History of India- Introduction

  • Thread starter Himanshu Pandey
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Himanshu all that is fine but as far as linguistic decryption is concerned, I find it hard to agree with you due to the following reasons:

1. I find it hard to believe that the IVC was a closeted civilisation given that they had active trade with other civilisations. Why else would you build a large port cities? Moreover, the IV script has been found in far away places giving credence to the fact that they indeed indulged in a fair amount of trade.

this is hard to believe and this is harder to decipher the language but please analyse it on fact based... such a civilization which founded metallurgy, drainage, and thousand other things is still defined as a "land of black mountains" which is coastal area in baluchistan. they were in trade but as I mentioned earlier they were in selling and that excludes other people traveling inland and interacting with harappan.
2. What a lot of people don't realize (I am generalizing) is, the IVC was not limited to the Indus Valley per se. Traces of this ancient civilisation has found extending from Afghanistan to Uttar Pradesh. Therefore it is easy to establish that the IVC was widespread.

I had already mentioned it and this makes it biggest civilization apart from most advanced civilization.

3. Linguistic influence is one of the major traits of an advanced civilisation. Therefore, a civilisation as large as the IVC should have left its linguistic trace in the surrounding regions, even though the primary language did not survive. Take the Sumerian Cuneiform script as an example. Even though the main language died out, the script and alphabets formed the base for Old Persian during the time of Xerxes and Darius.

now we are doing the common mistake of seeing the Indian perspective with western spectacles. if you take example of Sanskrit you can see that here things are different rather then sharing Indian mentality believed in exclusiveness. there is no wonder that none learned the launaguge of Indus valley civilization. the example is not correct on the basis of reason mentioned here.

Certain Graphic similarities have been found between the Indus Valley Script and the Brahmi script but there has been no conclusive evidence so far. Such similarities have also been found with Akkadian writings which follows the Linear Elamite writing system. But like I said, no conclusive evidence so far.

isn't it conclude it well.. no conclusive evidence so far.. may be once that is found we both stand corrected.. till then assumptions on the basis of facts and the basis used for such assumptions is all we have.
 
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I would think so too given that the area is still radio-active. Having said that, the aftermath of severe radio-activity does not seem to have affected the surrounding population which ordinarily would have and with radioactivity being a contributing factor of genetic mutation and deformity through several generations. That does not seem to be the case here. Therefore I would rather tend to think that conventional war could be the likely cause although that doesnt explain the radioactive anomaly.
I don't know what to say.. so giving you this link... hope it will solve your fanstuff dilemma.

Evidence of nuclear explosion in ancient India ?

@Himanshu Pandey Perhaps i was misunderstood. I meant the same thing bro, that all rumors regarding radiation and ancient india possessing nuclear weapons is highly fanciful given the lack of credible sources or evidence regarding the same.
 
@Himanshu Pandey Perhaps i was misunderstood. I meant the same thing bro, that all rumors regarding radiation and ancient india possessing nuclear weapons is highly fanciful given the lack of credible sources or evidence regarding the same.
I apologies for misunderstanding and stand corrected for it.
 
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now we are doing the common mistake of seeing the Indian perspective with western spectacles. if you take example of Sanskrit you can see that here things are different rather then sharing Indian mentality believed in exclusiveness. there is no wonder that none learned the launaguge of Indus valley civilization. the example is not correct on the basis of reason mentioned here.

Himanshu you have misunderstood my statement here. I am not looking at things through a western perspective (I refuse to do this, check my first post on the subject), in fact quite the opposite. Sanskrit had a widespread influence. Take the Indo-European language branch for example. Languages like English, Spanish, German Italian etc etc have been influenced by Sanskrit and this has been documented and proved. However that does not seem to be the case for the Indus Valley language which appears to me as unusual. That is what I wanted to point out.
 
Himanshu you have misunderstood my statement here. I am not looking at things through a western perspective (I refuse to do this, check my first post on the subject), in fact quite the opposite. Sanskrit had a widespread influence. Take the Indo-European language branch for example. Languages like English, Spanish, German Italian etc etc have been influenced by Sanskrit and this has been documented and proved. However that does not seem to be the case for the Indus Valley language which appears to me as unusual. That is what I wanted to point out.
I apologize my friend for my wrong assumption... yes all these languages have similar looking words and syllables but the Sanskrit influence is something which is little bit misinformation. few words of Sanskrit, Latin and English has been used to find out the commonality. this is truth that Sanskrit is only complete language in world but it is not mother of languages.

according to language scholars and researchers the language is proto-indo european. this will deviate us from topic so I am giving the links for you and all.. and will discuss it further.

