessels, and maintained them as precious hoards on which they could fall back in time of need. Many of these hoards, con- taining not only Indian cqins but also those minted abroad such as in the Roman empire, have been discovered in different parts of the country. They are preserved’ mostly in museums at Calcutta, Patna, Lucknow, Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai and Chennai. Many Indian coins are found in the muse- ums of Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Since Britain ruled over India for a long time, British of- ficials succeeded in transferring many of the Indian coins to private and public collections in that country. Coins of the major dynasties have been catalogued and published. We have catalogues of coins in the Indian Museum at Calcutta, of Indian coins in the British Museum in London, and so on. But there is a large number of coins which have yet to be catalogued and published. Our earliest coins contain a few symbols, but the later coins mention the names of kings, gods or dates. The areas where they are found indicate the region of their circulation. This has enabled us to reconstruct the history of several ruling dynasties, especially of the Indo-Greeks who came to India from north Afghanistan and ruled here in the second and first centuries B.C. Since coins were used for various 13 purposes such as donations, mode of payment and medium of exchange, they throw considerable light on eco- nomic history. Some coins were issued by the guilds of merchants and gold- smiths with the permission of the rulers. This shows that crafts and commerce had become important. Coins helped transactions on a large scale and contributed to trade. We get the largest number of coins in post- Maurya times. These were made of lead, potin, copper, bronze, silver and gold. The Guptas issued the largest number of gold coins. All this indicates that trade and commerce flourished, especially in Post-Maurya and a good part of Gupta times. But the fact that only a few coins belonging to post- Gupta times have been found indi- cates the decline of trade and com- merce in that period. Coins also portray kings and gods, and contain religious ‘symbols and legends, all of which throw light on the art and religion of the time. Inscriptions Far more important than-coins are inscriptions. Their study is called epig- raphy, and the study of the old writ- ing used in inscriptions and other old records is called palaeography. In- scriptions were carved on seals, stone pillars, rocks, copper plates, temple walls and bricks or images. In the country as a whole, the earliest inscriptions were recorded on stone. But in the early centuries of the Christian era, copper plates began to be used for this purpose. Even then the practice of engraving inscriptions on stone continued in south India on a large scale. We have also in that14 region-a large number of inscriptions recorded on the walls of the temples to serve as permanent records. Like coins, inscriptions are pre- served in various. museums of the country, but the largest number may be found in the office of the Chief. Epigraphist, at Mysore. The earliest inscriptions were written in the Prakrit language in the third century B.C. Sanskrit was adopted as an epigraphic medium in the second,century A.D. and its use became widespread in the fourth and fifth centuries. Even then Prakrit continued to be employed. Inscriptions began to be composed in regional languages in the ninth and tenth centuries. Most inscriptions bearing on the history of Maurya, post-Maurya and Gupta times have been published in a series of collec- tions called Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. But not too many inscrip- tions of post-Gupta times have ap- peared in such systematic compila- tions. In the case of south India, to- pographical lists of inscriptions have been brought out. Still there are more than 50,000 inscriptions, mostly of south India, which await publication. ‘The Harappan inscriptions, which await decipherment, seem to have been written in a pictographic script in which ideas and objects were ex- pressed in the form of pictures. Ashokan inscriptions were engraved in the Brahmi script, which was writ- ten from left to right. But some were also incised in the Kharoshthi script which was written from right to left. However, the Brahmi script prevailed in the whole country except for the north-western part. Greek and Ara- mate scripts were employed in writing ANCIENT INDIA Ashokan inscriptions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Brahmi continued to be the main script till the énd of Gupta times. An epigraphist can decipher most inscriptions of the country up to about the seventh century, if he has carefully learnt Brahmi and its varia- tions. But afterwards we notice strong regional variations in this script, which is called by different names. ‘The earliest inscriptions are found on the seals of Harappa belonging to about 2500 B.C. They have not been deciphered so far. The oldest inscrip- tions deciphered so far were issued by Ashoka in the third century B.C. In the fourteenth century A.D. two Ashokan pillar inscriptions were found by Firoz Shah Tughlaq, one in Meerut and another at a place called Topra in Haryana. He brought them to Delhi and asked the pandits of his empire to decipher the inscriptions, but they failed to do so. The same difficulty was faced by the British when in the last quarter of the eighteenth century they discovered Ashokan inscriptions. ‘These epigraphs were first deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, a civil ser- vant in the employ of the East India Company in Bengal. ‘We have various types of inscrip- tions. Some convey royal orders and decisions