Pre-history: Birth of Sindhu, Ganga and Brahmaputra

Large quantities of water trapped between Himalayan ranges during its formation, lead to great glacier and river system. It is estimated that some 15000+ glaciers store about 12000 cubic km of water in them. These glaciers gave birth to lot of the rivers on the eastern and western side of the India.

Major rivers on the western side – Beas, Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi and Sutlej – feed into Sindhu/Indus river that flows south-west to modern day Pakistan to the Arabian sea.

On the eastern side, Ganga and Brahmaputra are the biggest ones meeting in Bangladesh before draining into Bay of Bengal thru the world’s largest river delta system.

Sindhu and Ganga river systems provided backdrop for organic life forms that relied heavily on water for their sustenance. This includes all human and their humanoid predecessors. Over 50,000 years of human presence and history on the Indian subcontinent that we will attempt to understand here is, on a large part, a gift of these two river systems.

Formation of Indian subcontinent thru tectonic activities may not be a revered event in the eyes of Aryans who later inhabit this land and lay foundation of Vedic religion. But, they definitely understood the importance of the Himalayas and the river systems conferred upon them by the great mountains. And, for this reason, mountains and rivers were deified by Aryans. Maybe, we should start doing the same now. Consider this: the glacier systems in Himalayan ranges are retreating as a result of climate change. This means, the water deposits we have in those glaciers are getting drained at a faster rate. If this continues, then as per UN climate report, by the year 2035 all major river systems in India would disappear. This will happen in two phases – first, the melting of all glaciers in a dramatic fashion….flooding India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. And, then there will be a drought. A long one. A very long one.

So, maybe it’s time once again to treat Himalaya, Sindhu and Ganga as deities and try to make them “happy”.

Pre-history: Birth of the Himalaya

Indian subcontinent sits on a tectonic plate called “Indian Plate”. A tectonic plate is a part of uppermost crust of the Earth’s surface called “lithosphere”. Below this lithosphere is a semi-solid layer of “asthenosphere”. The semi-solid nature of asthenosphere makes tectonic plates of lithosphere float. The Indian Plate is pushing against African Plate and Arabian Plate in the west. It is relatively stable against Australian Plate in the east and south, but is constantly pushing towards Eurasian Plate in the north. The boundary line with Eurasian Plate is where Himalayan mountain ranges are. And, the reason those mountains are getting taller every year is this constant pushing match between the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate.

This floating movement between plates can range from anywhere between 50mm to 100mm per year. To naked eye this movement of up to 0.0002 mm per minute is impossible to notice, but over a long period, say in next 1000 years, Indian Plate will move by a meter from it’s current location. Instead of fast forward button, hit a rewind button and imagine where Indian subcontinent would have been 250 milion years ago. It was actually part of a supercontinent which we now call “Pangaea”. On this supercontinent, Africa, Antarctica and Australia were the immediate neighbors of Indian subcontinent; with ocean to it’s north-east. Yes, ocean to the north-east! There were no Himalayan mountain ranges…at least not yet. Himalayan mountain ranges started to form around 70 million years ago (making them one of the “youngest” ones), when Eurasia was pushed closer to the Indian Plate at ~15 cm per year rate, by the very action of separation between African and South American Plate. To this date, as a result of this drifting, Himalaya continues to grow taller at the rate of ~5 mm per year. It is quite amusing to think that since the days of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary (who scaled it for the 1st time in May 29, 1953), Mt. Everest could have already grown taller by almost a foot.

Structure of Discussions

These discussions are divided into following eras:

1. Pre-history
   
2. Neolithic Revolution
3. Indus Valley Civilization
4. Aryan Colonization
5. Magadha Empire
6. Incursion of Shakas & Kushans
7. Incursion of Huns
8. Dark Ages
9. Delhi Sultanates
10. Mughal Empire
11. British Raj

Number of chapters for each of these sections, of course, will not be equal. As you can guess, there is lot more written history available on British raj period than about pre-historic formation of Indian sub-continent when the Indian peninsula separated from Africa. Or, about the time when homo sapiens migrated to Indian sub-continent. Nevertheless, understanding of ancient history is equally important to realize how India got here and what her heritage is. To understand why India is such a hodge-podge of cultures, languages, food, philosophies and deities. To understand why Indian Republic is one of the only two countries (the other being Czech Republic) today who confers supreme victory to the truth with it’s “Satyameva Jayate” motto.

