For an orthodox Hindu, the political history of India begins more than
3,000 years before the birth of Christ with
the famous war fought on the banks of Jumna between the sons of 'Kurus
and Pandos' as related in the great
epic Maha Bharata. But sober history tells a different story. History
based upon facts may begin from the middle
of 7th Century BC aften called a period of progress. And then began an
age of monarchical governments down
to the 12th Century AD, when Muslims from Central Asia invaded India
and
became the rulers of this
Subcontinent for centuries. It is rather strange that throughout these
centuries we only see the integration and
disintegration of states. There was never any consolidated government
for long and the history of India
presents, such examples throughout the long chain of its kingships.
>From the period (7th Century BC) on the basis of traditions generally
religious, the history was seldom worth in
those days. The settled country between the Himalayas and the Narmada
river was divided into a multitude of
independent states, owing the allegiance to any paramount power. The
most ancient literacy traditions which
generally dates from 4th to 5th Century BC enumerate 16 of such states
extending from Gandhara the extreme
North West of the Punjab containing the districts of Peshawar and
Rawalpindi to Malwa with its capital at Ujjain
which still retains its old name.
But it does not mean that no powerful dynasties existed in those times.
We have examples of the Kingdom of
Kosala, the Modern Oudh, which in the 6th Century BC occupied the same
important position, which the
kingdom of Magadha occupied in later times. Binubisara, was the most
powerful king of the earliest historical
ruling dynasty in those times. But all had a rapid fall. This may
sometimes be attributed to jealousies between
neighbouring rulers, or to revolutions which never came without much
blood-shed and which continued occurring
till very recent times.
When Alexander came to India in 326 BC the most powerful kingdom in
India was that of the Naudas who ruled
in the gangetic valley. Alexander contemplated governing these, but he
could not materialise his scheme. After
his sudden death the whole work of his conquest was overthrown within a
year and Chandragupta Mauraya who
had been expelled from Maghda became the first historical ruler of
India
with the help of his clever minister
Chankya.
Within a period of 24 years, Chandragupta built a vast empire extending
from the Hindu Kush mountains to the
modern province of Bihar. Chandragupta and his grandson Asoka were the
great monarchs of their times.
Though the former's greatness lies buried in the political sphere and
the latter's in the conquest of his love of
piety. Yet the great empire built by Chandragupta and his son began to
disintegrate soon after the death of
Asoka.
It reached its climax when Asoka conquered the kingdom of Kalinga and
extended his fortress from the Hindu
Kush to the boundaries of Tamil country in the far South. However, the
very greatness of the Empire proved to
be its weakness, for it became too unwieldy to be effectively
controlled
by one man. On account of the slow
means of communication it was difficult, if not impossible to keep an
effective control over distant parts of the
Empire. Moreover, Asoka's religious zeal and his neglect of the army
brought its downfall. He forgot the
fundamental political truth that great empire cannot rest on benevolent
principles of government alone.
The reaction of Brahamans who had been neglected in the new regime also
contributed to Mauraya's downfall.
Soon after, the famous Sanga, Anga and Konva dynasties came into power
from 184 BC to 236 AD.
Pushyameta, the commander-in-chief of the last of the Maurayas slew his
master, imprisoned his ministers and
usurped the throne. He became the founder of the New Songa dynasty
which
ruled India for 120 years and then
came to a dishonourable end. It was he who fought Menader and repulsed
him, this ending the last European
attack from a land route. He also defeated the ruler of Kalinga.
Pushyameta was a powerful ruler, but his
successors were weak. In his reign, the Brahmans once again came into
prominence while the Buddhists and
Jains were persecuted. The extreme brevity of the reign of his
successor
indicates a period of anarchy and
confusion and too many palace intrigues.
It is believed that the later Songa kings were puppets in the hands of
their Brahman ministers, and Vasudera
the founder of Kanra dynasty (72-27 BC) thus usurped the throne. There
were four kings of this dynasty. The
times were disturbed and the successor to the throne was often effected
by violent means. The last of them was
slain in 27 BC by a king of the Andhora dynasty which had established
its wide dominion in the Deccan table
land from sea to sea since 220 BC. Formerly this dominion was a part of
Asoka's but had assumed
independence at the death of the great monarch. Halla was a great king
of the dynasty. Another name Villi
Vayakara-II fought the Sokas, Pakhlavas, Yavanas of Halwa and Kings of
Gujarat and Kathiawar.
The fall of the Andhera dynasty coincided with the fall of Vasudera,
the
last of the Kushan kings of Northern India
and the rise of the Sassanion dynasty of Persia in 226 A.D but the
third
century AD is one of the darkest
periods of Indian history, we must let the fall of Andhera slip into
darkness.
