Introduction:

With the coming of the end of the last Ice Age and the melting of the mile high glaciers that covered major portions of the Northern Hemisphere, people migrated to take advantage of changing resources.  Many of these peripatetic populations were drawn from the game rich fringes of the glaciers, where they formed migrating bands that moved into moist temperate and tropical regions of the world about 9000 BP.  In these areas they made use of ample supplies of wild grains for food, which in time became domesticated – maize, rice, and wheat were among these grasses.

Universal developments of early worldwide civilizations:

From these bases of population concentration and civilization, every one of these cultures acted to possess important resources and dominate surrounding cultures through the establishment of empire.  Though many of these societies became somewhat unified through the formation of loose confederations of city-states, they nevertheless did not create notions of nationalism or nationhood (a modern development).

Early groups of people migrated into the Valley of México, eastern China, parts of India, the eastern Mediterranean area, the Nile Valley, North Africa, parts of the Arabian Peninsula, and north of that location to the “Fertile Crescent.”

Congregating in large numbers in great river valleys people settled into permanent towns that centered on agricultural production, task/ product specialization that involved the following hallmarks that supposedly indicate the development of civilization:

1. complex religious structures and practices

2. social divisions – caste and class development

3. complex political structures and systems

4. laws and government

5. formalized economic structures and governmental bureaucracies to support them

6. systems of writing:

a. records
b. poems
c. upper caste genealogies
d. histories

Great river valleys and other regions where these complex societies formed included the following:

1. Indus River Valley

2.Iranian Plateau

3. Jordan River Valley

3. Nile River Valley

4. Mexican Plateau

5. Mississippi River Valley

6. Tigris – Euphrates Valley

7. Yellow – Yangtzee River Valley

Various characteristics developed in these societies that have become hallmarks of state forms of culture:

1. These states soon developed increasingly complex social structures formed to meet the needs of growing communities and the problems associated with large numbers of people living in close proximity to one another.

a. Religions and esoteric priesthoods (both involving men and women) formed to control human activities and the timing of important events ranging from planting and harvesting to political events.

i. The “temple-state” concept of these early societies became the norm.  The state and the religion became one and the same.

- Priest-Kings dominated the economic, educational, legal, military, political, religious-spiritual, and social institutions of these agrarian city-states.

- The priest-class maintained and controlled access to esoteric forms of knowledge that included writing and mathematics, enabling them to also control grain revenues and land exchanges (Mesopotamia in particular offers many such examples).

ii. Each city-state developed great love and affection for their own local (or patron) gods and goddesses.

iii. cities and governments were structured around the temple or “axis mundi” that  became the all-important center of culture:

- political

- economic

- social (including the arts)

- spiritual

b. Laws developed early in the history of the post-Pleistocene city-states.  Such rules were created for social order and the control of the masses.  These laws were most-often written by priests and couched in the terms of the dominant religion.  Though originating within the esoteric religious orders, these laws were backed by the power of the state that asserted and justified its authority through the dominant religion.

c. Though there were priestesses as well as priests, these permanent agricultural societies became increasingly male-dominated.  Patriarchy governed the activities of religion, state, economy, and city planning.

i. Material descent patterns became patrilineal.  Women, who traditionally held title or the rights of decision-making regarding land and land usage, were generally displaced from such roles in the early agricultural city-states.

2. Along with the creation of city-states, caste and class systems emerged that restricted upward mobility and intermarriage to those persons who shared membership in similar societies.

3. Generally in the complex human societies of the post-Pleistocene of post-Ice Age era, intermarriage and warfare became the most often used means of consolidating political power.

4. Ensuing historical periods in these early agricultural societies with large populations typically involved cyclical fluctuations between 500-year periods of peace and political stability followed by 200-year periods of conflict and warfare before new power became consolidated to bring about social balance once again.

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Classical India (to 500 BC)

India is a region of great racial and cultural diversity, reflecting its complex history that spans millennia of immigration.  Reflecting this tremendous cultural diversity, India has more that 1,500 languages spoken daily within its modern borders, though the constitution recognizes 15 dominant regional national languages.  The name India is derived from the word “Sindu” the Indian name for the Indus River, which became the location of India’s first urban agricultural societies.

Cultural Geography of India:

The regions of greater India are divided into four provinces:
 

1. Baluchistan – this westernmost and mountainous Indian region is today the southern portion of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

2. Hindustan – ranging from the Indus Valley to the Narbada River, this vast region of fertile alluvial flood plain includes Punjab, the “Land of the Five Rivers.”