regarding social, religious and administrative matters to officials and people in general. Ashokan in- scriptions belong to this category. Others are votive records of the fol- lowers of Buddhism, Jainism, Vaishnavaism, Shaivism, etc., who put up pillars, tablets, temples or images as marks of devotion. Still other types eulogize the attributes and achieve- ments of kings and conquerors, andTYPES OF SOURCES AND HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION never speak of their defeats or weaknesses. To this category belongs the Allahabad inscription of Samudragupta. Finally, we have many donative records which refer specially to gifts of money, cattle, land, etc., mainly for religious purposes, made not only by kings and princes but also by artisans and merchants. Inscriptions recording land grants, made mainly by chiefs and princes, are very important for the study of the land system and administration in ancient India. These were mostly engraved on copper plates. They record the grants of lands, revenues and villages made to monks, priests, temples, monasteries, vassals and officials. They were written in all lan- guages, such as Prakrit, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu. Literary Sources Although the ancient Indians knew writing as early as 2500 B.C., our most ancient manuscripts are not older than the fourth century A.D., and have been found in Central Asia. In India, they were written on birch bark and palm leaves, but in Central Asia, where the Prakrit language had spread from India, manuscripts were ‘also written on sheep leather. and wooden tablets. These writings are called inscriptions, but they are as good as manuscripts. When printing was not known, manu- scripts were valued’ immensely. Al- though old Sanskrit manuscripts are found all over the country, they mostly belong to south India, Kashmir and Nepal. At present inscriptions are mostly preserved in museums, and manuscripts in libraries. Most ancient books contain 15 religious themes. The religious litera- ture of the Hindus includes the Vedas, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Puranas, etc. They throw consid- erable light on the social and cultural conditions of ancient times, but it is difficult to make use of them in the context of time and place. The Rig Veda may be assigned to circa 1500- 1000 B.C., but the collections of the Atharva Veda, Yajur Veda, the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and the Upanishads belong roughly to 1000- 500 B.C. Almost every Vedic text con- tains interpolations, which generally appear at its beginning or end but are not rare in its middle. The Rig Veda mainly contains prayers, while the later Vedic texts mainly comprise not only prayers but also rituals, magic and mythological stories. However, the Upanishads contain philosophical speculations. In order to understand the Vedic texts, it was necessary to learn the Vedangas or the limbs of the Veda. These supplements of the Veda com- ised phonetics (shiksha), ritual (kalpa), grammar (vyakarana), etymol- ogy (nirukta), metrics (chhanda) and astronomy (fyotisha). A good deal of Literature grew around each one of these subjects. It was written in the form of precepts in prose. A precept was called sutra because of its brev- ity. The most famous example of this writing is the grammar of Panini writ- ten around 400 B.C. While illustrat- ing the rules of grammar, Panini throws invaluable light on the soci- ety, economy and culture of his times. The two epics and the major Puranas seem to have been finally compiled by circa A.D. 400. Of the16 , €pics the Mahabharata attributed to » Vyasa is older in age and’possibly reflects the state of affairs from the tenth century B.C. to the fourth cen- tury A.D. Originally, it consisted of 8800 verses and was called Jaya or the collection dealing with victory. These were raised to 24,000 and came to be known as Bharata, because it contains the stories of the descen- dants of one of the earliest Vedic tribes called Bharata. The final compilation brought the verses to 100,000 which came to be known as the Mahabharata or the Satasahasri Samhita. It con- tains narrative, descriptive and didac- tic material. The main narrative which relates to the Kaurava-Pandava con- flict may belong to later Vedic times, the descriptive portion might be used for post-Vedic times, and the didactic portion generally for post-Maurya and Gupta times. Similarly, the Ramayana of Valmiki originally consisted of 6000 verses which were raised to 12,000 verses, and finally to 24,000. Although this epic appears to be more unified than the Mahabharata, it has also its didactic portions which were added later. The Ramayana composition started in the fifth century B.C. Since then it passed through as many as five stages, and the fifth stage seems to be as late as the twelfth century ~ AD. As a whole the text seems to have been composed later than the Mahabharata. In post-Vedic times we have a large corpus of ritual literature. Big public sacrifices meant for princes and men of substance belonging to the three higher varnas are laid down in the Srautasutras, which provide for several pompous royal coronation ANCIENT INDIA ceremonies. Similarly domestic ritu- als connected with birth, naming, sa- cred thread investiture, marriage, fu- nerals, etc., are laid down in the Grihyasutras. Both the Srautasutras and the Grihyasutras belong to circa 600-300 B.C. Mention may also be made of the Sulvasutras, which pre- seribe various kinds of measurements for the construction of sacrificial al- tars. They mark the beginnings of the study of geometry and mathematics. The religious books of the Jainas. and the Buddhists refer,to historical persons and incidents. The