Why “India”?

Why is this “History of India” and not “History of Bhaarat” or “History of Hindustan”? While “Hindustan” has a strong, although misplaced, religious connotation; “Bhaarat” has certain mythical connotation to it. Since we will be talking about history and not mythology…well mostly…therefore I would like to avoid “Bhaarat”.

The word “India” comes from the name of great river Sindhu. Persians and Greeks, the first people to write about the land beyond Sindhu river, could not pronounce “S” in Sindhu. So, they continued calling it “Indu”. Much later, Muslim invaders from beyond Afganistan called people living beyond the Sindhu river as “Hindu”…and thus the land they occupied became “Hindustan”. So, as you can see, “Hindu” or “Hindustan” has no direct religious connotation, but merely a geographical one. It simply means, land beyond the Sindhu river and people inhabiting that land. Coincidently, most of these inhabitants also practiced Vedic religion….which is used interchangeably as Hindu religion. In the political landscape of today, the country known as “Republic of India” is a subset of this geographical region beyond the Sindhu river. Although, backdrop of “History of India” would be mostly set in this country, “History of India” would go beyond today’s political borders and will attempt to elaborate history of a south Asian sub-continent that stretches from the borders of today’s Afganistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east, and Himalayan mountain ranges in the north to the Indian ocean on the south.

Now that we defined geographical boundaries of this discourse, let’s define the era under consideration as well. We will start the journey from the birth of the sub-continent and continue till the time when the “Republic of India” was born.

About this Blog

Apart from my family and the work I do for livelihood, history of ancient world has been of tremendous interest to me for last few years. I stopped studying history as a serious study topic after 10th grade itself. But, seeds of curiosity sown by my 10th grade history teacher (thank you Mrs. Patil) were far from dead, albeit dormant. So, when I started learning about Greek, Roman and Byzantine history, my interest in history started germinating. It interests me not just because of intrigues and wonderful plots it holds, but also because it is universal and says a lot about human nature.

That human nature has some universal elements, but it also has unique characteristics in different parts of the world. For example, premium civilization of the ancient western world, the Greeks, philosophized and created foundation of democracy. But, they constantly fought amongst each other. With their philosophy, they even created formidable fighting machine of their time - the phalanx - to conquer half of the known world with Alexander. But, that was the zenith of their military conquest. Greeks didn't seem to come out of their theoretical discourses, phalanx fighting system and constant squabbling. They were eventually conquered by their western neighbors, the Romans, who excelled in practical applications of every known theory available to them and constantly improvised. From the foundation of Roman republic to the fall of Byzantine Empire, "Romans" ruled most of the civilized world for close to 2,000 years. Difference in human nature could not be seen in any greater contrast than between idealistic Greeks and pragmatic Romans.

It was these kind of intrigues, then, that kept me up at night reading more about my homeland's history. Much of the recent Indian history (from 12th century onwards) was studied during my school days. But, only passing references were made to earlier history....the one that talked about Aryan colonization, rise of religions of the subcontinent, the Mauryans, Shakas, Kushans, the Guptas, and Huns. So, I decided to start my exploration of India from the very beginning - when the Indian subcontinent was formed. Through this blog, I'd like to create a common man's understanding of Indian history. Not being a modern historian myself, I don't claim this to be an accurate or objective representation of events that happened. Sources for these ramblings are various books and online information (yes, including Wikipedia)...so GIGO principle applies here. Also, being my blog, from time to time I will take liberty to present my views on events as they unfold. Take what you like, ignore what you don't. But, post comments either way. Although not a historian, I pride myself being an open minded person....so maybe I will learn from your comments.