India Unvarnished

Murad A Baig
Aug 15, 2000
An unemotional examination of some of the main questions about India’s history

This brief essay is an exercise to invite an objective examination of many widely held opinions and myths about and its history. It attempts to briefly examine the facts as well as myths, even conflicting myths. about the issues, personalities and events concerning 's great and, sometimes, not so great past.
In response to most Indians craving for self-praise, many writers have, over the years, added a thick gloss of excessive flattery while others have reacted with carping criticism. The accounts of and its history have, therefore, been buried in a haze of opinions and objective facts have often been a casualty. The true definition of opinion is the absence of facts for where there are facts there is no need for opinion.
History is supposed to be a chronology of proven facts but many sincere and dedicated believers of their opinions have been unable to resist the desire to twist or distort facts to suit their preconceived notions. It suited the British to be condescending about 's history to belittle and enhance their own sense of greatness. The Communists and socialists interpreted history to support their theories of materialistic determinism.
Religious groups like the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, with long exposure to their own traditions, can often be deeply incensed by facts that conflict with or undermine their cherished beliefs and the alleged words of their . They are especially prone to clouding facts with a mass of sanctimonious detail and a mystifying mist of .
Sources of history
The facts about Indian history can be traced from the remains of stone tools, bones, buildings, coins, weapons, ploughs, sculpture, pottery, metals and other solid objects that can now be fairly accurately dated by radio carbon, argon and other scientific methods.
and oral traditions have always been important sources of information and give important glimpses into past events. They are, however, very prone to change and revision over time. Such writings have almost always been the work of bards, courtiers, scribes and priests supported by their rulers who always praised their kings, deities and traditions with exaggerated prose or poetry but frequently dubious historic accuracy. The oral tradition of all people is usually flawed by glorification of kings and priests and a neglect for the concerns of the common people.
As the dates of the first cultivation, the use of iron, ploughs, weapons, horses, construction materials and the first appearance of deities and forms of worship, can often be fairly accurately dated, these can also help fix the times of the supposed events. These often provide valuable internal evidence to support or contradict the oral and literary sources and fix the probable dates of their occurrences.
The facts of history can also be ascertained by seeking parallels in nearby countries where similar events or facts have been more accurately dated. All cultures have also borrowed myths and concepts from each other to cause further .
Astrology is also a bad source of history. Many writers and scholars have also tried to date the events and personages of history through celestial events recorded in ancient texts or myths. Though seemingly impressive, this method is of absolutely no historic value because anyone familiar with astronomy can easily choose any date in the past or even in the future and find comets, alignments of stars, etc., to ’prove' any chosen date to gullible listeners.
Myths are not the monopoly of any or race. There are, for example, many old myths that conflict with the ones most popular in today. These make the accuracy of oral traditions all the more suspect.
Myths are to people what dreams are to individual. Colourful and fanciful outlets for hopes, dreams, angers and frustrations. While many myths are harmless, there are others that encourage destructive prejudices and harmful social practices. In most countries myths are accepted as fanciful fairy tales but in , the incorporation of many myths into popular religious traditions have made millions consider myth as divine making people reluctant to accept the verdict of history.
Many Indians have a strange craving for unqualified praise and flattery about everything that is Indian and can become very upset when this desire is contradicted. As with every culture, there is a great deal to admire as well as much to condemn.
This little essay tries to examine the factual basis concerning many of 's popular myths about the events and personages of 's history without any attempt to condemn, praise or pass judgement on them.
Some of the main questions are:

1. Was one of the oldest civilisations?

2. Where did everyone come from? Was nobody to ?

3. Was skin colour just an accident of geography? Was there no social significance?

4. Who were 's ’original' people?

5. What was like 5,000 years ago?

6. Who were the Harappans and where did they originate from?

7. Was there no bronze age in ?

8. What were the religious practices of 's early people?

9. Was the foundation of all religions?

10. Who were the Aryans? Were they a race, a tribe, a or just an adjective?

11. How could simple nomads destroy great old civilisations?

12. What is the evidence that the Zend Avesta is older than the Rigveda?

13. Aren't these are found in the later Vedas?

14. Was Sanskrit the mother of all languages?

15. Is there any evidence that the Aryas came from Iran or west Asia?

16. Did the mythical river Saraswati actually exist?

17. Were the Aryans a super race?

18. How long did the Aryas take to penetrate the entire country?

19. Did the Avesta have castes like the ’varnas' of the Rigveda?

20. How did Brahmins become the keepers of the Arya tradition?

21. Are Shiv, Krishna, Ram, Lakshmi, Parvati, Saraswati, Ganga or the concepts of reincarnation, Dharma, Karma, Ahimsa alien to the Vedas?

