Ancient Man and His First Civilizations

Indus Valley-3

Modern Pakistan (Which was a part of India until 1947)

When last we left the Indus Valley, Arians from the Central Asian Plains had invaded the Valley and then expanded out into the rest of India. They had also melded their religious belief's with local belief's to form the Hindu religion.

Later, the Arian's learned to write, however some Brahmins considered it a sacrilege to change from communicating their beliefs orally, to putting them in written form. But a sufficient number of Brahmins supported this innovation, and they began to put traditional Arian stories into writing. These writings became known as the Vedas  - Veda meaning wisdom. These Vedas became wisdom literature, a literature that would be considered as an infallible source of timeless, revealed truth. The most important of the Vedas was the Rig Veda, which consisted of hymns or devotional incantations written in ten books.

In the far northeast, Brahmins performed as teachers and gave instruction to local original inhabitant elites, who had not been completely Hindunized. These elites were accustomed to deference from local people, and they were offended by the posturing, pride and arrogance of the Brahmins. They resisted the claims of  the Brahmins to higher rank and superior knowledge. Some among them opposed the bloodletting of Hinduism's animal sacrifices. Some of them also thought the Brahmins to be too involved in ceremonial formalities and ritual, and saw the Brahmin's view of gods and salvation as strange.

With this dissent against orthodox Hinduism, a variety of men with vision appeared, they tried to fill the void left unfulfilled by Hinduism. These new sect leaders denied the authority of the Vedas, and each developed a code of conduct and a way of living and thinking, that would hopefully lead to enlightenment and fulfillment.

The Jains

This movement was supported by original inhabitants of wealth and influence, who gave their support to one or another of these religious visionary's in their area. These new Sect leaders wandered across the northeast, sometimes with large bands of followers. They entered communities to engage in disputations with rival sects and orthodox Brahmins, these disputations were welcomed entertainment for local people, unused to thoughts and concepts from the outside world.

The most successful of the new sects were those that attempted to provide relief from orthodox Hinduism's failure to alleviate human suffering. One such sect was the Jains - from the Sanskrit verb ji, meaning to conquer. The Jains sought relief from suffering, by conquest over one's own passions and senses. This conquest they believed, gave one purity of soul.

According to legend, the Jains were led by Nataputta Vardhamana, the son of a royal governor from the Magadha region, "Nataputta Vardhamana" gave up his princely status for a life of asceticism, and he became known as Mahavira (Great Souled One). Legend describes Mahavira's beginnings as a reformer - as not seeking to overthrow the Hindu caste system or the worship of Hindu gods, but wishing to do something about the misery that he saw all around him. Legend describes him as having sympathy, not only for people, but also for the animals that the Brahmins sacrificed.

Jain lay persons took the following vows: never to intentionally destroy a living thing, never to speak falsehoods, never to steal, to always be faithful in marriage, to always be chaste outside of marriage, to possess no more money or other things than one had set for oneself as sufficient, (a practical restriction that varied with how wealthy one was), to travel no farther than the limits that one had set for oneself, to think no evil thoughts about others, to sit in meditation as often as one had planned, to spend time as a temporary monk or nun, and to support the nuns and monks with contributions.

Click here for detail of the Jain Religion <<Click>>

The Buddhist

Another, who led a religious movement to relieve suffering, was a prince named "Siddhartha Gautama", later to be known as the "Buddha" (Great Teacher). Siddhartha was born into the Sakya tribe at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains, just north of the Ganges Valley. Siddhartha lived in a small city named "Kapilavastu" (in what is now southern Nepal). He is reported to have seen his native city over-run and its people butchered by the Arians. The Sakya tribe was under Arian suzerainty, but had retained it's independence in exchange for a tribute paid to Arian overlords. The Sakya tribe had aristocrats and commoners, and according to legend, Siddhartha was a prince.

According to legend, in his youth, Siddhartha had been sheltered from the ugliness and poverty all around him. But when he was twenty nine - around 534 B.C. - he decided to become a wanderer. Apparently Siddhartha withdrew from a world, that he saw as inhospitable to conquered royalty such as he. Though he was disturbed by the Arian's, he was also fascinated by the Arian people who had destroyed his state and its traditions. The legend created by his followers, describes Siddhartha as having become a wanderer, in order to learn about human existence. He became an ascetic and abused his body by hardly eating. After accepting failure, in his quest to gain understanding of human existence, Siddhartha began eating better, and he began devising what he believed were better solutions to human misery.

