We in India often take pride in Indian civilization, in its ancientness and great cultural traditions that go back to the dawn of ages. This is a legitimate feeling, if you consider that Americans or Australians, for instance, often take even greater pride in their countries though they are about two centuries old ; of course, their pride has to be mostly in their material achievements, since they have had little to show by way of culture, especially nowadays. India, by contrast, always laid stress on a deep culture before anything else, and yet, contrary to a common misconception, she never neglected material life either, except in recent centuries.

I would like to offer tonight some glimpses of the earliest civilization on the Indian subcontinent, and to show that its high practicality, and what we may call in our modern language its “technological” accomplishments, deserve our admiration, as does the cultural backdrop that made these accomplishments possible. I will also take a brief look at its relationship with later Indian civilization, and that will lead us to what is commonly known as the “Aryan problem.” In doing so, we will be guided by an objective scientific spirit, taking into account the most recent findings from archaeology and other fields.

Advance of Archaeology

But first, let me note a strange fact. If you open any good book on the great civilizations of the ancient world, aimed not at scholars but at a wider readership, you will almost invariably find that Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt are given pride of place ; then come, in mixed order, ancient China, Greece, Central and South America, and the Indus Valley civilization, also called the Harappan civilization. Everyone agrees that this early civilization of the Indian subcontinent was one of the largest in extent, that it made great advances in crafts and technology, in trade and agriculture, and that its social organization appears to have been one of the most efficient, methodical and trouble-free ever ; still, in the end, it will rarely be given more than a few pages where dozens will be devoted to Mesopotamia or Egypt, and today, more than seventy years after its discovery, its existence and accomplishments remain largely unknown to the general public outside the subcontinent — and inside, too.

In fact, almost everything about the Harappan civilization appears mysterious at first sight : Who were its inhabitants ? What language did they speak ? What beliefs and culture did they have ? What type of government was able to hold it together ? What caused its decline ? Why were its great cities abandoned ? Did great natural calamities take place, or should we blame wars or invoke some invasions ? And also : What connection is there between this ancient civilization and those that followed on Indian soil, in the plains of the Ganga, for example ? Is there a complete break between the two, as some Western scholars assert, or can what we call Indian civilization be traced all the way back to the Indus valley ?

Archaeologists, historians and experts from other fields have been largely unable to agree on these fundamental questions. One reason for this is the persisting lack of unanimity on the various decipherments proposed for the Indus script, found on thousands of seals and pottery pieces excavated from Harappan towns and cities. So their inhabitants remain dumb to us, their thoughts and culture unfathomable — we are left to admire their material skills, while scholars indulge in “educated guesses” on the significance of the statues unearthed, the figures engraved on the seals, the modes of burial, of government, and virtually every aspect of Harappan life. Another reason is the very small number of sites excavated, one to two per cent of all sites identified as Harappan ; this means we have barely scratched the surface, and many major findings are awaiting us a few metres underground. To give just two examples, the site of Ganweriwala, in the Cholistan region of Pakistan, is estimated to cover eighty hectares, while that of Lakhmirwala, in India’s Punjab, is thought by the Indian archaeologist J.P. Joshi to exceed 225 hectares — but neither has been excavated. A third reason has been the nineteenth-century hypothesis of an Aryan invasion into India, which insisted on placing the origins of Indian civilization somewhere in Central Asia, and therefore left the discovery in the 1920s of the Indus Valley civilization wrapped in a cloud of confusion.

As a result, till a few years ago, the Harappan world was mostly presented as anonymous and rather disembodied, with little to excite our imagination in the way Egypt’s pyramids do. As one of those general books I mentioned puts it, “The birth, life and death of the Indus civilization remain three enigmas.”[1] Not very encouraging. But the scene is fast changing : a lot of path-breaking excavations have taken place in recent years, for example at Mehrgarh and Harappa, both now in Pakistan, and in India at Dholavira and Rakhigarhri. Also, in the last three years or so, a number of excellent new studies have appeared on the Indus Valley civilization, written by Indian, American and British archaeologists.[2] Scholars from other disciplines[3] have joined them — sometimes also challenged them — some old misconceptions are giving way, and a clearer picture is slowly emerging. In a few years from now, we can expect this civilization to take its rightful place as one of the greatest of the ancient world, with most of its “enigmas” dispelled. Today, let us just try to take stock.


Physical Data

The most physical data about the Harappan civilization are clear enough : As of last year, it was said to comprise more than 1,500 settlements, most of them small villages or towns, with only a few large cities. Some of the “villages” covered more than twenty hectares ; the cities, in comparison, often extended over some eighty hectares — Mohenjo-daro up to 250 hectares, about the size of the entire I.I.T. campus where we are gathered tonight. However, new sites are added every week or month, and the U.S. archaeologist Gregory L. Possehl, in a just published monumental study,[4] gives a detailed list of 2,600 Harappan sites ! What the final figure will be is anyone’s guess.

The total area encompassed was huge : over one million square kilometres — more than ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia put together, or, if you prefer, eight times the size of Tamil Nadu. The southern limit was between the Tapti and the Godavari rivers, while the northern limit was some 1,400 kilometres away in Kashmir (at Manda) — though one site, Shortughai, is found still farther up, in Afghanistan ; as of now, the easternmost settlement stands at Alamgirpur in Western Uttar Pradesh, and the western limits were the Arabian sea and the whole Makran coast, almost all the way to the present Pakistan-Iran border.

If this civilization was named after the Indus, it is because the first major settlements, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, were found along that river and its tributary, the Ravi. However, in recent decades, exploration on both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border has brought to light hundreds of sites along the dry bed of a huge river in the Ghaggar-Hakra valley.[5] This lost river is now widely recognized to have been the legendary Sarasvati praised in the Rig-Veda (which also mentioned the Indus, or “Sindhu,” and all other major rivers of Punjab). The course of the Sarasvati, south of and broadly parallel to that of the Indus, has been studied and plotted in some detail not only by geological exploration, but also by satellite photography and recently by radioisotope dating of the water still found under the river’s dry bed in the Rajasthan desert.[6] Since the sites found along the Sarasvati far outnumber those in the Indus basin, some scholars have made the point that the Harappan civilization would be better named the “Indus-Sarasvati civilization.” For instance, the giant sites of Ganweriwala and Lakhmirwala which I mentioned earlier are located on the course of the Sarasvati, as are the better known settlements of Kalibangan and Banawali. Of course, the name “Indus-Sarasvati civilization” still leaves out a number of sites in Gujarat, such as Lothal, but it stresses the importance of the Sarasvati river as the major lifeline of this civilization, the Indus coming a close second.