Proto-Indo-European language - Wikipedia

Indo-European languages - Wikipedia

Laryngeal theory - Wikipedia


now Sanskrit has been a spoken language for millennia and it got scripted much later. the harappa civilization language was never considered a part of Indo-European group but it was considered quite close to Dravidian languages

Harappan language - Wikipedia

Indus script - Wikipedia

now after all this unnecessary ranting. let me try to answer your question.. the harappa language is part of Dravidian language group which spoken in South Asia and one, brahui language is spoken in baluchistan.

what we presently have is scripts not the recordings( I wonder why when there was nukes but no voice recorder) and as laungaue was being developed and in my earlier post I had told that the way human mind learn the language is through objects first, may be this is the reason that ancestors used object based scripts rather then alphabets based.

now as I earlier said there had been found no connaction or commonity in harappan laungause and other languages of that period it is hard to dicpher them.

a few scholars has claimed that they had deciphered it but their claim has not been accepted.
 
Art historian studies the makers of medieval India
Subhashini Kaligotla, assistant professor of art history, points to a photograph on her computer screen of elaborate sandstone towers at Pattadakal, a medieval temple complex in northern Karnataka, India.

“I always ask my students if they see different architectural styles,” she said, seated in her office at the Loria Center.

She points out two distinct types of tower: One is curvilinear and rises vertically while the other is pyramidal and tiered. The first style is associated with the architecture of North India, the other with South India.

About the size of a New York City block, Pattadakal features nine Hindu temples and a sanctuary dedicated to Jainism — a religious tradition that advocates nonviolence as a pathway to spiritual enlightenment — as well as numerous smaller shrines. The complex, which was built in the 7th and 8th centuries C.E, is located on the Malaprabha River in the Deccan — a vast plateau that stretches over the center of peninsular India. The region is widely considered a crossroads where art makers incorporated architectural styles and artistic ideas from various parts of the Indian subcontinent.

Kaligotla’s research critically examines the premise that makers in medieval Deccan — architects, artists, poets, and patrons — unconsciously borrowed from their counterparts in neighboring regions.

“I’m looking more carefully at the choices the makers in the Deccan made — not just that they knew about these styles and ideas from other regions, but how they adapted them for their Deccan milieu, and how they gave new meanings to these forms that they may have known from other contexts,” said Kaligotla, who joined the Yale faculty late last summer.

Pattadakal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the pivot for a book Kaligotla is writing on the agency of the makers who designed and built sacred sites in the Deccan during the medieval period.

The sites present intricate hybrids of architectural styles, languages, scripts, and religious traditions. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism are represented at places Kaligotla studies. Temples and monuments are inscribed in Sanskrit as well as local languages.

“I’m trying to give context to the makers’ choices in the architectural realm and situate them vis-a-vis other kinds of choices that were made, whether in the realm of religion, or politics, or language,” she said.

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Subhashini Kaligotla
Kaligotla is not only interested in studying the individual buildings at Pattadakal and other Deccan sites, but also the structures’ relationship to one another and to the landscape. She notes that many of the sites, especially sacred sites like Pattadakal, are located near water. While noting that water has a ritual importance, Kaligotla asserts that other reasons must have driven medieval makers to build close to rivers, such as agricultural and economic considerations, or for pleasure and scenic beauty.

“These sites were the locus of a great amount of social activity,” she said. “People visited these places because they were beautiful and they were the site of festivals and other social occasions. The presence of water was significant to that experience.”

The blending of northern and southern styles occurred not just between structures in a complex, but also among the elements of a single building, Kaligotla said.

“You see so much hybridity and mixing in the microarchitecture of individual buildings,” she said. “A temple’s tower may be curvilinear, which is the northern style, but a cornice, door lintel, or exterior wall may feature southern forms. The makers were playing with many different forms.”

The makers covered the temples in elaborate ornamental details.

“The entire surfaces of these temples — exterior and interior — are heavily sculpted and deeply faceted,” she said. “It’s figural imagery, floral imagery, geometric, and abstract imagery. You have to imagine that you are surrounded by ornament: the walls, ceiling, and pillars. You are enveloped in sculpted surfaces replete with imagery.”