Then we have the examples of Indo-Greeks and Indo-Parthian dynasties
from 250 BC to 50 AD. Since the time
of Alexander the Great, the Greeks were settled in the N.W frontier of
India. When Chandragupta assumed
power, many of them owed allegiance to him, but with the death of
Asoka,
the imperial hold became weak and
they became independent. But Alexander's general Seilikus Nikator
consolidated the eastern provinces of the
Macedonian empire and established an independent dynasty over a vast
territory extending from Syria to
Bactria and many dynasties sprang among them. Some of these kings like
Alexander, Demetrious,
Eukratides-I and Autiokos were great and powerful kings and it was due
to them that for more than two
centuries the NWF of India including the fertile plains Gandhara and
Malwa were under them. But we must not
forget that those were military episodes and such invasions and
occupations can little affect the politics of the
country. Again, the prolonged occupation of the Punjab and neighbouring
regions by great rulers had extremely
little effect in Hellenising Indians and that is the reason which
brought disintegration of all these powerful
dynasties in the long run, though small branches continued holding
small
territories for many many years.
Then India came under the sway of the great Kushans from 45 to 225 AD.
The Kushans were a branch of the
Yack-Chis of Central Asia and expelled from their native country by
some
other Central Asian tribe in about 165
BC. For full one century their history is obscure until they took
advantage of the disturbed Indian conditions and
established power in the Gandhara country. The greatest of all Kushan
Kings was Kaneshaka who is credited
with the conquest of the Parthians. He put an end to the India-Parthian
power in the Punjab and Indus valley and
ruled from Bihar in the East to river Narmada in the South. He was a
good administrator, builder and a great
patron of Budhism as well. The decay of Kushan power is attributed to
the rise of Sassanien power and also
because of the rise of the Bharasivas and Vakatakes.
Nothing definite is recorded concerning the dynasties of Northern
India,
excluding the Punjab during the 1st
Century and the early part of the 4th Century. The period between the
extinction of the Kushan and Andhara
dynasties about 220 or 230 AD, and the rise of the imperial Guptas
nearly a century later is one of the darkest
in the whole range of Indian history. In the 4th Century light dawns
and
the history of India regains unity and
interest. The Guptas ruled from 320 to 455 AD. The 2nd ruler of the
dynasty Samadara Gupta ruled from 335 to
375 AD and was a great conqueror and is sometimes called, 'The Indian
Napolean'. He reached the extreme
South, overthrew the kingdom of South 'Kosala' subdued the wild tribes
of Orissa and Central Provinces. He
thus established an Empire stretching from the Brahamaputra in East to
the Jamna on the west and from
Himalayas in the North to the banks of the Narbada in the South. The
next ruler Chandragupta-II (375 to 413
AD) was a conqueror as well as a great administrator and a great
'scholar'. The famous Chinese pilgrim
Fashion came in his reign. During the regime of next rulers Kawara
Gupta
and Sakand Gupta that is middle of
the 5th Century, Gupta dominion suffered severely from invasion of Hun
hordes who had burst through
North-Western passes and spread in a destructive flood all over
Northern
India.
The Gupta Empire steadily declined. The later Guptas of Magadha lost
their prestige though about eleven of
their kings continued to rule in and about Magadha. The distant
Viceroys
set up their independent kingdoms
and once ensured that the scrabble in India which generally follows the
disruption of a great Empire.
Malwa, the rich fertile province too became independent.
The kingdoms and empires in ancient India were extremely unstable. The
instability was natural as they were
based not on the rational will but on personal qualities of individual
monarchs. Therefore, whenever a weak ruler
ascended the throne, it meant a decline of the empire. Most of the
ancient Indian empires went to pieces on
account of dissensions in the imperial family, weaknesses of the
rulers,
internal revolts and external invasions.
Such invasions like those of the Huns not only financially drained the
Empire, but shook the very foundations.
After the decay of the Guptas, India was broken up into a number of
small kingdoms which were constantly at
war with each other. Many new dynasties like the Mukbaris, the
Mitrokas,
later Guptas and Vardhanas of
Thanesar ruled on the ruins of Gupta empire but for over a century
there
was no paramount power in Northern
India. The invasion of the Huns had added to the general confusion
prevailing in the country. The most important
of those Kingdoms was that of Thanesar which gave to India Harsta, the
last of the great Hindu emperors.
It was in his reign that Hieun-Tsang came to India from China. His
death
marked the beginning of the
disintegration of the Empire. Kashmir, Punjab, Sindh, Nepal and all
other provinces became independent.
Maghada passed into the hands of new dynasty known as the later Guptas.
The continuity of the Indian history
vanished and was not restored until the last quarters of the 12th
Century when Muslims established their empire
in India. From the death of the Harsha to the 12th Century, Indian
history is merely a brief broken account of the
rise of the various Rajput and other local dynasties.
This is also clear from all the detailed accounts of ancient rule in
ancient India, that India was never 'One' at any
time. In coming years under Afghan Mughals and Muslim rule, also India
was never 'One'. How can India, now
claim to be 'one' with heterogeneous elements. No empire can be welded
as 'One' with such divergent
elements, different cultures, different languages, different customs,
habits, different climatic conditions and
different political set ups. India's claim to be Chakarvarti is a
slogan
adopted from Ashoka the great but it is a
mere fantasy.