Whatever its name, when we speak of this civilization, we usually mean its “mature phase” (also called “integration era”), during which the great cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Ganweriwala, Rakhigahri, Dholavira and others flourished. That phase is now usually dated 2600-1900 BC. But it was of course not born in a day : it was preceded by a long phase called “early Harappan” or “regionalization era,” during which villages kept developing and started interacting, and also many technologies (pottery, metallurgy, farming etc.) were perfected ; that early phase is now dated by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, a U.S. archaeologist who has worked on many Indus sites, 5000-2600 BC. It was itself the result of a long evolution between 7000 and 5000 BC, which saw the emergence of the first village farming communities and pastoral camps (as in many other regions of the world) : Mehrgarh, at the foot of the Bolan Pass in the Kachi plain of Baluchistan, is the best known example ; according to its excavator, the French archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige, “The site covers an area of about 500 acres [200 hectares] with only pre-Harappan remains” and shows “evidence of continuous occupation for more than three millennia prior to the Harappan civilization.”[7]

The end of the mature phase is usually dated 1900 BC, when most of the cities were gradually abandoned ; their remarkable civic organization broke down, forcing people to go back to the villages. The most probable cause was a series of natural catastrophes — earthquakes, drastic changes in river courses, consequent depletion of the Sarasvati, floods, but also a long drought over the whole region (including West Asia), all of which ravaged agriculture, and perhaps also excessive deforestation to supply wood to kilns and furnaces. Another likely factor is a sharp reduction in external trade, especially with Mesopotamia. But, while earlier generations of scholars spoke of a total break in Indian civilization as a result of this decline, archaeologists now agree that another phase, called post-Harappan, post-urban or also “localization era,” and dated about 1900-1300 BC, followed, and went on to provide a smooth transition to the first historical states in the Ganga region.


The Cities

What impressed the first discoverers of Harappan cities most was their sophistication, which displayed town-planning of a level that would be found only 2000 years later in Europe. Geometrically designed, the towns had fortifications (for protection against both intruders and floods), several distinct quarters, assembly halls, and manufacturing units of various types ; some bigger cities had furnaces for the production of copper tools, weapons or ornaments ; public baths (probably often part of temples), private baths for most inhabitants, sewerage through underground drains built with precisely laid bricks, and an efficient water management with numerous reservoirs and wells show that the ordinary inhabitant was well taken care of. Mohenjo-daro, for instance, is thought to have had over 700 wells, some of them fifteen metres deep, built with special trapezoid bricks (to prevent collapse by the pressure of the surrounding soil), and maintained for several centuries. Quite a few of those wells were found in private houses. Dholavira had separate drains to collect rain water and six or seven dams built across nearby rivers. “The fact that even smaller towns and villages had impressive drainage systems,” remarks Kenoyer, “indicates that removing polluted water and sewage was an important part of the daily concerns of the Indus people.”[8] I am sure that many of our villages in today’s rural India would be quite happy with such an infrastructure — maybe the candidates at present roaming our dusty roads in search of votes should study Harappan public amenities !

The well-known Indian archaeologist, B. B. Lal, writes in a recent comprehensive study of this civilization :

Well-regulated streets [were] oriented almost invariably along with the cardinal directions, thus forming a grid-iron pattern. [At Kalibangan] even the widths of these streets were in a set ratio, i.e. if the narrowest lane was one unit in width, the other streets were twice, thrice and so on. [...] Such a town-planning was unknown in contemporary West Asia.[9]

The houses were almost always built with mud bricks (sometimes fired in kilns), which followed a standard ratio of 4 :2 :1, though the actual sizes varied : bricks for houses, for instance, might be 28 x 14 x 7 cm, while for fortification walls they could be 36 x 18 x 9 cm or even bigger. Walls were on average seventy centimetres thick (which I suppose would be nearly three times the thickness of your hostel walls), and many houses were at least two storeys high. A few houses, perhaps those of rulers or wealthy traders, were particularly large, with up to seven rooms, but they might be found right next to a craftsman’s modest house. A number of big buildings, such as that around Mohenjo-daro’s “Great Bath,” seem to have served a community purpose, sometimes perhaps that of temples. Dholavira, in Kutch, even boasts a huge maidan. It also has massive fortification walls, some of them as thick as eleven metres, built in the earliest stage of the city ; apart from standardized bricks, stones were also used there on a large scale, undressed as well as dressed (note that stones were perfectly dressed with just copper tools : iron was not yet known).


Arts and Crafts

The Harappans were expert craftsmen. They made beads of carnelian, agate, amethyst, turquoise, lapis lazuli, etc. ; they manufactured bangles out of shells, glazed faience and terracotta ; they carved ivory and worked shells into ornaments, bowls and ladles ; they cast copper (which they mined themselves in Baluchistan and Rajasthan) and bronze for weapons, all types of tools, domestic objects and statues (such as the famous “dancing girl”) ; they also worked silver and gold with great skill, specially for ornaments. Of course, they baked pottery in large quantity — to the delight of archaeologists, since the different shapes, styles, and painted motifs are among the best guides in the evolution of any civilization (let us remember that most objects made of cloth, wood, reed, palm leaves etc., usually vanish without a trace, especially in hot climates). We also know that the Harappans excelled at stone-carving, complex weaving and carpet-making, inlaid woodwork and decorative architecture. And, of course, they engraved with remarkable artistry their famous seals, mostly in steatite (or soapstone) ; those seals, over 3,000 of which have been found, seem to have served various purposes : some commercial, to identify consignments to be shipped, and some ritual or spiritual, to invoke deities.

Dancing, painting, sculpture, and music (there is evidence of drums and of stringed instruments) were all part of their culture. Possibly drama and puppet shows too, judging from a number of masks. Statues are not abundant, but refined, whether in stone, bronze or terracotta. An ancestor of the game of chess has been unearthed at Lothal. Children too were not forgotten, judging from the exquisite care with which toys were fashioned.