Sind (Sindu) was a part of Hindustan, at the fertile marshlands of the Indus River delta.

3. Deccan – this territory runs south from the Narbada River to the Kistna River.

4. Tanil Land – this province includes the southern cone of the Indian subcontinent south from the Kistna River.

Since the 1970s scholars have asserted that ancient Indian civilization was really part of a “Greater Near East” that included the cultures of Mesopotamia and Persia (Iran).  The oldest civilization (5000 – 6000 BP) in India developed at the Quetta Valley, west of the Indus Valley in what is today Pakistan.  The Quetta civilization was comprised of herdsmen who lived in mud huts and used bone and stone implements with limited agriculture.  Later in their history they acquired the knowledge of copper and the pottery wheel.  Mother-goddess and fertility religions dominated the spiritual practices of the Quetta peoples.

Indus Civilization:

The Indus civilization developed after the decline of the Quetta culture and spanned a 950-mile long region of land from the Himalayan foothills in the north to the coast.  Its territory was greater than its contemporary (and better-known) civilizations of the Egyptian Old Kingdom and Mesopotamia.

Generally speaking, however, early Indian civilization began in the Indus Valley with the formation of this, the Harappan culture, dominated by the urban centers of Harappa in the Five Rivers region of the north, and Mohenjo-Daro near the Indus delta in the south.

I. Harappan Culture:

The cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro dominated the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley.  Characteristics of this culture include the following:
 

- formation of large walled cities – standardized construction was used – standard sized baked bricks and house plans were developed and replicated for the Harappan people.

- complex social organization and caste/ class system

- use of bronze

- use of writing – a uniform or standardized script was used in Harappan culture, though its translation is unknown.

- strong central government – a system of standard weights and measures was in place in the Harappan culture.

A. Harappan cities averaged about 35,000 residents.

1. City layouts followed a grid pattern with elaborate water systems, sewers, and covered drains that remained advanced in engineering beyond what Europe would develop for thousands of years.

2. The construction of buildings was most often accomplished by brickwork, made from standard sized baked bricks, though Harappan architecture emphasized practicality and functionality over style.

3. A central courtyard with the citadel became the axis mundi around which Harappan cities were built.

4. The walled citadel was constructed on a raised rectangular platform with an east-west orientation, large granaries, and a cemetery.

B. Economy:  The economy of the Harappan culture centered on agricultural production, including the following products:

1. wheat

2. barley

3. peas

4. lentils

5. sesame

6. cotton

a. cotton production led to the development of a weaving industry – cotton cloth became a commodity for export and trade as well as domestic use.

7. cattle

8. goats

9. sheep

10. fowl

C. Material Culture:
 

1. Metallurgy:

a. metal tools (copper and bronze), containers, and cookware (including silver vessels) were in common use.

b. Gold and silver jewelry were crafted.

2. Ceramics:

a. Black-and-red painted pottery became an important Harappan industry.

b. Use of the potter’s wheel increased pottery production for trade.

c. Figurines (terra cotta) and toys were also made.  There were no large, sculptures, mosaics, friezes.

3. Fabric:

a. Woven cotton cloth was dyed and decorated with printed patterns and Indus stamp seals.

4. Harappan culture likely developed trade with Mesopotamia and elsewhere in the Near East.

a. there is evidence that Harappan textiles were exchanged for products from the agricultural cities of Baluchistan to the east, and that they were traded west across the Iranian plateau to Mesopotamia.

D. Religion:

1. Harappan society was dominated by a priestly class who ruled from the citadel at the center of each city and acted as intermediaries between the gods and the people.

2. As evidenced by surviving figurines supposed to represent religious personages, fertility and reproduction were central themes of Harappan religion.

a. The mother-goddess beliefs of the Indus Valley were similar to those found in Baluchistan and Sind, which together gave rise to a proto-Shiva-god that scholars believe became Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.

3. Important Harappan ceremonies included ritual bathing and water purification.

For unknown reasons (there is evidence of cataclysmic losses of life – mass graves) the Harappan city-states entered a period of decline.  Though the reasons for this decline are unclear, it appears likely that changes in the courses of the major rivers upset the cycles of annual flooding beneficial to Harappan crops, resulting in the weakening of the power of the great Indian city-states.

This development offered opportunities for invasions around 1500 BC by nomadic tribes who swept down into the Indus Valley from the northwestern mountains, eventually settling in the Punjab and Ganges valleys where they established the Brahmanic civilization.  From this ancient civilization Hinduism developed.