earliest Buddhist texts were written’in the Pali language, which was spdken in Magadha or south Bihar. They were finally -ompiled in the second century B.C. in Sri Lanka, but the canonical portions reflect ‘the state of affairs in the age of the Buddha in India. They tell us not only about the. life of the Buddha but about some of his royal’ contemporaries who ruled over Magadha, north Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. The most important and interesting portion of the non- canonical literature is provided'by the stories of the previous births of Gautama Buddha, It was believed that before he was finally born as Gautama, the Buddha passed through more than 550 births, in many cases in the form of animals. Each birth story is called a Jataka which is a folk tale. These Jatakas throw invaluable light on social and economic conditions rang- ing from the fifth to the second cen- tury B.C. They also make incidental references to political events in the age of the Buddha. The Jaina texts were written in Prakrit and were finally compiled inTYPES OF SOURCES AND HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION 7 the sixth century A.D. in Valabhi in Gujarat. They, however, contain many passages which help us to reconstruct the political history of eastern Uitar Pradesh and Bihar in the age of Mahavira. The Jaina texts refer re- peatedly to trade and traders. We have also a large body of secu- lar literature. To this class belong the law-books called the Dharmasutras and Smritis which, together with their commentasies, are called Dharmashastras. The Dharmasutras were compiled in 500-200 B.C. and the principal Smritis were codified in the first six centuries of the Christian era. They lay down the duties for different varnas as well as for kings and their officials. They provide the rules’ for marriages together with the laws ac- cording to which property is to be held, sold and inherited. They also prescribe punishments for persons guilty of theft, assault, murder, adultery, etc. ‘An important law-book is the Arthashastra of Kautilya. The text is divided into fifteen books, of which Books Il and Ill may be regarded as of an earlier date. They seem to have been the work of different hands. This text was put in its fnal form in the beginning of the chrftian era, but its earliest portions reflect the state of society and economy in the age of the Mauryas. It provides rich material for the study of ancient Indian polity and economy. We also possess the works of Bhasa, Sudraka, Kalidasa, and Banabhatta. Apart from their literary value, they mirror the conditions of the times to which the writers be- longed. The works of Kalidasa com- prise Kavyas and dramas, the most famous. of which is _ the Abhijnanashakuntalam. Besides being great creative compositions, they provide us with glimpses of the social and cultural life of northern and central India in the age of the Guptas. In addition to Sanskrit sources, we have some of the earliest Tamil texts found in the corpus of the Sangam literature. This was produced over a period of three to four centuries by poets who assembled in colleges patronised by chiefs and kings. Such colleges were called Sangam, and the. literature produced in these assem- blies is known as the Sangam litera- ture. The compilation of the corpus is attributed to the first four Christian centuries, although final compilations may have been completed by the sixth century. The Sangam literature comprises about 30,000 lines of poetry, which are arranged in eight anthologies called Ettuttokai. The poems are col- lected in groups of hundreds such as. Purananuru (The Four Hundred of the Exterior) and others. There are two main groups Patinenkil Kannakku (The Eighteen Lower Collections) and Pattuppattu (The Ten Songs). The former is generally assumed to be older than, the latter, and hence considered to be of much historical importance. The. Sangam texts have several layers, but at present they cannot be established on the basis of style and content. As shown later, these layers can be de- tected on the, basis of stages in social evolution. The Sangam texts are different from the Vedic texts,. particularly the18 Rig Vedic texts. They do not consti- tute religions literature. The short and Jong poems were composed by numer- ous poets in praise of numerous he- Toes and heroines. Thus they are secu- lar in nature. They are not Primitive songs, but they show a high quality: of literature. Many poems mention a warrior or a chief or a king by name and describe his military exploits in detail. The gifts made by him to bards and warriors are celebrated. These poems may have been recited in the courts. They are compared with. he- roic poetry of the Homeric age, for they represent a heroic age of warriors and battles. It is difficult to use these texts for historical purposes. Perhaps the Proper names, titles, dynasties, terri- tories, wars, etc., mentioned in the poems are partly real. Some of the Chera kings mentioned in the Sangam texts also appear as donors in inscrip- tions of the first and the second cen- tury AD, The Sangam texts refer to many settlements including Kaveripattanam whose flourishing existence is now attested archaeologically. They also speak of the Yavanas coming in their own vessels purchasing pepper with gold and supplying wine and women slaves to the natives. This trade is known not only from Latin and Greek writings but also from the ar- chaeological record. The Sangam lit- erature is a very major source of our information for the social, economic and political life of the people living in deltaic Tamil Nadu in the early Chris- tian centuries. What it says about trade and commerce is attested by foreign accounts and archaeological