Trade, Shipping, Agriculture & Technology

In addition to a considerable internal trade in metals, stones and all kinds of goods, the Harappans had a flourishing overseas trade with Oman, Bahrain, and Sumer ; exchanges with the Sumerians went on for at least seven centuries, and merchant colonies were established in Bahrain and the Euphrates-Tigris valley. Of course, none of this would have been possible without high skills in ship-making and sailing, and several representations of ships have been found on seals, while many massive stone anchors have come up at Lothal and other sites of Saurashtra. For navigation, compasses carved out of conch shells appear to have been used to measure angles between stars. A voyage from Lothal to Mesopotamia to sell the prized Harappan carnelian beads, which the kings and queens of Ur were so fond of, meant at least 2,500 kilometres of seafaring ; of course there would have been halts along the shore on the way, but still, 4,500 years ago this must have ranked among the best sailing abilities.

The other, perhaps the chief mainstay of Harappan prosperity was agriculture. It was practised on a wide scale, with hundreds of rural settlements and extensive networks of canals for irrigation ; wheat, barley, rice, a number of vegetables, and cotton were some of the common crops. Mehrgarh, for instance, shows “a veritable agricultural economy solidly established as early as 6000 BC.”[10] Kalibangan even yielded a field ploughed with two perpendicular networks of furrows, in which higher crops (such as mustard) were grown in the spaced-out north-south furrows, thus casting shorter shadows, while shorter crops (such as gram) filled the contiguous east-west furrows. As B. B. Lal has shown, this is a technique still used today in the same region.

Any society capable of town-planning, shipping, refined arts and crafts, writing, sustained trading, necessarily has to master a good deal of technology. This was also the case here. Craftsmen often used standardized tools and techniques, especially for the more complex productions. A highly standardized system of stone weights, unique in the ancient world, was found not only throughout the Harappan settlements, but also two thousand years later in the first kingdoms of the Ganga plains. (The weights were mostly cubes, but sometimes also truncated spheres.) The first seven weights in the system followed a geometrical progression, with ratios of 1 : 2 : 4 : 8 : 16 (by which time the weight had reached 13.7g) : 32 : 64, after which the increments switched to a decimal system and went 160, 200, 320, 640, 1600, 3200, 6400, 8000 and 12,800. The largest weight found in Mohenjo-daro is 10,865 grams. Now, if you divide its corresponding ratio of 12,800 by the ratio 16, you get 800 ; multiply this figure by the weight of 13.7 g found for the 16th ratio, and you get a theoretical weight of 10,960g — a difference of only 95g with the actual weight, or less than 0.9% ! I don’t think the weights used today in our markets reach such precision, not to speak of those traders who get their weights tailor-made !

In fact, the Harappans very much seem to be the inventors of the first decimal system for measurement. Their town-planning, which makes much use of geometry, partly relied on this decimal system. Let me quote from S. R. Rao, an Indian archaeologist famous for his excavations at Lothal and his undersea discoveries at Dwaraka and Poompuhar ; he comments here on an ivory scale found at Lothal, engraved with nearly thirty divisions regularly spaced every 1.704 mm :

It is the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age. The width of the wall of the Lothal dock is 1.78 m [i.e. 1,000 such divisions ... and] the length of the east-west wall of the dock is twenty times its width. Obviously the Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes....[11]

I should point out that apart from the continuance of the Indus weight system or agricultural methods into the historic period, archaeologists have often highlighted how traditional craftsmen today in Sindh, Punjab, Rajasthan or Gujarat still use techniques — in bead-making or shell-working, for instance — very similar to those evolved in Harappan times more than 4,500 years ago. Even some buildings techniques are still in use, as B. B. Lal has pointed out.

But however impressive those technological achievements may be (and there are many others), we should remember that they were not separate activities, but always blended with the cultural life of the Harappan world. As Kenoyer remarks,

Symbols of Indus religion and culture were incorporated into pottery, ornaments and everyday tools in a way that helped to unite people within the urban centers and link them with distant rural communities.[12]

Government and Social Evolution

What we have seen so far, and very briefly, is only the most visible features of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization. The internal and external mechanics of such a society are infinitely complex, and will no doubt keep archaeologists racking their brains for some more time. For example, while a few of them see the Harappan political organization as an empire, with Mohenjo-daro as the seat of the emperor and a number of “governors” in the regional capitals, others are in favour of regional states, in view of the difficulty posed by a single central authority over such vast distances without our modern communications. Those regional states would have had identities of their own (as evidenced from regional variations in arts and crafts), but they would all have been united by a common culture, and also by a common language (regardless of possible regional dialects). B. B. Lal, for instance, brings a parallel between the Harappan society and the Sixteen States or Mahajanapadas of later Buddhist times. This hypothesis is strengthened by the lack of any glorification or even representation of rulers on the seals ; even the few sculptures of human figures found at Mohenjo-daro cannot be said to represent rulers with any great certainty.

Whatever the truth may be, a few clear points stand out and meet with general agreement :

First, a remarkable civic organization, which allowed streets in big cities to be free from any encroachment for centuries together (can our present Indian cities claim the same for just a few weeks ?). And let us remember that Mohenjo-daro is thought to have sheltered at least 50,000 inhabitants — almost a megalopolis for those times.

Secondly, a complete absence of any evidence of armies or warfare or slaughter or man-made destruction in any settlement and at any point of time, even as regards the early phase. Not a single seal depicts a battle or a captive or a victor. True, there were fortifications and weapons (the latter rather few), but those were probably to guard against local tribes or marauders rather than against people from other cities and villages. Fortifications were also often protections against floods, and weapons must have been used mostly for hunting. So far as the archaeological record shows, major disruptions in the cities’ life were caused by natural calamities. In no other ancient civilization is warfare so absent, and over such a long period of time ; by contrast, other civilizations of the time consistently recorded and glorified war feats. And our own modern “civilization,” I need not remind you, is the bloodiest ever : a few days ago, a United Nations report lamented the existence of more than 500 million small arms in circulation — that means one gun or semi-automatic weapon for every ten of us....

