The beginnings of Indian civilization

India was the home of one of the oldest civillizations of history, which grew up along the banks of the Indus river. The Indus Valley culture and the Vedic culture, which succeeded and was influenced by it, were the basis for the development of later Indian society, in particular for the major religious systems of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

The early history of India is very difficult to recover. Archaeology can reveal something about the way of life of its earliest inhabitants, but little can be learned from written evidence. The earliest works of Indian literature, the Vedas, were composed in the centuries after 1200 BV, but they were not written down until probably the 5th century.

Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
Although the subcontinent had substantial human occupation from the Stone Age onwards, the first great Indian civilization was the Harappan culture, which emerged in the 3rd millennium BC. Like the slightly older civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt it was based on flood-plain agriculture, as the cultivation of the fertile land on either side of the Indus was able to provide enough of a surplus to support a complex urban society. Several substantial cities were built, of which the best explored are Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.

The Indus civilization also developed writing, and about 2000 seals with short pictographic inscriptions on them have been discovered. The script has not been deciphered, and until it is, little will be known about the political structure or religious beliefs of the Indus civillization.

The presence of cylinder seals from Mesopotamia at Mohenjo-Daro and of Indus seals in Mesopotamia is evidence of trade between the two areas via the Persian Gulf, and tin and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan and Central Asia also made their way to the Indus. However, around 2000 BC the 'Harappan period' came to an end, as the cities ceased to function and were replaced by a settlement pattern of agricultural villages and pastoral camps.

Post-Indus India
From around 1500 BC a new culture becomes apparent in India, characterized by a new language and rituals, and the use of horses and two-wheeled chariots. The traditional way to explain the changes was to talk of an "Aryan invasion", with mounted bands of warriors riding in from the northwest and conquering the indigenous Indus population before moving eastwards to the Ganges. Support for this picture was claimed from one of the Vedas, the Rig Veda, where the Aryans are presented as conquering the cities of the darker skinned indigenous Dasas. Archaeological evidence offers little support for the theory, however. The styles of pottery associated with the Indo-Aryans, known as Painted Grey Ware, which appears from c. 1100 BC, is similar to earlier Painted Black and Red Ware, and this may indicate that Indo-Aryan speakers were indigenous to the Indus plain. Whatever their origins, Indo-Aryan languages, form which Sanskrit developed, became widespread through Northern India.

The south
Southern India was largely left untouched by the civilizations of the north. There were probably trading links between the Indus valley and the southern tip of the peninsula, but there was no urbanism in the south, where villages were the normal form of social organization. However, some limited form of common culture in the south is suggested by the distinctive megalithic tombs found over most of the area.

In the north, where, unlike the hilly, fragmented geography of the south,, great plains lent themselves to large-scale agriculture and the growth of substantial kingdoms, cultural coherence became more widespread as, in the period after 1000 BC, the new civilization spread gradually east from the Indus to the Ganges. Evidence from finds of pottery characteristic of particular periods suggests that there was also movement southwards. The late Vedic texts depict the early first millennium BC as a period of frequent warfare between rival tribal territories. During this period the society of northern India became increasingly stratified, and this culminated, around 600 BC in the emergence of states ruled hereditary monarchs. Trading networks developed, agricultural activity increased, and this led to a new phase of urbanism in India. Once again cities began to be built although they were not on the scale of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, being constructed largely from mud bricks. No known public buildings survive from this period. Yet by the 5th century BC there were political entities that might be called states of polities, most significantly Magadha, with its substantial foritfied capital at Pataliputra.

Vedic religion
Religious practices in India in the first millennium BC were influenced by the earlier culture of the Vedas, and animal sacrifice had a central role in it. The religion was polytheistic, and the Rig Veda includes hymns to a number of deities, including the warrior goddess Indra, the fire god Agni, and Soma, identified wit a mind-altering drug of some kind, possibly derived from mushrooms. These cults were the forerunner of Hinduism and the urban societies that developed along the Ganges were the communities among whom appeared in the 5th centuries Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, and the Buddha himself.