22. How can the worship of gods and goddesses determine economic and social advancement?

23. Does the Ramayana have any historic basis?

24. What about the Ramayana in ?

25. Was Ram the epitome of honour and nobility and Ramrajya the ideal society?

26. Is the history of the Mahabharata equally uncertain?

27. What was the influence of Buddhism on Indian thought?

28. Was industry and commerce encouraged by Buddhism one of the foundations of 's greatness?

29. Was the Mauryan Empire the first organised state in post Harappan ?

30. Were the Mauryas originally of low caste and raised to the status of Kshatriya by Brahmin priests?

31. Was then the creation of priests and rulers? What about the sages and prophets?

32. Is practised Hinduism a of the Puranas?

33. Was the Vishnu of the Puranas different from the Vishnu of the Vedas?

34. Was Shiv just a tribal deity till raised to the status of a in the Puranas?

35. Was Ganesh too a creation of the Puranas?

36. Were Parvati, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Devi and the Shaktis also products of the Puranas?

37. What about the sacred tradition of Krishna?

38. Was there no Sanatan Dharma or pure Hindu philosophy?

39. Why is there so much violence in the Puranic myths? Has this affected future generations in ?

40. Were the courts and temples of south the real cradles of Hindu culture and philosophy?

41. What was the impact of Alexander's invasion?

42. What about the impact of Greek culture on Indian sculpture and arts?

43. Who were the Jat tribes and what was their significance to north ?

44. Was the Gupta period really 's golden age?

45. Were the Rajputs originally Hun or Jat tribes?

46. Did Hindu rulers encourage violent religious persecutions?

47. Were the magnificent Hindu temples after the eighth century the high watermark of Indian creativity?

48. Were the early Indian temples really Hindu?

49. When did the chains of 's caste system actually harden?

50. Were there no redeeming features of the caste system?

51. Did cause the success of Arab incursions?

52. Why did the Rajputs fail to ward off the Islamic threat?

53. What was the impact of on ?

54. Didn't the Sikhs suffer terrible persecutions?

55. How could crude Turk and Mongol invaders achieve so advanced a culture?

56. Did Muslim perpetrate forcible conversions?

57. Were the Bhils, Gonds and other tribals Hindu?

58. Why have Muslims become so intolerant today and why has fundamentalism caused so much disruption in the world?

59. Were the of all religions the immortal words of or the writings of mortal men.

60. Can Hinduism claim to have had the longest tradition of continuous ?

61. How were the British so successful?

62. Did Colonial Britain exploit 's wealth?

63. What was the secret of the success of the western nations?

64. How did Indian leaders fail their country?

65. What was the impact of independence?



1. Was one of the oldest civilisations?


Anthropological evidence clearly indicates that all human beings evolved from small hunter-gathering and nomadic tribes but reached the stage of civilisation quite recently. That is, when they had developed mature culti­vation, big cities, well developed systems of rule and , a written and a distinctive culture.

's civilisation was not as old as the civilisations of Egypt or Babylon that had far more advanced urban habitations with sophisticated arts and culture by 3,100 BC. 's civilisation was much younger but older then those of Greece, Persia, Rome or any civilisation.

's oldest cities were those of the Harappan culture that thrived in north-western from 2,500 BC to about 1,500 BC. After its demise, several small and less advanced early urban cultures began to spread to other areas. The first big urban cities in were probably Rajgir and Kosambi, on elevations above the then thickly forested Gangetic plains of Bihar. These are dated to around 800 BC. Pataliputra, became one of the greatest cities of the world by 300 BC.

2. Where did everyone come from? Was nobody to ?

There is now accurately dated and fairly inescapable scientific and anthropologi­cal evidence that all human beings came out of Africa. Though the re­mains of one of the earliest humanoids called Ramapithicus, dated to 13 million years ago, was found in the Shivaliks, the line died out. Unlike apes, humanoids had thumbs opposed to their fingers, declining canine teeth and an enlarged frontal lobe of their bigger brains.

Our own ancestors, the Homo Sapiens, evolved from humanoids like Australopithecus and Homo Erectus, came out of Africa and spread all over the world about 2 million years ago. Modern Man or Cro-Magnon displaced the older Neanderthal type only about 50,000 years ago about the beginning of the last ice age.

Human movement virtually froze into an arctic desert during this 40,000 year long ice age. The cold contracted the level of the oceans that dropped by 113 metres. This and ice bridges enabled animals and people to cross frozen seas enabling early men to from Asia to America and Australia.

Racial distinctions soon began to develop in differ­ent regions. Climate altered people. Those in cold climates became fair while others in the tropics needed darker skin pigment for protection. People in dry climates developed long noses to moisten the air into their lungs while those in humid areas had short wide noses. The people of the open plains became tall while being short enabled the best survival for those who lived in dense forests.

Man's advancement towards civilisation only began after the end of the last ice age that began to recede about 12,000 years ago.

3. Was skin colour just an accident of geography? Was there no social significance?

People who lived in the tropics gradually developed dark skin pigmentation to protect them from the harmful effects of the sun. Ultraviolet rays damage and age the skin and white people living in the tropics consequently have a very high tendency to skin cancer.

It is now postulated that the people of the colder latitudes had grown coats of thick hair during the last 40,000 year long ice age and that the skin un­der it had became very fair like the skin under the fur of a dog or a bear. This body hair later diminished as the climate warmed but a fair skin remained.

Skin colour was, therefore, purely protective and should have had no social significance except for the fact that those who worked in the sun were naturally temporarily darker than the kings, courtiers and priests who worked in well shaded palaces or temples.

4. Who were 's ’original' people?

There is substantial archaeological evidence to show that had been inhabited from about 200,000 years ago by people with several different racial origins. The first were probably the Proto Austroloid people who may have come from south east Asia and the Negrito people who probably came from Africa. The former had angular features and blackish skin while the latter were smaller with rounder skulls and finer reddish skin. A 25,000-year old fossil of a Negrito pygmy standing 30 inches high was found near Baroda in 1935.

Later the Dravidian people came from west Asia after 3000 BC followed by Caucasian people from the north west in a series of waves from 1,800 BC to about the 6th century AD. There were also Mongoloid people who infiltrated in from the north-east while Egyptian and Arab traders, Af­ghans, Turks and Mongols entered after the 8th century AD. Indians are, there­fore, the proud inheritors of many different racial strains.

5. What was like 5,000 years ago?

There is definite evidence that was inhabited by primitive stone-age people from over 1,000 fairly accurately dated stone-age settlements throughout the Indian sub-continent. There was a gradual shift from old stone-age (Palaeolithic) to new stone-age (Neolithic) tools when the early inhabitants of began shifting from being hunter-gatherers and nomads to cultivators of primitive cereals after 3000 BC. It took many more centuries for mature cultivation to develop. Cities with civilisation and culture followed much later after cereal culti­vation became well established.

