This figure of two oxen pulling a woman in a cart was found at the archaeologial site of Mohenijo-Daro in what is now Pakistan. The Indus Valley civilization thrived in the area of Palistan and western India between about 2500 and 1700 BC. Small ceramic figures such as this one were characteristic of the culture. This figure depicts an aspect of life in a civilization mostly composed of samm farming communities.
The
Indians of remote antiquity left no written records of their social,
cultural, and political activities, historians are obliged to rely almost
exclusively on archaeological discoveries for an understanding of the
earliest civilization on the subcontinent. Evidence indicates that,
possibly during the Neolithic period of the Stone Age, the aboriginal
inhabitants of the subcontinent were dispersed and partially assimilated
by invading Dravidian tribes, who probably came from the west. On the
basis of archaeological discoveries in the Indus Valley, the civilization
subsequently developed by the Dravidians equaled and possibly surpassed in
splendor the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. About the middle
of the 3rd millennium BC, Dravidian India was subjected to the first of a
sustained series of invasions by tribes of the Indo-European linguistic stock.
These tribes, of uncertain racial origin but usually referred to as Indo-Aryans,
entered the subcontinent through the mountain passes along the northwestern
frontier and gradually occupied most of the territory north of the Vindhya
Range and west of the Yamuna River. Many Dravidians fled to the north and
into the Indian Peninsula, regions where the Dravidian linguistic stock is
still numerous. The remnants of the Dravidian people and, in the view of some
authorities, much of their culture, were absorbed by the Indo-Aryans.
Obscurity surrounds Indo-Aryan political history for many centuries after the conquest of the Dravidians, but the Vedas, a collection of sacred writings dating from about 1200 BC, contains considerable information on Indo-Aryan social practices, religious beliefs, and cultural attainments (see Veda). As depicted in some Vedic hymns, the civilization that emerged during the early centuries of Indo-Aryan dominance on the subcontinent was notable in several respects. Tribal political organs functioned according to democratic principles, the social status of women compared favorably with that of men, and the institution of marriage was regarded as sacred. The Indo-Aryans had attained advanced skills in various arts and sciences, including livestock raising, metal handicrafts, carpentry, boatbuilding, and military science.
The Vedic hymns composed during this and later periods also depict the emergence and crystallization of the great socioreligious system known as Hinduism. Virtually all that is known with certainty of their political attainments is that the Indo-Aryans, in the course of the 1st millennium BC, established 16 autonomous states in the region bounded by the Himalayas, the southern reaches of the Ganges, the Vindhya Range, and the Indus Valley. Of these states, comprising both republics and kingdoms, the most important was Kosala, a kingdom situated in the region occupied by modern Oudh. Other important kingdoms were Avanti, Vamsas, and Magadha. The last-named kingdom, which occupied the territory of modern Bihar, became, about the middle of the 6th century BC, the dominant state of India. During the reign of its first great king Bimbisara (reigned about 543-491 BC), Buddha and Vardhamana Jnatiputra or Nataputta Mahavira, the respective founders of Buddhism and Jainism, preached and taught in Magadha.
In 326 BC Alexander the Great led an expedition across the Hindu Kush into northern India. He won several victories during his march into India, climaxing the first phase of his campaign by defeating the native King Porus near the Hydaspes River (now the Jhelum). In the course of the next two years Alexander achieved sovereignty over a large section of northwestern and central India. The political effects of the invasion were relatively insignificant, mainly because of the internal strife that arose in the Macedonian Empire after Alexander's death in 323 BC, but the art, sculpture, and science of the Greeks figured with increasing importance thereafter in the development of Indian culture.
Macedonian overlordship in India was destroyed in about 321 BC when a native leader named Chandragupta, who became known to the Greeks as Sandrocottus, fomented a successful rebellion and seized control of Magadha. Within the next decade Chandragupta, founder of the Maurya dynasty of Indian kings, extended his sovereignty over most of the subcontinental mainland. He was assisted by Kautilya (or Chanakya), a Brahman chief minister who may have been the main contributor to the Arthasastra, a textbook on politics akin to the Italian historian Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince. The military power of the Indian Empire caused Seleucus I, one of Alexander's generals and the founder of the Seleucid Empire, to arrange an alliance with the Maurya ruler. Concluded in 305 BC, the treaty was consolidated by some kind of marriage arrangement between Chandragupta and a daughter of the Seleucid ruler.
As one result of the close relations between the two empires, Greek cultural influence became ever more widespread in northern India. The Maurya dynasty endured until 184 BC. During the reign (circa 273?-232? BC) of Asoka, its greatest sovereign, Buddhism became the dominant religion of the empire. Of the dynasties that appeared in the period immediately following the downfall of the Mauryas, the Sunga endured longest, ruling more than a century. The chief event of this period (184?-72? BC) was the persecution and decline of Buddhism in India and the triumph of Brahmanism. In consequence of this victory of the Brahman priests of Hinduism, the caste system became deeply ingrained in the Indian social structure, creating great obstacles to national unification.
An extensive section of western India was occupied in about 100 BC by invading Sakas (Scythians), then in retreat before the Yue-chi of Central Asia. Pushing southward, the Yue-chi subsequently settled in northwestern India, where Kadphises, one of their kings, founded the Kushan dynasty about AD 40. A large part of northern India shortly fell under the sway of the Kushan kings. One of the early Yue-chi monarchs established diplomatic and commercial relations with the Roman Empire. The rulers of the native Andhra dynasty, which came into control of the former Sunga dominions about 27 BC and endured for about 460 years, made repeated attempts to expel the Sakas. These attempts ended in failure, and about AD 236 the Sakas attained complete sovereignty over western India. In AD 225, shortly before the fall of the Andhra dynasty, the Yue-chi realm also disintegrated. The ensuing century was a period of political confusion throughout most of India.