finds. ANCIENT INDIA Foreign Accounts Indigenous literature can be supple- mented by foreign accounts, To India came the Greek, Roman and Chinese visitors, either as travellers or religious converts, and they left behind ac- counts of the things that they saw. It ‘is remarkable that Alexander's inva- sion finds no mention in Indian sources, and it is entirely on the ba- sis of the Greek sources that we have to reconstruct the history of his In- dian exploits, The Greek writers mention Sandrokottas, a contemporary of Alexander the Great who invaded In- dia in 326 B.c. Prince Sandrokottas is identified with Chandragupta Maurya, whos: ." :te of accession is fixed at 322 B.C. This identification has served as the sheet-anchor in ancient Indian chronology. The Indika of Megasthenes, who came to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, has been pre- served only in fragments quoted by subsequent classical writers. These fragments, when read together, fur- nish valuable information not only about the system of Maurya adminis- tration but also about social classes and economic activities in the Maurya period. The Indika is not free from credulity and exaggerations, which is true of many other ancient accounts. Greek ana Roman accounts of the first and second centuries A.D. men- tion many Indian ports and enumer- ate items of trade between India and the Roman empire. The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea and Ptolemy's Geogra- phy, both written in Greek, provide ' valuable data for the study of ancient geography. and commerce. The date ascribed to the first ranges between‘TYPES OF SOYRCES AND HISTORICAL a ciioal AD. 80.and 115, while the second is attributed to about A.D. 150..The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea which was written by an anonymous writer describes the Roman trade in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Pliny's Naturalis Historia, which belongs to the first century A.D., was written in Latin, and tells us about trade between India and Italy. Of the Chinese travellers mention may be made of Fa-hsien and Hsuan ‘Tsang. Both of them were Buddhists, and came to this country to visit the Buddhist shrines and to study Bud- dhism. The first came in the begin- ning of the fifth century A.D. and the second in the second quarter of the seventh century A.D. Fa-hsien de- scribes the social, religious and eco- nomic conditions of India in the age of the Guptas, and Hsuan Tsang pre- sents a similar account of India in the age of Harsha. : Historical Sense ' Ancient Indians are charged with the lack of historical sense. It is obvious that they did not write history in the manner it is done now, nor did they write it in the way the Greeks did. We have a sort of history in the Puranas, which are elghteen in number (Eigh- teen was a conventional term). Though ency¢lopaédic in contents,. the Puranas: provide dynastic history up to the beginning of the Gupta rule. They mention the places where the events took place and sometimes dis- cuss their causes and effects. State- ments about events are made in fu- ture tense, although they were re- corded much after the events ‘had happened. The authars of the Puranas y : 19 were not unaware of'the idea of change, which is the essence of hfs- tory. The Puranas speak of four ages called krita, treta, dvapara and kali. Each succeeding age is depicted as worse than the preceding one, and ; one age slides into the other, mor values and social institutions: suffer degeneration. The importance of time and place, vital elements in history, is indicated. It is said that dharma becomes adharma according to changes in time and place. Several eras, according to which ts were recorded, were started in anfient In- dia. The Vikrama Samvat began in 57 B.C., the Shaka Samvat in A.D. 78, and the Gupta era in A.D. 319. Inscriptions record events in the context of time and place. During the third century B.C, Ashokan inscriptions. show con- siderable historical sense. Ashoka ruled for 37 years. His inscriptions record events that happened from the eighth to the twenty-seventh regnal year. So far events relating to only nine regnal years appear in the inscriptions that have been discovered. Future discoveries may throw light on events / relating to the remaining years of his/ reign. Similarly in the first century B.C, Kharavela of Kalinga records‘ a good many events of his life year-wise in the Hathigumpha inscription. Indians display considerable his- torical sense in biographical writings. ‘A good example is the composition of the Harshacharita by Banabhatta in the seventh century A.D. It is a semi- biographical work written in ornate style, which became the despair of later imitators. It descrines the early career of Harshavardhana. Although full of exaggerations, it gives anfl. excellent idea of the court life under Harsha and the social and religious life in his age. Later several other charitas or biographies were written, Sandhyakara Nandi's Ramacharita {twelfth gentury) narrates the story of conflict betwpen the Kaivarta peasants and the Pala prince Ramapala, result- ing in the latter's victory. Bilhana's Vikramanakadevacharita recounts the achievements of his patron, Vikramaditya VI (1076-1127), the Chalukya king of Kalyan. Even the biographies (charita) of some mer- chants of Gujarat were written in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries A.D. Simi- lar historical works may have been written in sbuth India. But so far only one.such atcount has been discov- ered. This is called the Mushika Vamsha, which was written by Atula in the eleventh century. It gives an account of the dynasty of the Mushikas, which ruled in northern Kerala. But the best example of the