There were no cereals edible to Man till the first cereal cultivation site discovered in Jerico dated to 6,500 BC from where DNA mapping shows that it travelled east and west at a rate of one Kilometre per year. The cultivation of cereals needed a saddle quern for grinding, pottery vessels and fire for cooking.

Wheat, bar­ley and millets had earlier been indigestible wild grasses until they were domesticated. Till then, meat had been the only fresh available around the year to early Man. At this time, many fruits, vegetables and edible roots were not available around the year and many species that are now widely available were just not available. Man's earliest was as hunters of wild animals and birds and gatherers of edible plants, roots, honey, etc. They later became nomadic herdsmen who also relied on meat and milk supplemented with occasional plant foods.

Many plants that are plentiful today like potatoes, chillies, maize, pineapples, co­coa, etc., came after the discovery of the Americas and were unknown to Asia till about four hundred years ago. There was also no trace of rice in any Harappan site but some barley, millets and a little wheat. Rice may have come to from south east Asia. There were no coconuts in ancient . It is recorded that the Satvahanas imported it from south east Asia about the time of Christ and deliberately propa­gated it throughout the west coast. It revolutionised the coastal making it able to support larger populations.

The of the evolving artefacts and tools marks Man's advancement. Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers had coarse stone tools like choppers for chopping meat and breaking bones. With cultivation came fine stone flakes that were bonded together to make sickles, spear points, arrow-heads, needles, etc. The shift from the old to the new stone-age can be roughly dated from their tools. A hard and dangerous life and scarcity of kept the human bands small and scattered. Preoccupied with survival there was no time for culture. 's total was estimated at only about 20,000 in Palaeolithic times.

Cultivation required new Neolithic tools, coarse pottery for cooking and other artefacts. Archaeological findings indicate that cultivation only reached north east in 3,800 BC, and spread to Baluchistan by 3,500 BC, Sind by 3,000 BC, Punjab and North Rajasthan by 2,500 BC, Maharashtra and Karnataka by 1,500 BC. Parts of the Yamuna-Ganges area came under cultivation with small settlements about 1,800 BC but cultivation only reached the middle Ganges area about 1,200 BC.

At this time, most of 's coastal areas and river basins were thickly forested malar­ial swamps unfit for human existence and the inhabitation of coastal south and Srilanka only began about 300 BC. The introduction of the iron plough after 1000 BC enabled a big growth of . 's great civilisation was still many centuries away in the future.

6. Who were the Harappans and where did they originate from?

An advanced urban culture with quite sophisticated cultivation and new copper weapons and tools seem to have arrived suddenly in stone age about 2,500 BC. Definite evidence at Mohenjodaro, Harappa and other sites show that the new cop­per tools and old stone tools had been in simultaneous use. This suggests that the newly arrived Harappans and the older tribal people lived together and there is evidence that they occupied different parts of the cities. Probably as the rulers and the ruled.

Their extensive planned cities covering the lower Indus, west Rajasthan and used perfectly measured bricks that must have needed a lot of wood to bake. The area must have, therefore, been much wetter and more forested than it is today.

The Harappans seem to have been the Dravidians who appear to have arrived in In­dia from the west with an advanced urban culture because their urbanisation was far ahead of any in the country at the time. There is also little evidence of any pre-urban development at the lower levels of their cities. They were probably a people who had come from somewhere in the west. There is also some evidence of their arrival conflicting with the inhabitants of ear­lier pre-Harappan habitations that were destroyed by fire. Their has not been deciphered but their seals and styles show similarities with those of Sumeria and Babylon.

The Harappan civilisation only lasted a thousand years and went into decline about 1,500 BC probably be­cause of climatic changes that made the area too dry to sustain such a large . This period also corresponds with the arrival in of a people who called themselves Aryas but there is no empirical evidence of they being destroyed by them. There is only one site showing dead bodies and signs of destruction. Some verses on the Rigveda speak of Indra being the destroyer of cities but this is in­sufficient evidence.

After the decline of their civilisation, the Harappans seem to have moved to the south and east and their movements can be roughly traced from the of their distinctive red ware pottery at many sites. Ancient Indian cities never again achieved this level of sophistication in city planning.

Though there is one little seal at Mohenjodaro with a figure similar to the Shiv surrounded by animals, there is no clear indica­tion of their religious practices. The large tank at Mohenjodaro may have been a sacred tank like the sacred tanks of Babylon. The tradition of sa­cred tanks in south Indian temples may reflect such a Dravidian tradition.

7. Was there no bronze age in ?

Though a few bronze tools and weapons have been found at the later levels of Harappan sites, there was no tin in necessary to alloy it with cop­per to make bronze. Egypt, Babylon and ancient Greece had bronze. Even had excellent cast bronzes to 3,500 BC.

After the Harappan culture collapsed, went into a long period of urban decline and it took many centuries for a new pattern of urbanisation to develop. In the meantime, iron began to gain importance after 1,000 BC and most early Indian cultures went straight from the stone age to the iron age. The abundant surface mined iron ore resources in Bihar and Karnataka spurred the development of these undeveloped, heavily forested areas. was to become an exporter of iron to west Asia.


8. What were the religious practices of 's early people?

There are many scattered cave paintings of people and animals and a few stone objects but little evidence that these were objects of worship. Elaborate burial sites in many parts of , some with large stone megaliths suggest that the rites of the dead were very different to those practised today. Ancestor worship as in many early cultures was probable.

Anthropological studies among primitive people in many countries show many common trends. Harvest celebrations corresponding to the changing seasons each spring and autumn and worship of male and female fertility stones were probable.