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II. Indo-Aryan Culture:
     (Aryan is a Sanskrit word meaning “noble”).

Ancient India, like Europe and the Near East, suffered waves of invasions by Aryan warrior bands from the southern Russia and Turkistan regions around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea during the second millennium BC.

A. Headed by tribal Rajahs, the Aryans were semi-nomadic invaders of India who occupied the Punjab region of northwest India by 1500 BC, and where they absorbed much of the existing culture.  By 800 BC Aryan tribesmen established their dominance over the eastern Ganges regions of Bihar and Bengal (including Bangladesh).  It was here (western Bengal) that the Indo-Aryan capital of Magadha (center of a kingdom of the same name) was established on the southern bank of the Ganges River.

B. As horsemen and cattle herders from the arid and mountainous west, the Aryans brought a new language, social organizations and institutions, warfare techniques and religion into India.

C. Indo-Aryan Society:

1. The Aryan language was part of the Proto-Indo-European family of languages that about 7,000 years ago split into several branches, including the following:

a. Balto-Slavic
b. Germanic (including proto-English)
c. Celtic
d. Italic (including proto-Latin)
e. Illyrian
f. Albanian
g. Thracian
h. Hellenic
i. Armenian
j. Phrygian
k. Anatolian
l. Tocharian
m. Indo-Iranian

i. From the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family evolved Sanskrit, the language of Classical India, as Aryan peoples blended with the non-Aryan Indians.

ii. By the fourth century BC, however, vernacular languages emerged throughout the Indian subcontinent that gave rise to Hindi (the primary modern language of India).

iii. Sanskrit became the sacred language of Indian priests and bards.  It was (and still is) the language of Indian scriptures.

iv. Most of what we know about the Aryan peoples comes from the post-invasion area and literature that is composed of elaborate poems and hymns originally created to be part of ritual sacrifices to tribal deities (see discussion under “religion” below).

2. Patrilineages dominated though women held very high status.

3. Male gods predominated the Indo-Aryan pantheon

4. Monogamy was the norm for Indo-Aryan marriages

5. Chieftains, whose status was earned through demonstrations of military prowess, ruled kinship groups.

6. The Aryans were originally composed of two primary classes, nobles and commoners, a third class, the Dasyu (“slaves”) or the conquered indigenous Indians developed in an attempt to keep the Dasyu separate from the Aryan nobility and common class.  The Dasyu were the indigenous non-Aryan Indians who were dark-skinned; the creation of this new classification was made on the basis of race.

C-1.  The Indian Caste System:

The Sanskrit word for class, “varna” literally means, “color.”  The early racial divisions of the Vedic Age (1500–900 BC) faded after that time, though a non-racial version of the caste system put in place by the Aryans endured.  This caste system during the Epic Age (900–500 BC) became well defined and complex.  The four castes that emerged during the war-torn Epic Age are as follow:

1. Brahmans – priest caste
2. Kshatriyas – warrior caste
3. Vaisyas – merchant caste; traders and bankers
4. Sudras – peasants; farmworkers

5. A fifth group of outcastes, called Pariahs became known as the “untouchables” since their touch alone was deemed to defile a person of the upper three castes.

Non-Aryans remained members of the Sudras and Pariahs.

D.  Material Culture:

1. Compared with other groups in ancient India, the Indo-Aryans brought few material items (though they introduced the use of bronze and horse-drawn chariots to India).

2. Villages were made up of mud brick, wooden, and thatched dwellings.

3. Ceramics included gray and painted pottery.

4. Metallurgy included copper and bronze work; gold was a favorite for personal adornment.

5. Cloth manufacture was made primarily of wool.

6. Livestock and grain productions were important industries; restrictions on meat consumption were not in place at this early date.

E. Government:

Indo-Aryan government during the Vedic and Epic Ages was based on the autonomy of the city-state.

Caste and lineages (joint-families” that instilled a sense of community purpose over individualism – arranged marriages were an important feature) were the other two “pillars” of traditional Indian society during the Classical period.

Though rajahs ruled over several city-states, that in turn were self-governed by relatively autonomous headmen, elected town councils saw to the collection of taxes and the distribution of lands to the residents of the cities.  As long as taxes were paid to the rajah the city-states enjoyed their autonomy.  This form of government originated in Classical India and continued through the nineteenth century AD.