earliest historical writing is provided by the Rajatarangini or ‘The Stream of Kings’ written by Kalhana in the twelfth century. It is a string of biog- taphies of the kings of Kashmir, and can be considered to be the first work which possesses several traits of his- tory as it is understood in our times. Constructing History “So far numerous sites, both Prehistorical and historical, have been excavated and explored, but the re- sults do not find a place in the main- stream of ancient Indian history. Stages of social evolution in India cannot be comprehended without taking into account the results of Prehistoric archaeology. Historical | ANCIENT INDIA archaeology is equally important. Al- though more than 150 sites belong- ingto “_ the ancient historical period have. _ been excavated, yet their rel- evance to the study of social, economic and cultural trends in ancient times has not been discussed in the survey books. This needs to be done, particu- larly in the context of the urban his- tory of ancient India. So far the im: portance of mostly Buddhist and some brahmanical sites has been high- lighted, but religious history needs to be seen in relation to social and eco- nomical developments. Ancient history has been con- structed so far mainly on the basis of literary sources, foreign and indig- enous. Coins and: inscriptions play some part, but the texts receive more weightage. Now new methods deserve attention. We have to establish co-. relation between the Vedic age on the one hand and the Painted Grey Ware and other types of archaeological finds on the other. Similarly, early Pali texts have to be related to the Northern Black Polished. Ware (NBPW) archae- ology. Further, the information derived from the Sangam texts needs to be tied up with that inferred from inscriptions and early megalithic archaeology in peninsular India. Archaeological evidence should be considered far more important than long family trees given in the Puranas, The Puranic tradition could be used to date Rama of Ayodhya around 2000 B.C., but diggings and extensive explo- rations in Ayodhya do not show any settlement around that date. Simi- larly, although Krishna plays an im- portant part in the Mahabharata, the earliest inscriptions and sculptural a‘FYPES OF SOURCES AND HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION pieces found in Mathura between 200 B.C. ang A.D. 300 do nox attest his presence. Because of such difficulties the ideas of an epic age based on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata has to be discarded,-although in the past it formed a chapter in most survey books on ancient India. Of course several stages of social evolution in both the Ramayana and- the Mahabharata can be detected. This is so because the epics do not belong to a single phase of social evolution; they have undergone several editions, as has been shown earlier in the present chapter. Many inscriptions are dismissed so far on the ground that they pos- sess little historical value. ‘Historical value’ is taken to mean information: needed for reconstructing political history. Compared to Puranic tradi- tions, inscriptions are certainly more reliable. Thus the former are used to push back the origin of the Satavahanas, which is placed in the first century B.C. on the epigraphic basis. Inscriptions may indicate the reign period of a king, his conquest and its extent, but they also show trends in the development of polity, society, economy and religion. The present book, therefore, does not use inscriptions merely for political or re- ligious history. Epigraphic land grants are valued not for the family trees and lists of conquest, but more 21 importantly for the rise of new states and changes in social and agrarian structure, particularly in post-Gupta times. Similarly, coins need to be used not only for the reconstruction of the history of the Indo-Greeks,, Shakas, Satavahanas and Kushans, but dlso to illuminate the history of trade and an life. ‘ In sum, careful collection of the material derived from texts, coins, inscriptions,. archaeology, etc.. is es- sential for historical construction. We have seen that this raises the prob- lem of the relative importance of the sources. Thus, coins, inscriptions and archaeology are considered more im- portant than mythologies found in the epics and Puranas. Mythologies may support dominant norms, validate social mores and justify the privileges and disabilities of people organised in castes and other social groups, but the events described in them cannot be taken as true. Past practices can also be explained with the help of some ancient survivals in our own times or with the insights derived from the study of primitive people. A sound historical reconstruction cannot ig- nore developments in other ancient societies. A comparative view may remove the obsession with the idea of the ‘rare’ or ‘unique’ in ancient India and may bring out those trends which ancient India shares with the past societies. of the other countries.10. ‘ANCIENT INDIA EXERCISES Explain the meaiung of the following terms and concepts:, Material culture, numismatics, epigraphy, palaeography,. vertical and horizontal excavations, megaliths, archaeology, inscriptions, secular literature. ‘How are ancient objects dated? Explain. how the system of ‘Carpon" Dating works. cribe the importance of coins and inscriptions in the study of the political, social and ecunomic history of India. Discuss the relative importance of variour sources in reconstruct- ing the past. Mention the languages and scrip's used in inscriptions of ancient India. Explain the significance of Sangam literature in the study of the history of south India in ancient times. Visit a museum to see the types of sources