Kaligotla is exploring how ideas about ornament can be used to understand the medieval temples and the people who made them.

The ornamentation was essential to each building’s form and function, drawing a contrast from the modern day, in which ornament is considered decorative but inessential to a structure’s purpose, she explained.

“That was not the medieval or ancient Indian understanding of ornament,” she said. “They thought of it as necessary for a building’s completion. Without ornamentation, these buildings couldn’t function. They wouldn’t be protected from malevolent forces. Ornament in the medieval Deccan has many functions: It augments, magnifies, and strengthens.”

The temples at Pattadakal and other sites Kaligotla studies bear inscriptions about their makers, providing important textual evidence, including the names of architects and sculptors. An inscription on a temple at Pattadakal explains that the building’s architect fashioned cities, temples, and palaces, while also designing furniture, such as seats and couches, Kaligotla said.

Whether an inscription is in Sanskrit or a local language offers clues as to a maker’s status as the former was considered more prestigious and cosmopolitan and likely would have been used to describe an important architect or patron, Kaligotla explained.

“At least some of these makers seemed to have had a high status,” she said. “It’s not copious amounts of evidence but it is enough to suggest that there were categories of makers using different languages to represent themselves. There seems to have been differences in the way these makers were perceived.”

Kaligotla is a maker in her own right. She is a practicing poet whose debut poetry collection, “Bird of the Indian Subcontinent,” was published in January. Her research, including her reading and fieldwork in India, inspired many of her poems, she said.

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Kaligotla’s debut poetry collection, “Bird of the Indian Subcontinent.”
“Certainly my scholarship has fed my poetry,” she said. “I also think writing poetry and inhabiting that sort of consciousness has helped me as a scholar. I’m grateful that whether I’m working as a poet or an art historian, I am shaping language. I appreciate that and hope that I bring the crafting of language from poetry to art history and also vice versa.”

Kaligotla was born in coastal Andhra in southeast India. She moved with her family to the Middle East when she was nine years old. She came to the United States to attend Rutgers University, where she got a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and worked in the telecommunications field for many years before changing course and earning an M.F.A. in creative writing and later a Ph.D. in art history and archaeology from Columbia University.

“I have a hybrid background,” she said.

Before coming to Yale, she was a postdoctoral research fellow of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and based in the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Berlin.

Kaligotla says she appreciates Yale’s invigorating scholarly environment.

“I just knew that my colleagues would be doing excellent work, and it would be a vibrant and stimulating intellectual community, which is necessary to one’s work,” she said.

She taught two undergraduate courses in the fall and appreciates the ability to teach from Yale’s collections.

“It’s been exciting to think of the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art as extensions of the classroom,” she said. “To transition from images in textbooks to actually being with the objects is a great experience for students and teachers.”
Art historian studies the makers of medieval India
 
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Another pre-Harappan site ruins found in Kutch
After two weeks of excavation, archaeologists have found remains of another pre-Harappan site that strongly indicates a thriving human settlement in Kutch.

A team of archaeologists from Kutch University and Kerala University unearthed the site near Nani Khatia village in Lakhpat taluka, around 102 km from Bhuj. The area of excavation spans around five square km.

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The area of excavation spans around five square km.

Archaeologists say the structure found suggests a cemetery and the stones strongly indicate the presence of over 100 burial sites in the area. “This settlement existed at the same time when Dholavira, the most prominent Indus Valley Civilization site, was thriving,” said Subhash Bhandari, head of Department of Archaeology, Kutch University.

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Archaeologists say the structure found suggests a cemetery and the stones strongly indicate the presence of over 100 burial sites in the area.

“We have found pottery shards, beads and broken bangles also at this site. In Dholavira, these items were placed beside the dead bodies before burial. We believe that there are more than 100 burial sites in the area and now we will dig 10 to 15 trenches for further excavation,” said Bhandari.

Possibility of human settlement near site stronger

The possibility of a human settlement has got stronger as there is a river flowing near by.

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A team of archaeologists from Kutch University and Kerala University unearthed the site near Nani Khatia village in Lakhpat taluka, around 102 km from Bhuj.