The earliest kings were often those who claimed the magical ability to influence rain, , good hunting and while banishing droughts, pestilence's and dangerous animals. In frenzied dance they would claim to be possessed by spirits and acquire the power to influence them. They all laid down elaborate customs, rituals and hymns for their subjects and blamed some lapse on their part as the cause for their occasional failure to produce miracles.

All early religions had rather hazy visions of life after . Many believed that there were three worlds. The underworld where all people came from and went back later. The terrestrial world where all men and animals lived their mortal lives and the heavenly world that was the exclusive domain of the gods. These became enormously elaborated and complex as myths developed with economic and social progress in every country.

There is no evidence that any of the heroes of legend could have had their legendary horses, palaces, temples, etc at this time. People led hard lives in the pursuit of bare existence and it is unlikely that they had any sages or deep philosophy 5000 years ago.


9. Was the foundation of all religions?

The word is derived from the word Magi who were the priests of ancient Persia. All religions seem to have begun as rites that promised miraculous spiritual intervention into the affairs of men.

Primitive people living hard lives in dangerous and unpredictable environments longed for miracles that could give good weather, hunting, crops, and remove heat, cold, sickness, pests, predators, enemies and evil spirits. They wanted miracles that could bless them and curse their enemies. Shamans and witch doctors, who claimed abilities to provide such magical remedies, were the first priests.

In later times, priests of all religions used the supposed of spiritual mystery, powerful hymns and magnificent ceremonies in sacred temples to awe the masses and make them believe that humble obeisance to their kings and priests was the path to salvation.

10. Who were the Aryans? Were they a race, a tribe, a or just an adjective?

The Rigveda and, the probably older Persian book, the Zend Avesta, describe the adventures and beliefs of a tribe who called themselves Arya. They were not a race because they were only one of a number of Indo- tribes who spoke a similar to old Persian and old Sanskrit.

There is considerable evidence that several tribes speaking Indo languages originated in the Caucasian area around the Caspian Sea, south of Russia. They streamed south between 1800 and 1300 BC and there is clear histori­cal records that many of their tribes like the Hittites and Kassites entered Turkey and destroyed Syria in 1732 BC. The Mittani attacked Babylon in the same year, the Hyskos attacked Egypt in 1730 BC. The Dorians and Achaeans went to Greece and the Italics to Italy. The Medes went to western Persia.

It seems that their incursions were initially the peaceful movement of no­madic people with their sheep and cattle and that they subsequently be­came a warlike people. Later on, the word Aryan simply meant noble.

11. How could simple nomads destroy great old civilisations?

The secret of the conquests of the Indo-Europeans lay in the fact that they were the first people to domesticate horses.

Initially their horses were small, like horses in the wild and could not carry a mounted soldier. They were, therefore, yoked in pairs to a light eight-spoked chariot with a charioteer on the right and a warrior armed with a javelin and later a bow standing behind him.

This distinctive chariot was the trademark of all the Indo- tribes in all the countries that they conquered. their mounted chariots were fearsome against the donkey and oxen mounted armies of the old civilisations.

They could cover four times the range of donkey or ox carts and their speed and shock terrorised their enemies. The cuneiform records in the clay tablets in west Asia and paintings and sculpture throughout the region give clear evidence of their aggressive disruption.

It is recorded that they were dressed in leather from head to toe and had never tasted fruit. The life philosophy of this masculine race of self-professed warriors was to ride a horse, to speak the truth and to hurl a javelin. Later the bow and arrow was to replace the javelin.


12. What is the evidence that the Zend Avesta is older than the Rigveda?

The names of the gods of the Avesta were just different pronunciations of the Vedic gods but the reigning Avestan gods were the ’Purvi devtas' or old gods of the Rigveda. The gods of the Avesta, the Ahuras, named Varuna, Mitra and Ahirman were concerned with order of the universe and they were greater than their Daevas who were demons mainly concerned with worldly issues like earth, fire and water. (This word Daeva is, incidentally, the origin of the English word devil).

By the time the Rigveda was composed, Indra had become the ruling deity and one fourth of the verses of the Rigveda were addressed to him. He also had new companions like Rudra and Nasatyas. The Daevas seem to have become the sacred Devas in while the Ahuras gradually declined to became the Purvi Devtas or Adityas of the Vedas while later texts further demoted them to the status of Asuras or evil demons.

In both accounts, the early gods were the Dyuloka or gods of the heavens, the Antariksha were the gods of the atmosphere and Prithvi the gods of the earth. The Avesta also describes an earlier period when the Aryas had to leave their ancestral land called ’Aryenem Vaego' while the Rigveda, which has many similarities, ap­pears to cover their travels and experiences in a later period.

It is also significant that the Rigveda makes no mention about tigers, ele­phants, peacocks and other animals and birds distinctive to though it does describe those of west Asia.

13. Aren't these are found in the later Vedas?

Actually there is only one Veda the Rigveda. The Samaveda and Yajurveda which were basically rearrangements of the Rigveda with Brahmanical instructions for rites and ceremonies, with many priestly commentaries and additions added many centuries later. The Arthaveda came still later. They all con­tain many hymns of immense beauty and universal appeal as well as many that are petty, obscure and nonsensical. It was the Brahmins who gave these simple accounts of a nomadic people a sacred status. They disallowed the reading of the Vedas to any lesser caste.

14. Was Sanskrit the mother of all languages?

Sanskrit was the daughter of a still unnamed earlier that was similar to old Persian and old Sanskrit. There were many other equally ancient lan­guages. Altaic was spoken by people of Mongolia and the northern steppes while the many languages of Arabia, Africa, Australia and the Americas were quite different.

The success of the Indo- people in spreading quickly from Europe to made their the root in these areas. Many of their loan words entered other languages while they too absorbed words from other languages. Mod­ern Sanskrit only evolved about 400 AD. Old Sanskrit prevailed before 300 BC. In between there was middle Sanskrit.