mentioned in the text. ‘Try to identify the script and the language used in coins, inscrip- tions and ancient manuscripts which you see. When did the use of paper start in India? What was the material used for manuscripts before the use of paper started? If possible, visit an archaeological site and find out how an ar- chaeologist works. z Take up a group project to compile’a list of literary sources of ancient Indian history. The project can be an on-going one and you:can go on adding to the list. The project may also include information on the sources such as the period when it was writ. ten, its original language anal script and brief description of its main contents. . Why is it necessary to corroborate the evidence of literary sources with other sources? Discuss in the classroom.CHAPTER 4 The Geographicai Setting ‘THe History of India cannot be under- stood without some knowledge of its geography. The Indian subcontinent is as large in areas as Europe without Russia. Its total area is 4,202,500 square kilometres. The subcontinent is divided into five countries — India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Pa- kistan. India has nearly 985,000,000 people. It comprises twenty-five States and seven Union Territories, includ- ing the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Some of the States are larger than many European countries. For instance, Bihar is as large in area as England, and several European coun- tries are smaller than Madhya Pradesh. The Indian subcontinent is a well- defined geographical unit, mostly situ- ated in the tropical zone. The monsoon plays an important part in the history of India. The south-west monsoon lasts between June and October and brings rain in varying degrees to the major part of the country. In ancient times, irrigation was not an important factor and rains played the crucial role in agriculture. What is known today as the kharif crop in north India de- pended primarily in ancient times on the south-west monsoon. In winter, the western disturbances _ bring rains to northern India where wheat, barley, etc.. constitute the main crop. A part of thé peninsular India, particularly the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu, gets its major rainfall from the north-east monsoon from mid-Octo- ber to mid-December. Once the direc- tion: of the monsoon was discovered sometime around the first century AD., traders sailed with the south-west monsoon from western Asia and the Mediterranean area, and came to In- dia and South-East Asia. They re- turned with the advent of the north- east monsoon westward. The discov- ery of the monsoon enabled India to carry on trade and establish cultural contacts with western Asia.and the Mediterranean area as well as with South-East Asia. India is bounded by the Himalayas on the north and seas on the other three sides. The Himalayas protect the * country against the cold arctic winds blowing from Siberia through Central Asia. This keeps the climate of north- ern India fairly warm throughout the year. Since the cold is not so severe in the plains, people do not need heavy clothing and can live in the open for longer periods. Secondly, the Himalayas are high enough to shield the cour.iuy against invasions from the north. This was specially true in pre- industrial times when communica- tions were very difficult. However, on the north-west the Sulaiman moun- tain ranges which are in’ southward \24” ANCIENT INDIA RELIEF Kilomete as | " : BENGAL HEIGHT ABOVE SEA LEVEL, (IN METRES) Zoos 1000 300-1000 BELOW 300 The topographical details within ladia are based upon Survey of India maps with the permission of the Surveyor General of India. | © Government of India Copyright, 1986 The territorial waters of India extend into the sea to a distance of twelve nautical miles from the appropriate base line. Figure 1 India — Physical Features -‘THE GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING continuation with the Himalayas, could be crossed through the Khyber, Bolan and Gomal passes. The ‘Sulaiman ranges are joined southward in Baluchistan by the Kirthar ranges which could be crossed through the Bolan pass. Through these passes two-way traffic between India and Central Asia has been going on from pre-historic times onwards. Various peoples from Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia came té India as invad- ers and immigrants, and vice versa. Even the Hindukush, the westward extension of the Himalayan system, did not form an insuperable barrier between the Indus system and the Oxus system. The passes facilitated trade and cultural contacts between India on the one hand, and Central Asia and West Asia on the other. Nestled in the Himalayas are the valleys of Kash: sir and Nepal. Sur- rounded on all sides by high moun- tains, the valley of Kashmir developed its own way of life. But it could be reached through several passes. Its winter compelled some of its people to go to the plains and its summer at- tracted the shepherds of the ‘plains. Economic and cultural interaction between the plains and the valley was continuous. The Pamir plateau did not prevent it from becoming a transmit- ting centre of Buddhism for the adja- cent areas of Central Asia. The valley of Nepal, smaller in size, is accessible to the people of the Gangetic plains through a number of passes. Like Kashmir it also became a centre for cultivation of Sanskrit..Both the val- leys became the repositories of the larg- est number of Sanskrit manuscripts. ‘The foothills of the Himalayas lent 25 themselves to easier clearance than thé jungle’s on the alluvial soil of the plains. It was easy to cross rivers in these areas because of their smaller width, and hence the earliest routes skirted along the