The archaeologists have also found some bricks and some other items which are being analysed to ascertain their era

“We learnt that in ancient times, round stones were placed around the burial site. Since we found such stones, it lends further credence to the possibility of finding a burial site here,” Bhandari added..
Another pre-Harappan site ruins found in Kutch - Times of India
 
Here you can see the information warfare on wikipedia. Some egoistic western historian to prove Alexander won the battle and Indian side countering them as well :D :p


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Discovery of rock carvings in Maharashtra: A testimony to ancient civilization in India
By AlelíPeiró
The rock carvings – known as petroglyphs – have been discovered atop hillocks in the Konkan region of western Maharashtra. Mostly discovered in the Ratnagiri and Rajapur areas. A majority of the images etched on the rocky, flat hilltops remained unnoticed for thousands of years. They are the material proof that the Indian civilization is over 10,000 years old.

Inspired by this impressive archaeological find, I spoke with the person responsible for this find Dr Tejas Garge, the director of the Maharashtra state archaeology department.

He not only responded to my questions but also shared his paper titled: “Discovery of Petroglyphs in Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra: A Fresh Perspective on DarkAge of Konkan ( Tejas M. Garge, Rhutvij R. Apte, Sudhir Risbud and Dhananjay Marathe).

The discovery of rock carvings believed to be tens of thousands of years old in India’s the western state of Maharashtra has greatly excited archaeologists who believe they hold clues to a previously unknown civilisation.

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The way the petroglyphs have been drawn, and their similarity to those found in other parts of the world, have led experts to believe that they were created in prehistoric times and are possibly among the oldest ever discovered.

These prehistoric engravings found along more than 250 kilometres of the Konkan coast represent human figures, animals and geometric designs, for example, elephants, rhinos, deer, pigs, cattle, rabbits, buffaloes, tigers, wild boars, monkeys, birds, sharks, rays, turtles, alligators, abstract prints, the mother goddess, etc.

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Our first deduction from examining these petroglyphs is that they were created around 10,000BC said the director of the Maharashtra state archaeology department. In addition, he expressed “We have not found any pictures of farming activities. But the images depict hunted animals and there’s detailing of animal forms. So this man knew about animals and sea creatures. That indicates he was dependent on hunting for food.”

Garge’s department will also look for evidence of the people who made the carvings. The figures are found only on windswept hills that flood during monsoons, places where there would be no refuge. The carvers would have had to come to these places on purpose to make the drawings.

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Researchers began digging a cave about 30 kilometres away and found microliths like those in the hills, as well as other larger Stone tools. “We hope to find more refuge sites near the petroglyphs,” said Garge.

Many of the local communities are rightly proud of the discoveries on their land and can see the opportunities it may present in terms of visitors, tourism, and the subsequent boost to the local economy. However, everyone involved needs to pull together and jointly ensure the safeguarding of these sites under often challenging circumstances.
 
Before Independence British we in control of thngs and they were talking directly to Nehru. What could patel do there?
British had signed an agreement with Gandhi in SA before he was brought to India. That agreement spelt out the complete set of terms what Gandhi was supposed to do and clearly shows that Gandhi was planted in India. Patel and Nehru were the other agents of British who propped up Gandhi as the mass leader acceptable to poorest Indians as a savior. That original agreement between Gandhi and British is still available and displayed in Britain.
 
British had signed an agreement with Gandhi in SA before he was brought to India. That agreement spelt out the complete set of terms what Gandhi was supposed to do and clearly shows that Gandhi was planted in India. Patel and Nehru were the other agents of British who propped up Gandhi as the mass leader acceptable to poorest Indians as a savior. That original agreement between Gandhi and British is still available and displayed in Britain.
Based on Gandhi's actions, I always suspected that Gandhi was a stooge of Britain. But was not sure of a written agreement. Can you point to a source you are referring above?
 
Their program was for 15th only and they thought it will serve as a warning for the other smaller nations. They never expected the fierce and brutal counter attack by IA. They actually came prepared for short skirmish to give a bloody nose to India and humiliate Modi. But they went back humilated with a bloody nose.

We were not caught napping and have almost matched their buildup right from may , so how did they plan to give a bloody nose to us in a sort skirmish with the surprise element missing
 
British had signed an agreement with Gandhi in SA before he was brought to India. That agreement spelt out the complete set of terms what Gandhi was supposed to do and clearly shows that Gandhi was planted in India. Patel and Nehru were the other agents of British who propped up Gandhi as the mass leader acceptable to poorest Indians as a savior. That original agreement between Gandhi and British is still available and displayed in Britain.

I know patel was a freemason, but i doubt he was anti India. Probably more of a person whos on other side working for us. Gandhi, sure he was a stooge, its surprising its not clear to every Indian.