15. Is there any evidence that the Aryas came from Iran or west Asia?

According to the Zend Avesta, the Aryas had to leave their ancestral land of Aryanem Vaego (Aryavarta?) because the power of evil had made their land too cold. Modern has found ice core samples in the Antarctic that chronicle climatic changes over the past 50,000 years as well as other geological evidence that confirm that there had been a mini glaciation at about 1800 BC.

Both the old Arya accounts elaborately describe their geography. They both speak of their sacred mountains of Meru that was at the centre of the world with four seas and three deserts around it. This region was probably the Pamir Mountains with 5 peaks over 7,000 metres. It was a region with the Arctic Sea to the north, the Caspian (derived from Kaspili or Kashyapa) to the west, the Pacific to the east and the Indian Ocean to the south.

Their three deserts were probably the Taklimakan desert to the east, the Dasht-e-lut to the south and the Kyzyl Kum to the west into which the Syr Darya (possibly the river Saryu of the Ramayana) was to disappear. The topography of does not match the nearly iden­tical geographical descriptions in the Avesta and the Rigveda.

Most of the artefacts of the Indo tribes were made of wood and leather and perished but their distinctive grey ware pottery left clear evi­dence of their travels that can be fairly accurately dated. A few burial sites in the Caucasus and west Asia also yield evidence of their jewellery, costumes, artefacts, etc.

An analysis of the evolution of Sanskrit in also shows that the lan­guage acquired many Dravidian and other local loan words over the centuries. If the Aryas had originated in these words and forms would also have become a part of the parallel old Persian and other successor languages in west Asia and Europe. Echo words like ’contract-shontract', ’aana - jana' are very much a local form and are found in Sanskrit but not in any of the other Indo- languages.

A Jain tradition of gods, demons and sages gaining great power through severe austerities and fasting is deeply imprinted in all traditions in . This strongly entrenched mythological tradition would also have been found elsewhere if the Aryans had migrated from to other lands.

Migrations have always quests for or wealth. Nowhere in the world's his­tory has there ever been evidence of people wanting to leave a rich, well-wa­tered and fertile land for the arid semi- desert areas like west Asia or southern Russia. Conversely, the wealth of , known to ancient the world as the ’land of gold', was a perennial magnet attracting hungry adventurers throughout the ages.

16. Did the mythical river Saraswati actually exist?

The Saraswati was the main river of the Rigveda that was described as pure from its source in the mountains till it emptied into the ocean. Today, Satel­lite mapping and hydrological surveys indicate that the snow-fed waters of the Yamuna may not have flowed east past , in the past. It may have run southwards through Kurukshetra, Sirsa and Ratangarh to flow into the bed of the Luni River south of Jodhpur to empty into the Arabian Sea.

Ruins of many ancient habitations along this route also suggest that there must have once been a large perennial river to support such large populations. Conversely there had been no comparable cities along the present course of the Yamuna till fairly recent times. Traces of the ancient Pats of the Mahabharat like Indrapat, Bagpat, Tilpat, Sonepat and Panipat seem to have been habitations at a very early stage of urbanisation.

It is postulated that seismic activity or siltation may have caused topo­graphical changes to the relative flat plains at the foot of the Himalayas. This may caused the Yamuna to first flowed west into the course of the Ghaggar and Sutlej and later shift eastwards past to flow into the Gangetic basin. The first city of , Rai Kila Pitora, was built by Anangpal, the Tomar Rajput ruler, only at the end of the 10th century AD.

With the Aravali hills to the south and a great river to the north, the site of made a perfect defensible position in the northern plains. Without a perennial river the Aravalis were just another set of hills. If the Yamuna had flowed here earlier a great city comparable to Kanauj on the Ganges would have certainly have been built long before.

17. Were the Aryans a super race?

The discovery of the nearly forgotten Rigveda by Father Cordeveau, a Je­suit scholar at Benares in 1767, followed by studies by dedicated Indologists like William Jones, Charles Wilkins, H.H.Wilson, etc., created great excite­ment in Europe about their lost Asian cousins. Till this time, the word Aryan was only an adjective meaning pure or noble and the concept of their being a race had not existed. At the end of the Mughal Empire, Sanskrit had declined to become a nearly forgotten of a few Brahmin priests. Paradoxically it was western interest that revived an almost lost .

Later Max Mueller, who had never been to , popularised the romantic vision of a tall, blond, blue-eyed super race that so inspired Hitler and the Nazis. The theory also appealed to many Hindu bigots at later times and many Brahmins also claimed to be descendants of these noble Aryas.

This the­ory also appealed to 's higher castes and provided a moral justification for the subjugation of the lower castes who could now be proved to be of an inferior race.

Several historians believe that The Brahmins were originally a group of learned Dravidians who began as translators for the simple nomads and later took over their early religious traditions to become more Aryan than any Aryan in their endeavour to subjugate the earlier inhabitants of .

18. How long did the Aryas take to penetrate the entire country?

The geography of was very different 4,000 years ago. The western area was thickly forested and much wetter than today. Their char­iots that had swept triumphantly over the semi-desert areas of west Asia would have been unable to function in the marshy and forested lands of ancient and soon be­came items for myth and royal ornamentation.

They did not have iron till after 1000 BC so cutting the thick forests was very difficult. Many verses refer to the need of invoking the Agni to burn a way for them. There is evidence to show that they settled for a long time in the Indus-Sutlej region and gradually began to move east and south and merge with the local populations.

19. Did the Avesta have castes like the ’varnas' of the Rigveda?

Yes. Their priests were the Arthvan (from Arth, meaning a person of essence). This was probably the origin of the Vedic word Brahmin.

Their warriors were Ratheshwar (from Rath, meaning charioteer) and this was the origin of Kshatriya.