foothills of the Himalayas from the west to the east and vice versa. Naturally the earliest agricultural settlements and states were founded in the foothills in the sixth century B.C., and trade routes followed the-terai route. ; The heart of historical India is formed by its important rivers which are swollen by the tropical monsoon rains. These consist of the plains of the Indus system, the Indo-Gangetic Divide, the Gangetic basin and the Brahmaputra basin. Proceeding from the west to.east we find the annual rainfall gradually increasing frorh 25 cm to over 250 cm. The Indus vegeta- tion based on 25 to 37 cm rainfall and possibly the western Gangetic vegeta- tion based on 37 to 60 cm rainfall could be cleared with stone and cop- per implements and made fit for cul- ‘tivation, but this was not possible in the case of the middie Gangetic veg- etation based on 60 to 125 cm rain- fall, and certainly not in the case of the lower Gangetic and Brahmaputra vegetation based on 125 to 250 cm rainfall. The thickly forested areas, which also contained hard soil, could be cleared only with the help of the iron implements which appeared at a much later stage. Therefore, the natu- ral resources of the less rainy western area were utilized first, and large-scale human settlements generally spread from west to east. Once brought under cultivation, the Indus-Gangetic plains produced.26 rich crops and supported successive cultures. The Indus and the western Gangetic plains mainly produced wheat and barley, while the middle and lower Gangetic plains mainly produced tice, which also became the staple diet in Gujarat and the south of the Vindhyas, The Harappan culture origi- nated and flourished in the Indus valley; the Vedic culture originated in the North-west frontier province and Punjab, and flourished in the western Gangetic basin; the post-Vedic culture, mainly based on the use of iron, thrived in the middle Gangetic basin. ‘The lower Gangetic valley and north Bengal really came into limelight in the age of the Guptas; and finally, the Brahmaputra valley covering Assam gained importance in early medieval times. Important powers fought for the possession of these plains and valleys. Especially, the Ganga-Yamuna doab Proved to be the most coveted and contested area. The rivers served as arteries of commerce and communication. In ancient times it was difficult to make roads, and so men and material were moved by boat: The river routes, there- fore, helped military and commercial transport. Evidently the stone pillars made by Ashoka were carried to dif- ferent parts of the country by boat. The importance of rivers for communica- tion continued till the days of the East India Company. Further, the rivers inundated the neighboring areas and made them fertile; they also supplied water to the canals cut from them. However, they caused heavy floods which periodically destroyed towns and villages in the northern plains, and so many ancient buildings have ANCIENT INDIA been washed. away beyond recovery. Nevertheless, important towns and capitals such as Hastinapur, Prayag, Varanasi, Pataliputra, and others were situated on the banks of the-rivers. In modern times, urban sites are selected on the railway and road junctions or in the industrial or mining zones. But. in the pre-industrial times towns were mostly situated on river banks. Above all, the rivers provided po- litical and cultural. boundaries; these were also formed by mountains. Thus in the eastern part of the Indian pen- insule the area known. as Kalinga, covering the coastal belt of Orissa, was situated between the Mahanadi on the north and the Godavari on the south. Similarly, Andhra Pradesh mostly lay between the Godavari on the north and the Krishna on the south. The deltaic plains formed by these two rivers at their mouths shot into historical im- portance by the beginning of the Chris- tian era when they: became studded with towns and ports under the Satavahanas and their successors. Finally, a major part of Tamil Nadu was situated between the Krishna on the north and the Kaveri on the south. The Kaveri valley exiended in the south roughly to the Vaigai river, and in the north to the South Pennar river. It formed a distinct geographical zone and became the seat of the Chola -power a little before the beginning of the Christian era. This area was dif- ferent from north Tamil Nadu, which consisted of uplands and came into prominence under the Pallavas in the fourth-sixth centuries A.D. The east- em part of the peninsula is bounded by the Coromandal coast. Although the coastline is flanked by the EasternTHE GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING * - 27 INDIA ANNUAL RAINFALL ‘The topographical fletails within India are based upon Survey of India maps with the permission of the Surveyor General of India. © Government of India Copyright, 1986 The territorial waters of India extend into the sea to a distance of twelve nautical miles from the appropriate base line. Figure 2 India — Annual Rainfall28 Ghats or the steps, the Ghats are not very high and have several openings caused by the eastward flow of the rivers into the Bay of Bengal. Thus communication between the eastern coast on the one hand, and the other parts of Andhra and Tamil Nadu on the other was not difficult in ancient times. The port cities of Arikamedu (modern name), Mahabalipuram and Kaveripattanam were situated on the Coromandal coast. In the western part of the penin- sula we do not have such distinct regional units. But we can locate Maharashtra between the Tapi (or Damanganga) on the north and the Bhima on the south. The area covered by Karnataka seems to have been situ- ated between the Bhima and the up- per regions of the Krishna on the north