Thirdly, archaeologists now agree that the origins of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization are to be found on the subcontinent itself. It no doubt had extensive cultural and commercial contacts with other civilizations, but its identity was distinct. In the words of Jim G. Shaffer, a U.S. archaeologist who has worked on many Indus sites :

It is time to view the archaeological data for what it is, and not what one thinks it is. Recent studies are just beginning to indicate the real importance of Harappan studies, showing that in South Asia, a unique experiment in the development of urban, literate culture, was under way. Such a culture was highly attuned to local conditions and not a mirror of Mesopotamia’s urban experiment....[13]

The Indus-Sarasvati civilization thus represented a long indigenous evolution, spanning almost 6,000 years, and with no visible break or disruption from outside. By any standard, this is a unique achievement in human history.

But let us not forget that no society can survive long without a culture to cement its members together and make their lives meaningful. The very fact that the Indus-Valley civilization was able to hold together for three millennia (if we include its early phase), over an immense stretch of land, and with all the signs of social harmony and stability, shows that it must have had a deep and strong culture as its foundation. Let us now try to catch a glimpse of it.






The Aryan Problem




The relationship of the Indus-Saraswati civilization with the later Indian civilization remains a subject of debate. Most of you probably learned at school that the Harappan towns were destroyed by semi-barbarian Aryans rushing down from Central Asia on their horse chariots, and that the survivors among their inhabitants, assumed to have been Dravidians, were driven to South India by the invaders. Passages from the Rig-Veda were twisted and sometimes mistranslated to show a record of such a physical and cultural clash. In many respects, this is still the “official” theory, although, since the 1960s, when the U.S. archaeologist G. F. Dales demolished all supposed evidence of such attacks and slaughter, the theory has limited itself to saying that the supposed Aryans, or Indo-Aryans or Indo-Europeans, to use the present terminology, entered North India after the collapse of the Harappan civilization.

But you may be surprised to learn that most archaeologists now reject this invasion or migration theory, as they cannot find the slightest trace of it on the ground, and it is unthinkable that the supposed Aryans could have conquered most of India and imposed on it their Vedic culture without leaving any physical evidence of any sort. Even respected archaeologists of the old school of thought, such as Raymond and Bridget Allchin, now admit that the arrival of Indo-Aryans in Northwest India is “scarcely attested in the archaeological record, presumably because their material culture and life-style were already virtually indistinguishable from those of the existing population.”[14] We are very far from the bloody invasion and cultural war envisaged by Max Müller and other nineteenth-century scholars.

But even this tempered view is no longer acceptable to the “new school,” whose foundation can be said to have been laid in 1984 by Jim Shaffer. He wrote :

Current archaeological data do not support the existence of an Indo-Aryan or European invasion into South Asia any time in the pre- or protohistoric periods. Instead, it is possible to document archaeologically a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural developments from prehistoric to historic periods.[15]

Kenoyer, whom I quoted earlier, concludes in his recent beautiful book :

Many scholars have tried to correct this absurd theory [of an Aryan invasion], by pointing out misinterpreted basic facts, inappropriate models and an uncritical reading of Vedic texts. However, until recently, these scientific and well-reasoned arguments were unsuccessful in rooting out the misinterpretations entrenched in the popular literature.

[...] But there is no archaeological or biological evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the end of the Harappan Phase, about 1900 BC and the beginning of the Early Historic period around 600 BC.[16]

I could quote similar opinions from many respected Indian archaeologists such as B. B. Lal, S. R. Rao, S. P. Gupta, Dilip K. Chakrabarty, K. M. Srivastava, M. K. Dhavalikar, R. S. Bisht and others. The point is that the theory of an Aryan invasion or even migration into India finds no evidence on the ground and has no scientific basis whatsoever.

The biological evidence Kenoyer refers to relies on the detailed examination of skeletons found in Harappan settlements. Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, a U.S. expert who has extensively studied such skeletal remains, observes :

Biological anthropologists remain unable to lend support to any of the theories concerning an Aryan biological or demographic entity [...]. What the biological data demonstrate is that no exotic races are apparent from laboratory studies of human remains excavated from any archaeological sites [...]. All prehistoric human remains recovered thus far from the Indian subcontinent are phenotypically identifiable as ancient South Asians. [...] In short, there is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the north-western sector of the subcontinent during and immediately after the decline of the Harappan culture.[17]

I hope you understand the implication : No invasion or migration caused or followed the collapse of the urban phase of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization around 1900 BC. What is still taught in our textbooks about so-called Aryans is no more than imagination. The Harappans were just Northwestern Indians of the time and continued to live there even after the end of the urban phase (with some of them migrating towards the Ganga plains in search of greener pastures). In fact, archaeologists and anthropologists now reject the old notion of race altogether. To quote from Possehl’s recent book which I mentioned earlier :

Race as it was used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been totally discredited as a useful concept in human biology. [...] There is no reason to believe today that there ever was an Aryan race that spoke Indo-European languages and was possessed with a coherent and well-defined set of Aryan or Indo-European cultural features.[18]

In simple terms, this means that, for science, there is no such thing as an Aryan race, or a Dravidian race for that matter. Nor is there for Indian tradition, in which the word “Arya” never meant a race, but a quality of true nobility, culture and refinement. And so, if no Aryan people invaded or entered into India, it stands to reason that the Vedic culture was also native to the subcontinent, and not an import. In fact, quite a few scholars and archaeologists today see a number of clear Vedic traits in the Harappan culture. To cite a few : the presence of fire-altars, an essential element of Vedic rituals ; the symbol of a bull engraved on hundreds of seals, a Vedic symbol par excellence ; the cult of a mother-goddess, of a Shiva-like deity, the depiction of yogic postures, and of yogis or sages (judging from his deeply contemplative appearance, the so-called “priest-king” was more likely a yogi or a rishi than a priest). The famous Unicorn and the three-headed creature, both depicted on many Indus seals, are mentioned in the Mahabharata as aspects of Krishna, as N. Jha, an Indian epigraphist, has shown. Indeed, quite a few symbols used in later Indian culture, such as the trishul or the swastika, the pipal tree or the endless-knot design, are found in the Indus-Saraswati cities. Even its town-planning with three main distinct areas is consistent with Rig-Vedic descriptions, as the Indian archaeologist R. S. Bisht has argued.[19] So are trade and shipping, also extensively mentioned in the Rig-Veda.