F. Religion and the emergence of the “Vedic Age” (1500–900 BC) and the “Epic Age” (900–500 BC) of Classical Indian civilization:

1. The Indo-Aryans were polytheistic – male gods dominated the pantheon.  Indications of the early Indo-Aryan religious beliefs are seen in modern Hinduism, which is an extension of these old understandings.
 

a. In Hinduism, the Trimurti (“three-form” of God) consists of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.

b. Brahma is the “creator” god.

c. Vishnu is the “sustaining” god.

d. Shiva is the “destroyer” god.

e. In an Indian creation myth, Vishnu drifts into a deep sleep while lying down upon the mythical serpent Shesha.  Upon waking, a lotus flower has appeared, growing out of his navel, and seated at the center of the flower is Brahma, who then goes about creating the universe.  Eventually, however, an enraged Shiva emerges from Brahma’s forehead, positioned to destroy everything.

f. This Hindu triad represents the cycles of birth, life, death, and rebirth as part of one continuous existence, but they also represent the cycles of human cultural formation.

2. Indo-Aryan rituals were performed by Vedic priests.

3. Worship often involved food offerings and animal sacrifice.

a. Indo-Aryan priests and bards composed literature in Sanskrit that consisted of elaborate poems and hymns originally created to be part of such ritual sacrifices to tribal deities.

4. Rituals, the canonization of Aryan history, notions about sacred origins, and the emergence of Indian Classical literature and scripture:

b. This body of literature, known as the “Veda,” was composed long before writing emerged in India and was passed down through highly developed methods of memorization.
 

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c. The Veda (Sanskrit = “knowledge”), is the oldest of the Hindu scriptures, and contains material related to spirituality, rituals and magic, and philosophy.  The Vedas comprise the oldest religious and spiritual texts in the language family known as Indo-European.

 
i. The oldest of these scriptures is the Rig-Veda that were (and have since been) deemed to be so sacred that they were originally transmitted only by oral tradition.  Simple ideas (such as why red cows give white milk); as well as deep or complex philosophical concepts such as the cycle of creation, life, death, and rebirth are conveyed by the Rig-Veda.

ii. Rituals (most importantly the fire sacrifice, where foods and other items are placed into the sacred fire) are described in the Veda; related to such practices, the Veda describes ways by which the 33 Vedic gods are invoked through sacred hymns and mantras.  Regarding the purpose of sacrifice in ancient India, Juan Mascaró writes:

“In the Vedas, . . .we see man watching the outside world with joy and wonder.  He feels life and he prays for victory in life.  He watches the beauty of the dawn and the glory of the sun and feels that fire and air, and the waters and the winds are living powers; he offers them the fire of sacrifice.  His life depends upon nature, and he knows that between nature and himself there is not an impassable gulf.  Man loves this beautiful creation and he feels that his love cannot but be answered by a greater Love.  And he sings to Varuna, the God who loves and forgives.”

The Vedas describe sentient humans coming to terms with their own humanness. Humans both part of the natural world yet somehow separate from it.  Perhaps it is the problem of civilization that needed to be reckoned with.

iii. Also described in the Veda are the uses for Soma (in infusion made from the juice of the psychotropic “fly agaric” mushroom Amanita muscaria.

iv. The Vedas describe the joy attained by understanding an inner world (as opposed to the Classical Greeks who celebrated the joys associated with the beauty of the external world).

v. A series of commentaries on the Veda (112 survive) emerged soon after the composition of these Indian scriptures.  Known as the Upanishads, they were written between 800 and 600 BC and include deep interpretations about creation and the meaning of “truth” (this central theme to Classical Indian scripture is represented by many different names and characteristics).  The Upanishads also depict the transformation from Aryan to an integrated Aryan/ non-Aryan system of gods and spiritual beliefs.

The Upanishads offer answers to questions posed by the Veda, and contain the “doctrine of the Brahman” which describes the essence of pure being and consciousness as expressed in the “eternal Word” –  “OM” made up of three sounds: A – U – M.  To quote from one of the Upanishads, “OM.  The eternal Word is all: what was, what is, and what shall be, and what beyond is in eternity.  All is OM.”  A perennial theme of the philosophies of the Upanishads stress the “oneness” of all things.

vi. Around this same period of time the world’s longest epic poem (the Mahabharata – containing over 100,000 slokas or stanzas – couplets of 32 syllables each) was composed.  Supposedly this work of literature was composed by the sage Vyasa (though it was likely the work of several generations of bards and wasn’t written down in hard copy until sometime after 200 BC).

vii. The spectacular account contained in the Mahabharata likely originated as a secular record of a great war but became a scriptural metaphor for the contest between good and evil.  The Mahabharata has been likened to other cultures of the world and their epic stories that, like the Iliad, depict heroic struggles between right and wrong and conflicts between morals and purpose or duty.  In addition to recounting this epic conflict, the Mahabharata describes the worldviews and values of the ancient Aryan aristocracy.