Their third caste was Vastroyosh who were the husbandmen who looked after their sheep and cattle. The word was somewhat similar to the Vedic word Vaishya who had no role as a trader until the Aryas settled down from their nomadic ways many centuries later.

The Avestans much later added a fourth class of captives and slaves called Hutoksha that sounds similar to word Shudra, the name for lower castes in .

The early accounts in the Avesta and Rigveda speak of only three classes. When they abandoned their nomadic life and settled down to culti­vation, the Vaishya became the traders and the Shudras did most of the hard man­ual work in the fields.

The regimentation into a strict caste system owes its real origin to the Manusmriti that was probably written about the 4th century AD and made more rigorous in the 7th century.

20. How did Brahmins become the keepers of the Arya tradition?


Brahmins made themselves the self appointed keepers of the Arya tradi­tion and gave themselves the exclusive right to read, propagate and inter­pret the Vedas. These long accounts of a robust, nomadic people contains clear references to the eating of beef, horse meat and the joys of intoxication with Soma.



Learned Brahmins undoubtedly contributed enormously to 's huge literary and cultural but they also compelled the masses to become obedient slaves to their royal masters. This symbiotic relationship strengthened the many local rulers who in return gave the Brahmins great importance as their reward.



21. Are Shiv, Krishna, Ram, Lakshmi, Parvati, Saraswati, Ganga or the concepts of rein­carnation, Dharma, Karma, Ahimsa alien to the Vedas?


All religions evolve over time. The later Vedas derived from an oral tradi­tion and written over many centuries took many verses of the Rigveda and added to them. Brahmanas and Arayankas were manuals for priestly rites for each Veda. The Upanishads were written about the 6th century BC. As they evolved, they began incorporating many deeply rooted concepts from , Jain and Buddhist philosophies especially reincarnation, Dharma, Karma and Ahimsa.



There was no trace of any deity resembling Shiv in the Vedas though the Brahmins later tried to identify a possibly tribal deity Shiv with the Vedic Rudra. The only Krishna in the Rigveda was no but the leader of the Rakshashas and the armies of dark Dasyus who Indra slew and skinned. The word Rakshasha was probably derived from an word Raksha, mean­ing to protect. This implies that the dark and dangerous enemies of the Aryas may have thus been the gallant protectors of the local inhabitants.



There is no mention of any hero called Ram or of the river Ganga though there is one reference to a woman by that name. Saraswati was no goddess of the Vedas but their sacred river that flowed from the mountains to the Arabian Sea through present day Haryana, Rajasthan and . Actually there were no ­desses among the 33 Vedic deities except the rather minor Usha. The wor­ship of goddesses or Shaktis began after the nomadic stage when mature cultivation developed many centuries later.



22. How can the worship of gods and goddesses determine economic and social advancement?


It is difficult to claim any absolute connection, but an analysis of religious practices world-wide shows that religions traditions have never been static in any land but have constantly evolved with Man's economic and social advancement.



Broadly these stages of religious consciousness go into five stages:



1. When Man was a timid hunter living in dark and dangerous forests they con­sidered that every mountain, river, tree, rock or other object contained a spirit like the Jivas of Jain belief. Spirits that were as real to them as the spirit in every living being. They would seek the blessings of these spirits with little offerings of , wild flowers and drops of blood from their kills to appease them and get good hunting or ward off danger, illness or evil. Cave paintings and small, carved pebbles, stones and bones show many animals and occasional fat female fig­urines that may have later become fertility goddesses. This pattern has been observed among hunter gatherers in every land even to this day.



Their priests were like African witch doctors, Red Indian medicine men or Shamans, would go into frenzied dance and sometimes speak with the voice of the spir­its in a belief that if they observed detailed rituals, they could command the to avert disasters and gain boons. Pow­ers even to control the sun, moon, storms, rain and other elements. In later times, when Man advanced, belief in these spirits of the earth or the atmosphere often continued in the form of goblins, angels or djinns.



2. When Man found that it was easier to survive with captive herds of sheep or cattle than to try to surprise wild ones in the difficult forests, they left the forests to roam the semi-desert open pastures of the world with their herds. They had to long distances from their winter to summer pastures. Theirs was a Man's world where they walked tall, proud and, able to see danger at a dis­tance, and could band together within the range of their voices. They wor­shipped new elemental gods of the sun, moon, stars, wind, storms, thunder, rain and fire.



Their priests were simple poets and bards who origi­nally had a social position far below their patriarchal tribe leaders who led them to good pastures or to . They composed hymns to the ele­ments and to features of the lives that they led.



3. When Man became a cultivator, in much more recent times, he be­gan worshipping goddesses. Their did most of the work in the fields but it was the fertility of nature, symbolised by the woman that now led to good fortune. In Egypt, Babylon, and many other river cultures, the worship of goddesses marked the maturity of their cultivation. It also marked a time when settled villages began to grow into urban cit­ies.



Now magnificently robed priests of all such cultures presided at mag­nificent temples, built by kings to glorify themselves as well as their gods, with elaborate rituals, , dance, and . Their knowledge of writing, mathematics and as­tronomy gave them awesome power to amaze and awe the masses.



4. When Man became the dweller of big urban cities, many thousands of soldiers, artisans, courtiers, farmers, musicians, dancers, labourers, etc., were crammed together in densely crowded cities where their noise and disputes were a constant disturbance. They needed moral or social laws to regulate their unstable behaviour.



The moral religions of Buddhism, Judaism, and began at the early stages of urbanisation and tried to regulate human action. The eight-fold path of Buddhism, the Ten Commandments of and the seven pillars of were not as much concerned with man's rela­tionship with as with Man's relation with his fellow men. Dharma now concerned what man did or should not do and not what he was. These urban reli­gions later added orders of regimented monks and priests dressed in sacred robes.