Moreover, let us remember the hundreds of settlements along the Sarasvati, a river praised in the Rig-Veda, which confirms again the identification between Harappans and Vedic people.

The decipherment of the Indus script would of course be the ultimate test. I will just mention here that while attempts to read some proto-Dravidian language into it have failed and are now abandoned, there has been progress among those who see the language thus written to be related to Sanskrit. N. Jha’s decipherment, proposed recently, appears to be the most promising, simple and consistent, and once a major study of it is published shortly,[20] we can expect a lively debate among scholars to decide its value.


One more remark before I conclude : Archaeological evidence in no way contradicts Indian tradition, rather it broadly agrees with it (except for its chronology). Whether from North or South India, tradition never mentioned anything remotely resembling an Aryan invasion into India. Sanskrit scriptures make it clear that they regard the Vedic homeland to be the Saptasindhu, which is precisely the core of the Harappan territory. As for the Sangam tradition, it is equally silent about any northern origin of the Tamil people ; its only reference is to a now submerged island to the south of India, Kumari Kandam, and initial findings at Poompuhar show that, without our having to accept this legend literally, we may indeed find a few submerged cities along Tamil Nadu’s coast ; only more systematic explorations, especially at Poompuhar and Kanyakumari, where fishermen have long reported submerged structures, can throw more light on this tradition.

Not only Indian tradition, but a number of Indians with a far better understanding of Vedic texts than that of Western scholars, for example Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Aurobindo, B. R. Ambedkar and many others, have vigorously dismissed the Aryan invasion as a groundless conjecture intended to divide Indians for colonial motives. They have correctly argued that the Indian people have no memory or record of any such outside origin, and archaeology is now increasingly confirming their insights.

Conclusion

I will end where I began. Would it be “chauvinistic” (to use a word our modern Indian intellectuals are so fond of) to attribute the greatness of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization to the Indian genius ? I do not think so. Apart from its striking cultural continuity with subsequent developments of Indian civilization, which makes up a total thread of 9,000 years, it exhibits traits typical of the Indian temperament : a bold enterprising spirit, a remarkable adaptability to changing conditions, a cultural and spiritual content in the smallest everyday activities, and, most importantly, a capacity for a broader view, without which this huge area could not have had such a cultural homogeneity free from major conflicts. Even its remarkable civic sense, so lacking in today’s India, is yet part of the Indian character ; I have observed that Indians are quite capable of it, but contrary to well-disciplined Western peoples (the British or the Germans, for instance), Indians will accept collective discipline only once their hearts have been conquered ; mere authority and rules cannot get it out of them.

All said and done, the people of the Indian subcontinent can justifiably claim this ancient civilization as a central and inspiring part of their heritage. But they should not forget to learn from it the great lesson of the cycles of birth, life, decay, and rebirth of Indian civilization, a lesson we need to keep in our minds especially at the present moment.








Bibliography
& Suggested Further Reading

(This list includes only books published this decade and accessible to a general public with an interest in the Harappan civilization and the Aryan question ; more technical or scholarly studies have not been listed here.)

Allchin, Raymond & Bridget, Origins of a Civilization — The Prehistory and Early Archaeology of South Asia (New Delhi : Viking, 1997)

Danino, Michel & Nahar, Sujata, The Invasion That Never Was (New Delhi : The Mother’s Institute of Research & Mysore : Mira Aditi, 2nd ed., 2000)

Deo, S.B., & Kamath, Suryanath, The Aryan Problem (Pune : Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, 1993)


Feuerstein, Georg, Kak, Subhash & Frawley, David, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (Wheaton, U.S.A. : Quest Books, 1995 & Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass, 1999)

Frawley, David, Gods, Sages and Kings — Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization (Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass, 1993)

——, The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India (New Delhi : Voice of India, 1994)

Gupta, S. P., The Indus-Sarasvati Civilization — Origins, Problems and Issues (Delhi : Pratibha Prakashan, 1996)

Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (Karachi & Islamabad : Oxford University Press & American Institute of Pakistan Studies, 1998)

Jha, N., Vedic Glossary on Indus Seals (Vanarasi : Ganga Kaveri Publishing House, 1996)

Jha, N. & Rajaram, N. S., The Deciphered Indus Script — Methodology, Readings, Interpretations (New Delhi : Aditya Prakashan, 2000)

Lal, B. B., The Earliest Civilization of South Asia (New Delhi : Aryan Books International, 1997)

——, India 1947-1997 : New Light on the Indus Civilization (New Delhi : Aryan Books International, 1998)

Mughal, Mohammad Rafique, Ancient Cholistan — Archaeology and Architecture (Lahore : Ferozsons, 1997)

Possehl, Gregory L., The Indus Age : The Writing System (New Delhi : Oxford & IBH, 1996)

——, The Indus Age : The Beginnings (New Delhi : Oxford & IBH, 1999)

Radhakrishnan, B. P., & Merh, S. S., eds., Vedic Sarasvati — Evolutionary History of a Lost River of Northwestern India (Bangalore : Geological Society of India, 1999)

Rajaram, N. S., Politics of History — Aryan Invasion Theory and the Subversion of Scholarship (New Delhi : Voice of India, 1995)

Rajaram, N. S. & Frawley, David, Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization — A Literary and Scientific Perspective (New Delhi : Voice of India, 1997)

Rao, S. R., Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilization (New Delhi : Aditya Prakashan, 1991)

Singh, Bhagwan, The Vedic Harappans (New Delhi : Aditya Prakashan, 1995)

Talageri, Shrikant G., The Rigveda : A historical Analysis (New Delhi : Aditya Prakashan, 2000)



References


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Ruth Whitehouse & John Wilkins, L’Aube des Civilisations (“Dawn of Civilization”, Paris : Bordas, 1987), p. 69.

[2] See in the Bibliography titles under Allchin, Gupta, Kenoyer, Lal, Mughal, Possehl, Radhakrishnan and Rao.

[3] See in the Bibliography titles under Elst, Feuerstein, Frawley, Jha and Rajaram.

[4] See Bibliography under Possehl, 1999.

[5] See Bibliography under Mughal.

[6] See detailed study in S. M. Rao and K. M. Kulkarni, “Isotope hydrology studies on water resources in Western Rajasthan,” Current Science, 10 January 1997.

