Ancient India
- first came adivasi - inhabited as nomads, not much archaeological evidence
- then came the “indus river valley civilization”
- around ~ 3000 BC along the indus river
- other civilizations around this time - mesopotamia, egypt, china
- excavation sites in harappa and mohenjo-daro (both in modern day pakistan)
- known to be advanced for its time
- we cannot decipher their scriptures to this date
- indus civilization lived for 2000 years
- it is said due to issues like shift in the indus river westward, change in climate, etc, the indus civilization declined
- people speaking dravidian languages (south india i.e. telugu, tamil, kannada etc) are said to be migrants from this indus valley
- after indus came the “vedic people”
- they migrated from “central asia” (kazakhstan etc) to north western india (punjab etc)
- they called themselves “aryans” / “indo aryans”
- ~ around 1000 BC
- slowly, they started going along ganges and yamuna river into central and eastern india
- they domesticated horses, chariots pulled by horses, etc
- they also brought in the 4 vedas (sanskrit texts) - “rigveda”, “yajurveda”, “samaveda”, “atharvaveda”
- they engaged in trade, diplomacy, warfare with one another
- “purus” and “bharatas” - important tribes of vedic people
- “iron” after ~ 1000 BC, helped vedic people to cut forests, build houses
- slowly, they became from nomads into settled communities
- slowly, the caste system called “varna” started to form -
- “brahmins” - priestly class. understand and educate on religious text
- “kshatriyas” - warriors, kings, nobles
- “vaishya” - farmers, animal husbandry, merchants, businessmen
- “shudra” - laborer for the other three varnas
- “post vedic india” (~500 BC) started forming large cities (unlike communities in vedic)
- these cities were centres of power, and begun to be called “janapadas”
- multiple janapadas were consolidated into larger “mahajanapadas”
- there were 16 such mahajanapadas
- some popular mahajanapadas - kuru, vriji, magadha