History of modern day India

Introduction In the previous post  we saw that with the arrival of nomadic Aryans, India moved into the Vedic Period. This is considered to be the time between 1750-500 B.C.E. when the Aryans started to settle around the Indus valley and the plains around Ganga. The history of this period is linked to the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures of the Sanathana Dharma or Hinduism. The Vedas are classified into four parts, Rigveda, Atharvaveda, Yajurveda, and Samaveda. A look into what each of these Vedas convey is for another post. There are various unanswered questions on the origin of Vedas. Did the Aryans bring the knowledge of Vedas when they entered India? Did they compose it after interaction with the Dravidians? Was this common knowledge in Dravidian culture and Aryans were mere translators, penning it down in Sanskrit? The four Vedas ...

Why Indus valley civilization vanished? In the previous post we saw how Indus valley intelligently tackled most problems. Speculations arise on how such a sophisticated and well-planned civilization came to an end. The major reasons are believed to be climatic changes leading to floods. The river might have changed its course and the establishments on one side of the river were washed away. The settlements on the other side were now running short of water and resulted in droughts. This led to significant loss of lives and migration of people away from Indus. The flood Iron Age As the Indus-valley civilization was vanishing, migrations were high in number all over India. People were moving towards the settlements around Ganga or the south of Vindhyas. Around this time the human race discovered iron and started using it to make various tools. The disaster had put ...

Civilizations and Bronze-age In the introduction to this series we saw that humans were settling around major rivers and as a result learnt agriculture and started to domesticate animals. The major settlements were around the Indus rivers. As more and more people started to join this settlement, various clusters started to form. This was also the start of internal trades where markets were becoming common. This population explosion was something the people could not handle and it is believed that human waste was accumulating leading to health issues. How did they handle this problem? These problems were the motivational points for the people to start thinking about a structured civilization. Cities were planned and houses were constructed in blocks.  Sewage was handled extremely well by this civilization, using closed pipes to divert the human waste.  Closed toilets were also constructed in each house. Evidences also sho...

Introduction India is a beautiful country which accommodates various religions, cultures, languages, and traditions. The diversity of India socially and geographically is what makes the country loved all over the world. But India wasn’t always like this right? Why did so many languages form? How do cultures vary across the terrain of the country? When did all this come to exist? In this series we are going to try and figure out answers to these and various such questions. In this process I believe we will learn to appreciate the country and people who co-exist despite differences. The era before civilizations were established Pre-History The modern day humans i.e. Homo Sapiens are believed to have originated from Africa. They were living in this continent for thousands of years and a few clans slowly started to move north towards modern day Europe due to climate changes, lack of food or intra-clan clashes. Afte...