[7] Jean-François Jarrige, “Excavations at Mehrgarh” in Harappan Civilization, ed. Gregory L. Possehl (New Delhi : Oxford & IBH, 1993), p. 79 ff.

[8] Kenoyer, 1998, p. 61.

[9] Lal, 1997, p. 95.

[10] Jean-François Jarrige, “De l’Euphrate à l’Indus,” Dossiers Histoire et Archéologie (Dijon : December 1987), p. 84.

[11] Rao, 1991, p. 17.

[12] Kenoyer, 1998, p. 162.

[13] Jim G. Shaffer, “Harappan Culture : A Reconsideration,” in Harappan Civilization, ed. Gregory L. Possehl (New Delhi : Oxford & IBH, 1993), p. 49.

[14] Allchin, 1997, p. 222.

[15] Jim G. Shaffer, “The Indo-Aryan Invasions : Cultural Myth and Archaeological Reality,” in J. R. Lukak’s People of South Asia (New York : Plenum, 1984), p. 88 (emphasis mine).

[16] Kenoyer, 1998, p. 174 (emphasis mine).

[17] Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, “Have Aryans been identified in the prehistoric skeletal record from South Asia ?” in The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, ed. George Erdosy (Berlin & New York : Walter de Gruyter, 1995), p. 60 & 54 (emphasis mine).

[18] Possehl, 1999, p. 42.

[19] R. S. Bisht : “Dholavira Excavations : 1990-94” in Facets of Indian Civilization — Essays in Honour of Prof. B. B. Lal, ed. J. P. Joshi (New Delhi : Aryan Books International, 1997), vol. I, p. 111-112.

[20] Their book has since been published. See Bibliography under Jha & Rajaram.

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Rofl, and most of this is in the Punjab of Pakistan, and Punjab itself is a mixture of India and Persia, the language itself comes from Persian and Sanskrit, so when you tell me this does not suite to me, ur wrong, for i am Punjabi, my granparents are from Multan and Lahore. Pakistan has never before ever existed, The inhabitants of what is Pakistan today, all spoke Sanskrit in the ancient times, so as well it is your histiry, it is mine, and that of Other Indians as well.

Pakistan had either been part of Persia or India thorughout its history. Saying that i am not part of this, you misguide yourself, in your illusions

How often has there existed a country called India?

Alternatively, when did the first "India" exist?

Henrik

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Oh shut up, India has existed always. Do you guys know how ancient the term Bharat is? Pakistan has never existed, it is just territory allotted to a minority ideology imposed upon simple, easy-to-brainwash people.
I don't get these Pakistanis. Who the hell do they think they are? Sindh and Punjab have been India for ages. Muslims have never been a different nation in the sub-continent, they are the one and the same, all Indians.
Cygnus, I dare you to trace back your ancestry 3000 years back, and you are still an Indian, a Hindu, and what more, it means that you ain't some alien that came out.
You know what I think of Pakistanis? I think of them as traitors. You and I, we are blood brothers, you aren't some weird alien that appeared out of nowhere in 1947. Punjab has always existed, and it has always existed as India.
You call Arabs, Persians, Turks and any other Muslim your brother, but they are not your blood brothers. We are your blood brothers, and you made us your ultimate enemy.
Don't you feel humiliated at carrying the sword of Islam? Your ancestors were Hindus, brave ones at that. They died saving the motherland from barbarian Turks. Their wives were raped, children enslaved and converted by force. Where you should be licking your wounds and taking revenge, what do you do? You join the bandwagon of the sword of Islam, and attempt at destroying us.
You Pakistanis are slaves of the Arabs, get it engrained in yourself. And what is worse, you are LOYAL slaves. Now that Arabs have little power, same with Turkomen, it is time for you to take revenge, and make brotherhood with your blood brothers that have survived the onslaught of the sword of Islam.

Why do you pray facing Mecca? What is Mecca to you? If Islam truly preached anti-nationalism, then there is no point in facing a land while praying. No, Islam preaches Arab nationalism, and it is pittiful that non-Arabs take it so loyally, never questioning it.
Why do you cover up your women? That is desert culture, protect nose from dust. Why do your women have to wear that, why is it that Arab culture is being transported?
Aren't you proud of your Indus Valley, your Saraswati? You are descended from that. Why do you love Arab civilization so much? Where is your honor? I find this so spineless.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

@CYGNUS.. areh tum kitne bewuqoof ho salaah.. WHy do you think it was called Indus civilization.. THe root "Indus" is the persian word for India, Hindustan (land of the Hindus), who were Persia's ancient neighbor for thousands of years - there is no such thing as pakistania in history... LAND of pakistan was always just the crossroads b/w India and Persia, and pakistan (along w/ afghan) is the land that got raped the most.. 90% of Pakistan was Hindu and later Sikh and Buddhist,, and spoke Sanskrit and Punjabi, Sindhi before invasion of Turks/Arabs/Mughals who forcefully converted your ancestors (just like Arabic/Turkish crusaders did to entire Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe).. It is the people of your country that succumbed to the invaders and those who raped and pillaged your ancestors' mothers, and daughters.. In essence all pakistanis are the bastards of foreign invaders.. At least the vast majority of Indians did not succumb to these invaders by converting..

The ANCIENT country India refers to the ENTIRE Indian SUBCONTINENT that share a common culture, heritage, linguistics, religious.. pakistan is simply a made up country for the ancestors of the raped, succumbers..

Read what Bharat wrote (the post above mine).. He will give you your pakistani history lesson haraam..

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One simple question:

What ties your "India" together?

India is split into 3 races, 4 major language groups, 6 major religions, and some 20 major peoples. There are currently some 5-6 major insurgencies going on by people who want to escape the Indian colonial empire.

Face it, the only reason India is one state today is armed intervention (First by Great Britain until 1948, then by India) and the blatant disregard of the wishes of the indigenous people.

Or is there any other reason India has never allowed referenda on independence in any region?

Henrik

Bharat Wrote:

"Don't you feel humiliated at carrying the sword of Islam? Your ancestors were Hindus, brave ones at that. They died saving the motherland from barbarian Turks. Their wives were raped, children enslaved and converted by force. Where you should be licking your wounds and taking revenge, what do you do? You join the bandwagon of the sword of Islam, and attempt at destroying us."


Padishah Asks:

Are you talking about Iranians or Pakistanis?