Siddhartha agreed with the view expressed in the Upanishads, that the cause of human misery was humanity itself. But he was determined not to fall into what he saw as the error of those who sought salvation in philosophical speculations. He refused to question or discuss whether the cosmos is finite or infinite, or whether there is life after death or other such metaphysical questions. He refused to consider these questions, on the grounds that these questions, sidetrack people from doing something practical about the misery of their existence.

According to legend, Siddhartha became a master of the tenets and practices of other sects, and that many of his disciples were recruited after hearing him debate with religious rivals in town gatherings. Siddhartha preached no warnings of torments for evil deeds, instead he preached the attaining of serenity or nirvana, through self-discipline.

Politically, India followed man's normal course of kingdoms rising and falling, with almost constant warfare. However, there was one kingdom of particular note, it is the kingdom founded by Mahapadma Nanda. The Nandas are universally described as being of low origin, {code for Sudras}, they are of particular note because:

The northwestern part of India, suffered a campaign by Alexander the Great in 327 B.C, he was pursuing his campaign to conquer the extremities of the defeated Achaemenian Empire. Having entered Gandhara, he campaigned successfully across the Punjab as far as the Beas River. Here his troops refused to continue fighting, because they had encountered the army of the Nandas. Some historians suggest that Alexander's Greek soldiers, may have mutinied out of fear of this army.

Kshatriya In Hindu India, the second-highest of the four varnas, or social classes, traditionally the military or ruling class. In ancient times before the caste system was completely defined, they were considered first in rank, placed higher than the Brahmans, or priestly class. The legend that they were degraded by an incarnation of Vishnu as a punishment for their tyranny may reflect a historical struggle for supremacy between priests and rulers. In modern times the Kshatriya varna includes members from a variety of castes, united by their status in government or the military or their land ownership.

The Nanda Dynasty was overthrown in 322 B.C. by Chandragupta Mauryaby who founded The Maurya Empire, and rapidly expanded his power westwards across central and western India taking advantage of the disruptions of local powers in the wake of the withdrawal westward by Alexander the Great's Greek and Persian armies. By 320 B.C. the empire had fully occupied Northwestern India, defeating and conquering the satraps left by Alexander.

It was the world's largest empire in its time. At its greatest extent, the empire stretched to the north along the natural boundaries of the Himalayas, and to the east stretching into what is now Assam. To the west, it reached beyond modern Pakistan, annexing Balochistan and much of what is now Afghanistan, including the modern Herat and Kandahar provinces. The Empire was expanded into India's central and southern regions by the emperors Chandragupta and Bindusara, but it excluded a small portion of unexplored tribal and forested regions near Kalinga (modern Orissa).

Under Chandragupta, the Mauryan Empire conquered the trans-Indus region, which was under Macedonian rule. Chandragupta then defeated the invasion led by Seleucus I, a Greek general from Alexander's army. Under Chandragupta and his successors, both internal and external trade, and agriculture and economic activities, all thrived and expanded across India thanks to the creation of a single and efficient system of finance, administration and security. After the Kalinga War, the Empire experienced half a century of peace and security under Ashoka: India was a prosperous and stable empire of great economic power whose trade extended across Western and Central Asia and Europe. Mauryan India also enjoyed an era of social harmony, religious transformation, and expansion of the sciences and of knowledge. Chandragupta Maurya's embrace of Jainism increased social and religious renewal and reform across his society, while Ashoka's embrace of Buddhism was the foundation of the reign of social and political peace and non-violence across all of India. Ashoka sponsored the spreading of Buddhist ideals into Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, West Asia and Mediterranean Europe. The Maurya Empire dissolved in 185 B.C. with the foundation of the Sunga Dynasty in Magadha.

Foreign invasions continued however, and at one time or another, India was invaded by almost all of the known powers. These included - Scythians, Parthians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Mongols, Turks and Arabs. It was with the Arabs that Islam was brought to India. Each invader in their turn, left their mark. In the 1700s A.D, reasonable stability and unification, was achieved with British rule.

Now let's head East to see if there are any Ancients left there!