and the Tungabhadra on the south. For a long time the Tungabhadra pro- vided a natural frontier between the warring powers lying to its north and south. Just as the Chalukyas of Badami and the Rashtrakutas found it difficult to extend their sway to the south of the Tungabhadra, so also the Pallavas and Cholas found it difficult to extend their authority to its north. ‘The coastal area in the extreme south- west of the peninsula was covered by the modern state of Kerala. The sea- coast along the western part of the peninsula is called the Malabar coast. Althougk: the coast came to have sev- eral ports and small kingdoms, com- munication between the coast and the adjoining areas of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala was rendered difficult by the Western Ghats with dif- ficult passes to cross. In between the Indus and the ANCIENT INDIA Gangetic systems in the north and the Vindhya mountains on the south lies a vast stretch of land, which is divided into two units by the Aravalli moun- tains. The area west of the Aravalii is covered by the Thar desert, although a part of Rajasthan also lies in this region. The vast expanse of the desert made human settlements impossible in ancient times. However, a few fer~ tile oases scattered in the desert were settled, and from early times it has been possible to cross the desert by means of camels. The ~outh-eastern portion of Rajasthan has been a com- paratively fertile area since ancient times, and because of the existence of the Khetri copper mines in this region human settlements arose in this area in the chalcolithic period. Rajasthan shades off into the fer- tile plains of Gujarat, which’ are drained by the waters of the Narmada, the Tapi, the Mahi and the Sabarmati. Situated at the end of the north-west- rn portion of the Deccan plateau, Gujarat includes the less rainy region of Kathiawar peninsula. The coastal area of this state is fairly indented, allowing the - existence of several harbours. Therefore, since ancient times Gujarat has been famous for its coastal and foreign trade, and its people have proved to be enterprising ders, South of the Ganga-Yamuna doab, and bounded by the Chambal river on the west, the Son river on the east, and the Vindhya mountains and the Narmada river on the south, lies the State of Madhya Pradesh. Its north- ern part consists of fertile plains. At present Madhya Pradesh is the largest State in the country, and can be broadly divided into two parts, castern‘THE GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING and western. The eastern part, mostly covered by the Vindhyas, became nis: torically important in Gupta times in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. But western Madhya Pradesh includes Malwa, which has been the scene of historical activities from the sixth cen- tury B.C. onwards. Maiwa served as an important hinterland for the Gujarat ports, and many wars were fought between the Deccan and the northern powers for the possession of Maiwa and Gujarat. The Shakas and the Satavahanas fought fer the possession of this key area in the first and sec- ond centuries A.D., and the Marathas and the Rajputs in the eighteenth century. Each one of the areas bounded by rivers, and in some cases by moun- tains, and sometimes identical with deltas and plateaus, constituted a political and administrative unit in which different ruling dynasties rose and fell. On account of difficult com- munications in a vast country and the defensibility of the natural frontiers, it was not easy for the ruling class of one region to establish its rule over all the other regions. In course of time every region grew into a distinct cul- tural unit having its own style of life and language. But in northern and western India most languages were derived from the same Indo-Aryan stock, and hence held many elements in common. What is further important, almost all over the country Sanskrit came to be cultivated and understood. The Vindhya mountains cut right across the country from west to east and form the boundary between north and south India. The speakers of the Dravidian languages lived south of the 29 Vindhyas, and of the Aryan languages north of it. In between lived tribal peoples in the Vindhya regions where they are still found. The coastal areas along the Eastern and Western Ghats attracted settlers and traders, and the south carried on a flourishing foreign trade. The Vindhyas do not constitute insurmountable barriers. In ancient times, in spite of the difficulties of communication, people moved from north to south, and vice versa. This jed to a give-and-take in culture and language. Again and again the north- ern powers moved down to the south and the southern rulers moved up to the north. So also did the traders, mis- sionaries and cultural leaders, particu- Jarly the brahmanas. The two-way traf- fic remained constant and helped the development of a composite culture. Although most regions had well- defined natural frontiers, not every region possessed the resources nec- essary to keep life going. Therefore, from pre-historic times onwards the common need for metals and other resources had produced a network of interconnections between the different regions of the country. The exploitation of the natural resources of the country has an im- portant bearing on its history. Until human settlements developed on a large scale, because of heavy rainfall a good part of the Indian plains abounded in thickly forested areas, which provided game and supplied forage, fuel and timber. In early times, when burnt bricks were not much in use, timber houses and palisades were constructed. They have been found in Pataliputra, the first important capi- tal of India. For construction and