P.S...It is very interesting that Sufism is brought up on ths board. It really ties into a modern connection between Hinduism, Buddhaism, Zorastorianism, and the coming of Islam onto the Iranian Platue, Asian Steppe and Indian Sub-Continent, in both the Sunni and Shia forms and variations.

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Wow, Cygnus, you acknowledged that you and I are the same people, meaning the same nation.
We can look at the India vs. Pakistan in this perspective, Secular Integration vs. Islamic Segregation.
Indians call Persians their cousins, and Pakistanis brothers, traitors no doubt, but I would be very pissed if any foreigners occupied Pakistan.

I have no hatred for Pakistanis, if you are not aware of this, then let me tell you, in 1946 in elections in Punjab (Muslims mostly), the Congress won, Muslim League got a minority. NWFP and Baluchistan totally rejected the Muslim League in those elections.
Therefore, I have no hatred for Pakistanis, Pakistan has been imposed on you. But I do have hatred for Pakistan.
I firmly believe in democracy, secularism, integration and nationalism. In the one nation (India), you cannot have one Islamic Republic of India, one Democratic Republic of India, one Hindu Monarchy of India, one Bengali Republic of India, there can be one Democratic Republic of India.

You Pakistanis, you just watch, India is leaving you faaaaaaar behind. We are to become a developed country by 2020, we are bursting into space age in 2010 (actually, we already have largest # of satellites). The Muslims of India are already more prosperous on average than those in the Islamic Republic, and just as Islamic as you guys are. Then, you will regret having betrayed the true ideology.

I don't get it. You say, us and you are the same people. You don't seem that religious, or even if you are religious, you said you believed in global equality, that is, no to Islamic Segregation. We live on the same land, ****, we even live on the same tectonic plate, lol. You definitely believe in democracy. Then, why are we different nations, same people-same ideals-same culture, same-everything?
Then, if we are the same people, why do we fight over whose people Kashmiris are, because you yourselves are the same as us?
Why are you so dedicated to Jihad (a very anti-national concept where you call Arabs your brothers, and Hindus--no such race-- your enemies)? We are your blood brothers, forget about past conversions, neither of us are religious, Pakis get drunk as hell, Hindus eat beef, Sikhs get drunk as hell, etc, etc.
What the **** are we fighting each other for?


If you look closely, all the world's major superpowers are very diverse nations, that work as a unit. America, China, soon to be European Union. You Pakistan alone are bankrupt, the rest of India loses 2% of its GDP growth due to conflict with you guys.
Don't you want to compete on global level?
Don't you realize, all the major centers of civilization are powers-----China, America, Europe? The sub-continent is just as great or a greater center of civilization on this planet, but we are under-achievers. What would the your ancestors from Indus Valley say if they saw you today? ****, they had better drainage 5000 years ago in your land than you do today, better street planning and better organization as well. How many doctorates do Pakistan produce? The world's first university, University of Takshila is now in Pakistan, you are the descendants of their founders, what would they have to say to you? You should be churning out at least a fifth of the world's doctorates.
Not like the rest of India is a great achiever. What would the Mauryas and Guptas say to the modern day Biharis?

We are our own people, and we have suffered enough. We have been exploited by foreigners for ages against each other. It is time we actually did something finally.
The Democratic Republic of India has gone leaps and bounds ahead, but nowhere close to where it should be, and your Islamic Republic of India has failed.
Why do we fight over petty squabbles over Kashmir, which is our own people? The world is once again becoming multi-polar. We need to become one of those poles, and not become disintegrated into puppets of different poles.
This is exactly what happened in Cold War. India became USSR's ally, Pakistan became America's ally, when only ally, brother, we should have is each other.
Now, China is resurging, European Union might stand up to become a power, Russia is resurging, the sub-continent deserves a place in there.

For the sake of reunification, even if that takes a war, millions of Indians are ready to die. It is India's Destiny to get reunified. Last time we were united was Mughal rule, before that, the Tughlaqs, before that, the Guptas, before that, the Mauryas.

Your Pakistan's existence for a mere 50-60 years currently (and I predict no more than 100) is just a blink in history. The sub-continent has been divided worse before, between the Mauryas and Guptas, we had Kushans, Vakatakas, Cholas, Pandyas, Kalingans and what not? Each of these existed for 1000 years, in fact, the Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras (a whopping 3000 years) remained different until Khilji reintegrated them.
Now, what happened? Does anybody remember Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras in the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu? Nope, all part and parcel of India, all in the heartland.
Your sons will get reintegrated so easily, you will be wondering what the **** happened.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

http://messages.indiainfo.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=World&number=4&DaysPrune=45&LastLogin=

Looks like a bunch of Hindu rashtrians, lol. These idiots should know India is never gonna be a Hindu Rashtra, considering that more than half the population is not a practising Hindu, and there are are like 160 million non-Hindus (out of whom, many aren't practising their religions exactly either).

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

maine delete kar raha tha.. maf, mujhe 'thodi' naraaz tha. yeh sirf jawaab tha, ke cygnus.. aap ka pehla post.. kitne bakwaas aur bewuqoof..

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LOL, you Pakis might have a point regarding the Hindu right-wing, but the Hindu right wing is just another type of terrorist. Hindus and Muslims of the sub-continent are not different nation, but one and the same. Same people belong to the same nation. It isn't as if we don't take action against the Sangh Parivar, didn't the Supreme Court sentence like 20 people for the Best Bakery case, didn't Dara Singh get the death sentence? Sure, many people get away with their crimes (note: these rioteers are criminals, no matter Hindu or Muslim) because India is essentially a poor, corrupt and illiterate country, but that is to change.
The majority secularists of the sub-continent face opposition everywhere, the Sangh Parivar and Pakistan, but secularism will ultimately prevail, because in blood ties lie the true ties, faith is a personal factor, not a political one.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

Well, I know that India and Pakistan have pretty much the same poverty, I used to live in Calcutta for 13 years, beggar capital of the world, and my school was in the middle of a ghetto/slum in downtown, I had to share my food with all the beggar children if I were to eat outside.

