Ancient Bharat or Hindustan or Modern India - Land of the Indus

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Hindustan - Land Of the Indus, Hindustan is derived from the modern Persian word Hindu

Let’s discuss about Akhand Bharat “Undivided India” and its history. Akhand Bharat's mythical borders that extend from Afghan to Far East Malaysia.  Afghanistan, Burma, Srilanka, Nepal and Bhutan were some of the present countries which were believed to be the part of Undivided India.

Before Persians gave the name HINDU, religion followed by people of Ancient India was "Sanadhana Dharmam". Persians gave the name Hindu.

India is supposed to be the oldest land in which the civilizations were created. Persians who lived at this period were the reasons for the name of the religion Hindu that we use now. They even gave the name Hindustan and India to our country. Sindhu was the river that was flowing in our country. In their pronunciation there is no "s" so they called it as Hind and later the groups of people with similar culture were called as Hindus in our country.

Sindhu was a Sanskrit name given to the river that flowed here and the people beyond the river Sindhu were called Hindu and the place they follow the religion was called as the Hindustan. And moreover the Persians don't have the "S" sound in their script and pronunciation so they named the Sindhu River as Indus. The place that the Hindus lived was called as the Hindustan in Sanskrit. This was the origin of the word Hindustan.

With the increase in the population of India, there were lots of concepts of living together in groups. Then there emerged civilizations in our country where people split themselves and formed into many groups. There came the Indus Valley Civilization.

Hindustan is derived from the Modern Persian word Hindu. In Old Persian, the region beyond the Indus River was referred to as Hinduš (the Iranian equivalent of Sanskrit Sindhu), hence Modern Persian Hind, Hindu. This combined with the Iranian suffix -stān results in Hindustan, "land of the Indus". By about 1st century BCE, the term "Hein-tu" was used by Chinese, for referring to North Indian people. The term came into common use under the rule of the Mughals who referred to their dominion, centered on Delhi, as 'Hindustan'.

India and Bharat are equally official short names for the Republic of India, while "Hindustan" is still widely used as an alternative name when Indians speak amongst themselves.

The Prehistoric Era:-

• The Stone Age: The Stone Age began 500,000 to 200,000 years ago and recent finds in Tamil Nadu(at C. 75000 years ago, before and after the explosion of the Toba Volcano) indicate the presence of the first anatomically humans in the area. Tools crafted by proto-humans that have been dated back to two million years have been discovered in the Northwestern part of the country.

• The Bronze Age: The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent dates back to around 3300 BCE with the early Indus Valley Civilization. Historically part of ancient India, it is one of the world's earliest, urban civilizations, along with Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Inhabitants of this era developed new techniques in metallurgy and handicraft and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin.

Early Historic Period:-

Vedic Period: 1500-500 BCE.

The Vedic Period is distinguished by the Indo-Aryan culture which was associated with the texts of Vedas, sacred to Hindus, and that were orally composed in Vedic Sanskrit. The Vedas are some of the oldest extant texts, next to those in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Vedic era in the subcontinent lasted from about 1500-500 BCE, laying down the foundation of Hinduism and other cultural dimensions of early Indian society. The Aryans laid down Vedic civilization all over North India, particularly in the Gangetic Plain.

Mahajanapadas:

This period saw the second major rise in urbanization in India after the Indus valley Civilization. The word "maha" means great and the word "janapada" means foothold of a tribe. In the later Vedic Age a number of small kingdoms or city states had mushroomed across the subcontinent and also find mention in early Buddhist and Jain literature as far back as 1000 BCE. By 500 BCE, sixteen "republics" or Mahajanapadas has been established, namely; Kasi, Kosala, Anga, Magadha, Vajji (or Vriji),Malla, Chedi, Vatsa (or Vamsa), Kuru, Panchala, Matsya, Surasena, Assaka, Avanti,Gandhara, and Kamboja.