Apotheosizing historic events that may have occurred during the 10th and 9th centuries BC the Mahabharata is the account of a heroic struggle between two Aryan tribes.  Over the centuries the Mahabharata became both history and scripture as the result of subsequent infusions of theology, moralistic stories, and statecraft by priests who repeatedly revised the account over the years.

The account of the Mahabharata is summarized as follows:

- The kingdom of Kurukshetra (the region around modern Delhi in Punjab) was the scene of the dynastic struggle and civil war described in the Mahabharata.

- Pandu, the recipient of the throne of this kingdom passed it to Dhritarashtra his older (and blind) brother (who would otherwise have been the first choice for king) in order to pursue the life of a hermit in the Himalayas.

- When Pandu’s five sons, the Pandavas reached adulthood, the eldest of them demanded the throne from their uncle.

- The names of these five Pandava princes are:

- Yudhishthira (the eldest)
- Bhima
- Arjuna
- Nakula
- Sahadeva

- Dhritarashtra’s 100 sons, known as the Kauravas challenged them however, and by their treachery and through intrigues they drove the rightful heirs, Pandava princes, from their kingdom where they survived as mercenaries.

- The five Pandava princes then together took the Princess Draupadi for their wife (this is a rare example of polyandry).

- The brothers returned with their wife to the kingdom of Kurukshetra to claim their portion of the land after Dhritarashtra divided it up between his five Pandava nephews and his 100 sons.

- The Kauravas however, swindled the Pandavas out of their shares of land through an elaborate and rigged dice match, forcing the brothers and their wife to flee once more.

The Bhagavad-Gita:

The most famous and celebrated of Hindu scriptures is the section of the Mahabharata known as the Bhagavad-Gita (“The Lord’s Song” = Bhagavan “Lord” + Gita “Song”).

- This poetic and philosophical account of begins after many years of the Pandava princes wandering throughout India.

- Returning to claim the throne of the kingdom of Kurukshetra with their friend Krishna, the Pandavas were met with resistance that resulted in war.

- The story of the “Gita” centers on a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna, one of the Pandava princes, who falls into anguish at the prospect of going into battle against his countrymen including friends, relatives, and teachers.

- Revealing himself as an incarnation of Vishnu, Krishna convinces Arjuna that his actions in war contain great purpose; they are related to his ability to gain great wisdom through union with God and God’s love resulting in the attainment of his higher self.

- The Gita is a metaphor for the conflict between the physical and spiritual self, and that by denying the importance of the physical world and the physical self, true wisdom and peace may come through a spiritual union with the God of Love, Krishna.

- Asceticism is a recurring feature of Indian religious/ spiritual expression.

- Using the language of Yoga, the Bhagavad-Gita also represents a turning from the rationalism of the Upanishads; it emphasizes that the greatest god is understood through personal contact and the act of surrendering to God’s love and grace as an easier and better means to know oneself and God.

- After a dramatic series of battles lasting eighteen days, the Pandavas won and the eldest brother, Yudhishthira, took the throne to begin a lengthy, prosperous, and peaceful rule.

- The other four brothers (including Arjuna) with their wife departed for the Himalayas where they entered the blissful realm of the “City of the Gods.”

viii. A second epic poem (composed of tens of thousands of 16-syllable couplets) was also composed at the time of the creation of the Mahabharata; the Ramayana that recounts the wanderings of Rama, a hero of the Aryan wars of the Mahabharata.  In the account Rama and his three half-brothers make up the seventh avatar, or incarnation, of the Hindu God Vishnu.

As the Mahabharata is likened to the Iliad, the Ramayana is compared with the Odyssey.

And just as the Mahabharata canonizes aspects of proto-historic Aryan wars and adventures in its stories, the Ramayana depicts the emergence of Aryan chivalric ideals.

5. By the time of the late Epic Age (500 BC) the authority of the religious and ritual monopoly held by the Brahman or priest caste was challenged.  The greatest of these challenges came from the privileged son of the ruler of a kingdom at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains in northern India.  A member of the Siddhartha clan of the Shakya tribe, Gautama (563–483 BC) became known as “The Enlightened One” or Buddha (discussed later).

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