5. The fifth level of Man's religious consciousness came when people discarded temples, churches and mosques along with their priests and saw themselves as small parts of a great cosmic force. They sought to identify themselves with their conceptions of the creator in simple spiritual de­votion. The Gnostic Christians were hated by the orthodox Catholic priests, the Muslim Sufis were similarly scorned by the priests of Mecca and the Bhakti and Vedantic saints were similarly despised by the orthodox Brahmins.



All religions, therefore, evolved as Man evolved socially and economically and the presence of different deities and customs give clear indications of their economic and social development and are thus useful indicators for the events of history.



Except by the interpretations of their priests, the traditions of no have ever been the fixed or immutable words of their sages or prophets.



23. Does the Ramayana have any historic basis?


There must have been some historic basis to all mythological epics. Like the Trojan of ancient Greece, the events of small tribal skirmishes were later expanded to epic proportions by storytellers. Troy was, how­ever, discovered and dated to 1,160 BC. It proved to be very much smaller than the glorious city of Homer's glorious account.



The Ramayana is one of the greatest tales ever written but there are many different traditions of the story of Ram in and abroad. The most popular versions of the Ramayana are the accounts written by Valmiki dated to between 200 BC and 200 AD and the poetic interpretation of this by Goswami Tulsidas in the 17th century. These had Ram as the seventh incarnation of Vishnu.



The possi­bly older Buddhist Jataka tales, however, have a completely different story of Ram who they believed to be an earlier incarnation of Buddha. The story of Ram is also part of the equally old Jain tradition where they believe that a noble Jaina like Ravana could not have been an eater of human flesh or a drinker of blood. It is a tale of of a great and noble person undone by his unrequited of Ram's wife Sita.



According to these, Ram as an evolved soul would not be capable of taking life, even the life of Ravana, and it is his brother Lakshman who kills his enemies. When Ravana hurls his ultimate weapon the discus or Chakra, it tamely returns to Lakshman's hand and becomes the instrument of his . Lakshman goes to hell while Ram finds release (Kaivalya).



There is no historical evidence that the wars of the Ramayana even took place in . Ram's father, Dasarath (meaning ten chariots) was a petty ruler of Ayodhya, a city on the Saryu River that might or might not have been in . There is also a river that is still called the Syr Darya in Turkmenistan with the city still named Kashi (also Kashgar) not far from it to the east.



According to an old account, Dasrath's second wife was Kaikeyi (meaning daughter of the king of Kaikeya or Caucasus), whose father was a much greater and richer ruler. They had fallen in after she healed his battle wounds and he asked her father for her hand in but was unable to pay a suitable bride price in the tradition of tribals of all societies. Instead, he offered to make the son of their union the future king of Ayodhya. Thus Dasrath's dilemma may not have been the demands of a scheming woman but his agony in trying to fulfil his own moral commitment to her father.



In Srilanka, the myth of the Ramayana is told in reverse with Ravana as the great hero and Ram as his evil adversary. There are still different ver­sions in Bali, Vietnam and Thailand. In the latter, Hanuman is no paragon of loyalty and virtue but a shameless seducer of .



There is no historical proof to any of these. Ram was the hero of a great myth even after Valmiki's Ramayana. Scholars believe that the internal evidence suggests that the first and last book of present day versions were interpolated much later. Valmiki=s Ram was a human hero but the later additions gave him attributes of a . He was raised to being an incarnation of Vishnu in much later times. These interpolations also added the story of Sita=s banishment that may not have been in the original version.



It was just 350 years ago that Goswami Tulsidas (1534 to 1623) wrote the lyrical Ramacharitamanas whose colourful and evocative poetry fired Hindu and fulfilled a need for Hindu glory in the late Muslim period. Only then was Ram truly raised to the status of a throughout north .



24. What about the Ramayana in ?


There were many oral accounts of the great legend before the celebrated version of the robber turned writer, Valmiki. There is no certainty about whether his account is older than the account in the Mahabharat. As the southern movement of the Aryas only began about 800 BC after the advent of iron needed to clear the forests the events of the Ramayana must have occurred after 700 BC if the events of the myth had occurred in .



The Indian legend names a number of places in like Ayodhya, Chitrakoot, Dandakaranya, Lanka, Panchavati, Videha, etc., that have now become an intrinsic part of the Indian legend. There is no empirical his­toric evidence about the exact location of these places. People in all countries have a habit of naming new places after venerated old ones in the places that they had left as evident by the names of many English towns in America and Australia.



There is absolutely no evidence that Ram was born at the site of the Babri Masjid that was demolished by Hindu fanatics on December 6, 1992. The excavations at the site have revealed some remains of an old stone temple but no Hindu stone temple was ever built anywhere in till after the 4th century AD. The pillars, beams and other stones found at the site may have been the ruins of a Buddhist or Jain temple.



25. Was Ram the epitome of honour and nobility and Ramrajya the ideal society?


Certainly in terms of the rather male chauvinist that had prevailed in north . Valmiki's account of the reunion of Ram and Sita after his defeat of Ravana, however, leaves readers in no that his quest was not a romantic quest to regain his lost but an endeavour solely to redeem an insult to his honour. He appears suspicious of her chastity and conduct while in Ravan's captivity from the beginning and then callously banishes this loyal and loving wife even in her pregnancy despite her self-induced trial by fire to try to prove her innocence.



There are also feminine versions of the great legend sung by in Andhra, Bengal, Karnataka and many other places where his chauvanistic are mocked. Instead there are feminine songs extolling issues like Kaushalya's pregnancy, Ram's birth, Sita's puberty, wedding and pregnancy and Surpanakha's revenge that take a higher place than the heroic victories of the legendary men.