• Persian and Greek Conquests:  Much of the Northwest subcontinent (currently Afghanistan and Pakistan) came under the rule of the Persian Achaemenid Empire in C. 520 BCE under the rule of Darius the Great and remained so for two centuries. In 326 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor and the Achaemenid Empire, when he reached the Northwest frontier of the Indian subcontinent he defeated King Porus and conquered most of Punjab 

• Maurya Empire: The Mauryan Empire was the first major empire in the  history of India and ruled the land from 322 BC to 185 BC. Important   rulers of this dynasty were Chandragupta Maurya, Bindusara, and King Ashoka. Bindusara was succeeded by his son Ashoka, the most famous  of the Mauryan Kings who reign from- 273 - 232 B.C. He extended the   boundaries of his empire considerably - stretching from Kashmir and Peshawar in the North and Northwest to Mysore in the South and Orissa in the East - but his fame rests not so much on military conquests as on  his celebrated renunciation of war. After witnessing the carnage at the battle field of Kalinga (269 B.C.) in Orissa, Ashoka resolved to dedicate  himself to Dhamma - or righteousness. The war of Kalinga was the turning point in the life of Ashoka to the extent that he shunned all forms  of violence and became a strict vegetarian.

As Ashoka became a devout Buddhist, he began to spread the teachings of Buddha by issuing

edicts. These edicts were sent to different parts of  the empire, where they were engraved on rocks or pillars, for the common people to see and read them. These edicts were written in different scripts. Most of them were in Brahmi, which was common in most parts of the empire. The language was generally Prakrit (ancient language), as it was spoken by the common people, whereas Sanskrit was spoken by educated upper caste people.

The great Mauryan Empire did not last long after the death of Ashoka and ended in 185 BC. Weak kings on one hand and the unmanageability of a vast empire on the other caused the rapid decline of the Mauryas

• The Golden age: After Mauryan decline lot many smaller kingdoms  came into picture. Massive Mauryan kingdom was broken into smaller kingdom.Many other Empires ruled India like Satavahana Empire (50 B.C to 250 A.D), Kushan Empire (ca. 2nd century b.c.-3rd century a.d.), Gupta Dynasty (320 to 600 CE). 

• The Classic age:

- Hrasha's or Harshwardhan's Empire (590-647 AD)

- The Chalukyas, Pallavas, and Pandyas (550 AD to 1310 AD).

- Chola Empire , Pratiharas - Palas - Rashtrakutas, The  Rajputs, Vijayanagar Empire

- Islamic Sultanates from Persia and Turkey.

- Delhi Sultanate (1211 - 1525 AD).

The Mughal Empire: In 1526, Babur, a descendant of Timur and Gengis Kahn from Fergana Valler (present day Uzbekistan) swept across the Khyber Pass and established the Mughal Empire which covered modern day Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The Mughal dynasty ruled most of the Indian subcontinent till 1600; after which it went into decline after 1707 and was finally defeated during India's first war of Independence in 1857.

Colonial Era: From the 16th century, European powers such as Portugal, Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom established trading posts in India. Later, they took advantage of internal conflicts and established colonies in the country.

The British Rule: The British Rule in India began with the coming of the British East India Company in 1600 and continued till Indian independence from British rule in 1947.

Fight For Independence:

In the 20th century Mahatma Gandh or Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi led millions of people in a national campaign of non-violent civil disobedience to contain independence from the British.

Independence and Partition of Hindustan:

Religious tension between the Hindus and Muslims had been brewing over the years, especially in provinces like Punjab and West Bengal. The Muslims were a minority and they did not feel secure in the prospect of an exclusively Hindu government and hence made them wary of independence. All through this Mahatama Gandhi called for unity among the two religious groups. The British, whose economy had been weakened after World War 2, decided to leave India and participated in the formation of an interim government. The British Indian territories gained independence in 1947, after being partitioned into the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan.

Great Empires Of Ancient Hindustan/Bharat/India who ruled for many centuries-

By 600 B.C., sixteen such territorial powers, including the Magadha, Kosala, Kuru, and Gandhara, stretched across the North India plains from modern-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh.

Maurya Empire

British India

Pala Empire

Mughal Empire

Kushan Empire

Chola Empire

Gupta Empire

Republic of India

Tughlaq Sultanate

Maratha Empire

Khilji Sultanate

Indo-Greek Kingdom

Satavahana dynasty

Let’s discuss about the present India in our next blog…”The modern India”..

posted by Ruchira Gupta
on 03-04-2014