This essay has been updated:
Revisionism and re-writing Indian history.
The revisionist theory: The Vedic Aryans spoke Sanskrit, compiled the
Vedas, and fought each other in wheeled chariots drawn by horses. They
came out of India beginning in 8000 BCE, to spread the Indo-European
language and Vedic culture. An accurate history of India is contained
in
the Srimad Bhagwatam and other Puranic accounts called the Vedic
Literature.
What's wrong with this picture?
There are a number of non sequiturs that arise when one considers the
"Out of India" autochtonous theory. Briefly stated, the autochtonous
hypothesis proposes that the Aryan speaking people originated in India
where they composed the Vedas and then spread out from Kurukshetra over
a long period of time beginning in 8000 BCE, to found all the European,
Middle Eastern and Mediteranean cultures.
From this theory cetain proponents attempt to re-write Indian history
by attempting to convince us, through various and sundry means, that
India is thus the home of Sanatan Dharma (whatever that means) and that
the Rig Veda was composed in Classical Sanskrit in 6000 BCE or before,
that is, in the early Bronze Age, long before the Sumerian
Civilization,
the founding of Ur, before the invention of the wheel or writing, or
before agriculture or the domestication of animals.
So, what do most historians have to say about this theory?
Most historians agree that humans came out of Africa about 50,000 years
ago and that they migrated to Southeast Asia. Most historians agree
that
homo sapiens came out of Southeast Asia about 10,000 years ago and
migrated to Micronesia, Australia and Indonesia. Most historians agree
that Southeast Asian people then migrated out of Sundaland about 7000
years ago into China, Japan, India, and possibly Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Most historians agree that one of the first civilizations was the Indus
Valley Civilization which reached its peak around 2400 BCE and then
died
out slowy. At one time this culture stretched from South India almost
to
the Mediteranean. And, most historians agree that the Vedic
Civilization
followed the Indus around 1500 BCE, at which time the Rig Veda was
arranged somewhere in what is now Pakistan. The Vedic Civilization
flourished from about 1500 BCE until 300 BCE.
Then, around the sixth century BCE the historical Buddha introduced the
Sramana culture which reached its peak in the administration of Ashoka
around 200 BCE. Then came the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita,
Patanjali's
Yoga Sutras, Shankara, the Puranas and the Srimad Bhagwatam. During the
Gupta period a 'Golden Age' took place in India at which time the
culture of Brahmanism reached its height, culminating in 'Hinduism',
which is a synthesis of six systems including Vaisnavism.
A question: If the Rig Veda was composed in 8,000 BCE, the Rishis or
the
historians would have said so, would they not?
If the Rig Veda was composed in 8,000 BCE the Rishis would NOT have
said
anything about the use of iron, which wasn't smelted in India until
1000
BCE; nor about the domesticated horse, which made its first appearance
in India 1700 BCE; nor would the Rishis have said anything about
horse-drawn chariots, which didn't exist in the Bronze Age.
So, why do we read all about horse-drawn chariots in the Rig Veda?
Another question: If the Rig Veda is older than the Indus Valley
Civilization and if there is such an amazing degree of continuity in
Indian cultural development, why is it that there is no archeological
evidence for domesticated horses, horse riding or horse-drawn wheeled
chariots in ancient India?
In the view of Sir Colin Renfrew, the Indo-Aryan language dispersion
occured as a result of trade and agriculture, centered around the
Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains in what is now Russia, and not by a
migration of masses people out of India or into India. According to
Michael Witzel:
"Socio-linguistic theories include the development of Proto
Indo-European as a sort of camp language (another Urdu so to speak), a
new Pidgin based on diverse original languages that evetually spread
beyond its own rather limited boundaries, for example with the
introduction of horsebased pastoralism" (Witzel 30).
There is no evidence for horses in Harrappa or during the period
subsequent to the Indus Valley Civilization until the Samhita, Brahmana
and Upanishadic period. In fact, the domesticated horse first appears
around 2000 BCE in the Ural Mountains and in Mesopotamia (Witzel 69).
Work cited:
"Autochthonous Indians?"
The evidence from old Indian and Iranian texts.
By Michael Witzel, Ph.D.
Harvard University
.."There is really no such religion called Hinduism or Hindu. This is
a misnomer. The Arab traders called the people living East of the
Indus river as Indu. This word then became Hindu in Europe and
European traders called these people Indus or Hindus. The people who
lived South of the Himalayas and East of the Saraswati river, which
flowed near the Indus, called themselves Bahratiya and they lived in a
country called Bharat. The dharma they practiced was called Sanatan
dharma.
Sanatan dharma means an eternal way of life. In essence neither is
there anything called Hinduism nor do we practice any religion. Dharma
is not religion. Dharma is a way of life and it is based on knowledge
which can change over time.
|
|