There are similarly non-Brahmin versions sung by lower castes that have a completely different focus. His treacherous killing of Bali from behind and his killing of Sambukha simply because he was a Shudra who dared to perform austerities which Brahmins interpreted to have caused a Brahmin boy to become sick are especially condemned. E. V. Ramaswamy, in 1956 collected data to show that Ram was weak, vain, indecisive and fickle while it was Ravan who was truly noble.



Unlike folk tales in other countries, the epic of Ramayana has been tightly managed by Brahmins to make it a very powerful religious and social statement about individual and group and actions.



26. Is the history of the Mahabharata equally uncertain?


The Mahabharata is undoubtedly one of the greatest epics ever written detailing a long tale of courage, , cowardice, joy, , ro­mance, and almost every human emotion and value. It compares with the Greek Iliad but there is no way in which the dates and sites of the events can be accurately determined.



It is not also the oldest legend for the father of all legends is the very much older Babylonian legend of Gilgamesh that is the origin of many later legends like the story of the deluge and the for­bidden fruit. The first recorded version of this is a cuneiform inscription dated to 1800 BC.



The time and place of the events of the epic Mahabharata are uncertain and has many local traditions. The inhabitants of the remote Jaunsar Bewar area of north west UP be­lieve that the Kauravas were their ancestors and they still worship Duryodhana in special temples dedicated to him in every village. Many other areas in also have myths concerning local sites supposedly visited by the heroes of the great legend.



It is also of interest that the Puranas speak of the Uttara Kuru and a Dakshin Kuru. The former may have been the river, still called the Kuru, north west of Meru (Pamirs?) which empties into the Caspian Sea south of Baku in Azerbaijan. The river was important enough for Cyrus (Kurosh), the great Persian emperor to have been named after it. It leads to the interesting possibility that the battlefield of Kurukshetra might even have been in west Asia.



27. What was the influence of Buddhism on Indian thought?


It had enormous influence. Buddhism held sway over most parts of for over a thousand years from the time of Ashoka in the 3rd century BC to the time of Harsha in the 7th century AD and shaped many philosophical ideas in all religions. Though it may have initially been a revolt against the oppressive Brahmin practices especially their lavish sacrifices, it propagated the concepts of Karma, Dharma, Ahimsa and reincarnation that later became a core part of Hindu philosophy especially through the later Upanishads.



Buddhism was a joyous that introduced the idea of to the world. A concept that may have also influenced as it was a new concept to the Judiastic tradition. It preached that hatred can never be appeased by hatred but only by . It asserted that the only victories were the conquest of the heart because victories in the battlefield only caused the defeated to lie down in sorrow and wait for revenge making future impossible.



Buddhists and Jains did not also believe in a supreme creator but that every man and woman would get the rewards and punishments of their good and bad actions in this life and in future incarnations. When souls evolved sufficiently they could achieve Nirvana or a breathless, soundless, inert nothingness. Strictly speaking, Buddhism was not a but a philosophy because it did not concern itself with other-worldly matters.



In the later period after the 3rd century AD, the simple purity of Hinayana Buddhism was corrupted by a multiplicity of supernatural deities, Bodhisatvas, rich temples, elaborate ceremonies and metaphysics of Mahayana that had borrowed many elements from competing Hindu traditions that were evolving. This eventually led to its downfall when Shankaracharya interpreted that Buddha was not an absolute divinity but just an incarnation of an even greater Vishnu.



28. Was industry and commerce encouraged by Buddhism one of the foundations of 's greatness?


Buddhism, as well as Jainism, encouraged industry and commerce which the Brahmins considered ’arth', or earthly, and thus impure and undesirable. It was the and commerce of the Buddhist era that actually contributed to so much of the greatness of . Many of their monasteries and viharas were located at centres especially on the routes to distant markets.



After the decline of Buddhism from the 7th century, many Buddhists gradually drifted towards a low Hinduism that may have brought their icons of Ganesh and Lakshmi into the Hindu fold. They may have been the ancestors of the Banya, Chettiar and other trading communities who seem to have no other earlier history. They continued to respect and commerce that the Brahmins and Kshatriyas looked down upon.



It is also postulated that the festival of Divali, dedicated to Lakshmi, may have originally been a Banya festival while Dusshera was a Kshatriya festival and Holi a tribal or low caste festival.



Industry and commerce were the real foundations of all great empires of the world while the arts and culture, that flourished during the dying periods, were their tombstones. History leaves behind little evidence of the and commerce but the temples, palaces, sculptures, arts, and other examples of cultural achievement survive for future generations to admire.



29. Was the Mauryan Empire the first organised state in post Harappan ?


Yes. It was the first Indian Empire after the collapse of the Harappan civilisation about 1200 years earlier. Though the empire only lasted 238 years from 323 to 185 BC it was to have a profound influence on 's future economic and social development.



After cementing an alliance with Alexander's successor, the satrap Seleucos Nikator, with a matrimonial alliance, Chandragupta Maurya created the first true Empire in with his capital at Pataliputra in Bihar. (As an important Greek princess could only have married a person of high status like Chandragupta or his son Bimbisara, there is the interesting possibility that Ashok might have been part Greek).



The wealth of the empire was sustained by land taxes and by extensive through a series of log paved corrugated imperial roads. One was the Uttarapatha going through the Ganges basin to while the Dakshinapatha opened the southern routes to the Narmada valley and later the Godavari. Massive clearing of forests also brought in revenue from people newly settled on them.



Perhaps influenced by his Brahmin chief minister Chanakya, or Kautilya, the empire forged a new political system with strict surveillance and an elaborate spy system. Samanthas, or alliances with subsidiary states were regularised to bring in rich tributes at great state ceremonies. Temples that were established with Brahmin priests posted to temples erected in the territories o