Anyway, I don't think that Indians are superior to Pakistanis, for we are the same people. I have a certain superiority complex, call me an Indian Supremacist, lol. For example, when there is a cricket match between India and Australia, I will say India will win, and won't bother if India keeps losing, cause the complex fuels me on. Only country that I need to bite my nails with is Pakistan, my superiority complex kind of wilts at the sight of Pakistanis, if I didn't know, I would have thought they were Indians.
Look at it this way, Indians kick ass everywhere. Pakistan (people are Indians) is the only Islamic nation that has nuclear weapons, while the rest are still stuck in the middle ages.
One of the greatest dangers Pakistan faces is the introduction of medieval culture by jihadis, but I am sure that religious fundamentalism shall be defeated, and ultimately, even Islamic Segregation shall be defeated, and that will be the greatest day for all peoples of the sub-continent.

As for Hindu fundamentalism, yes, they are scattered here and there, but mostly concentrated in the West (easy to lose the sense of Indian brotherhood when you don't see much Indians).
Hindu fundamentalism also agrees with Jinnah, that Hindus and Muslims are two different nations. However, Hindutva also claims everything from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka as Akhand Bharat. Now, do they expect that the Muslims in these regions will become second-class citizens?
Not only is Hindutva a discriminatory ideology (won't say racist, because it applies to several Indian peoples), but also an imperialist one. How more Nazi can you get?


(Edited: Eagerly waiting for the Hindutva backlash after all I wrote, but as I said, we will prevail)

Ravi I wouldnt call the Pakistanis cowards, beacuse of considering the fact that Punjab, Sindh, Balchistan, NWFP, were the last parts of India to get conquered to the British, yet they were the first ones to raise their voice rebel against the British. British ruled India for 200 years, it ruled Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balchistan for 98 years.

There are many, many different opinions coming from the members of Indian and Pakistan orgins on this forum.

Lets us try an tacial afew, shall we?

1) Define the term Indian as a bearing on language, race, culture, religion, origin and history.

2) Define the term "Pakistani" on such terms as well.

3) Perhaps we should also include Persian/Iranian into this subject. Say what you like, but there is a definant connection.

4) Define these terms in a modern context.


What is the conclusion?

That is the question at hand...

"and for people like devan t i have one thing to say. u may not like the islamic mullah regime in iran as no one does. but if u think that u parsis and atheits are the voice of iran then i think u are mistaken. as a non-persian my perception is that iran is a country wid a majority of progressive muslims who are hijacked by a bunch of fanatic mullahs. and i dont think that those who think cyrus as their prophet represent the majority of iranians."


I don't know why the hell you brought me up, since I've never said anything about Islam being bad or anything.

But if YOU think Iranians are first Muslim and second Iranians, then you are oh so very very sadly mistaken. That is why the most celebrated rituals are Aide Norooz and 13-bedar, which date back before pre-Islamic years, 13bedar is actually a zoroasterian oriented celebration. The most popular names are pure Iranian, and even funnier is this Islamic regime is funding a program which will erase many arabic words from Iranian langauge. Iranians are Muslims,Christians,Jews,zoroasterians and atheists. Jewish Iranians here fight for the interests of Iranian people, Israel is not even 1/100 close to thier hearts than Iran is. There has never been any problems between Muslim Iranians and non-muslim Iranians ever in history, only the government which every Iranians hates sometimes cracks down on non-muslims, and 99 percent of the time thats the bahais, but civilian Muslim Iranians have never ever ever discriminated against non-muslim Iranians.




-------------------------------------



"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." -James Dean

well harry, i did not participate in this discussion.probably u confused raj with ravi.i only posted a very interested article to prove that there was nothing called "aryan race".and again as it happens always in this forum,the discussion got sidetracked.anyway since u raised an interesting point i would like to respond.


coming to to ur point



".....beacuse of considering the fact that Punjab, Sindh, Balchistan, NWFP, were the last parts of India to get conquered to the British, yet they were the first ones to raise their voice rebel against the British."


u got it wrong buddy.britain is not the first country to occupy us.muslims are first people to occupy us.and it was afghanistan(which was hindu and part of india)that lost to muslim invaders first followed by NWFP,baluchistan,and westpunjab.historical records show,which i will post shortly that the afghans,baluch and the people of sapat sindhu(the real name of punjab)resisted but because of internal fightings the inferior muslim invaders defeated numerically and technologically superior hindu forces.


as far as the rebellian against the british is concerned it came first from the people of tamil nadu in 1698 even before the battle of plassey.under the leadership of potti veera pandian,they started the gurrilla warfare.



"British ruled India for 200 years, it ruled Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balchistan for 98 years""


i think ruling directly is not the criteria.in that same vien the british never ruled nepal,sikkim and much of northeast.but that does not mean that the british not have influence there.the british left NWFP and baluchistan because they clubbed them with afganistan and they left it as a buffer zone against the russian empire.
and regarding punjab,the british did not see the reason to spend their resources uselessly when the punjabi elite(or a significant section of it) was already actively collaborating with the british.

@Padishah.. jawaabs to your questions here:


1) "Define the term Indian as a bearing on language, race, culture, religion, origin and history."
-- Language - Indian languages are based on Sanskrit..
-- Race - Two MACRO ethnic groups in India are Indo-Aryan and Dravidian. (there is extreme diversity amongst the subgroups of these two macro, with there being over 30 separate ethnic subgroups b/w the two)
-- Culture - For the most part, Indian culture is revolved around the original religion of the peoples of the Indian Subcontinent - Hinduism.
-- Religion - Since India is a SECULAR nation, Indian could mean Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Parsi, Christian, etc., India is not defined by any one religion. - rather, by its secularity.
-- Origin - The first known civilization of India was Indus civilization which goes back ~ 7000 years.
-- India as a country from beginnings of civilization till 1947 is defined as the ENTIRE Indian Subcontinent of whose people share common culture, language, etc. etc. et.c

2) "Define the term "Pakistani" on such terms as well. "
------ The best way to define 'Pakistani' is basically, an Indian Muslim separatist country.
-- Language (Dialect) - Urdu is a dialect of Hindi.. It really isnt a separate language because it has no unique words of its own. Urdu is made up of 80% Hindi, 20% Farsi. SInce Urdu is basically Hindi, Urdu is derived from Indian language of Sanskrit.. Hence, Indians and Pakistanis can easily carry on a conversation with each other.. but either could NOT do so with any other neighboring countries (except if they were speaking in Pashto or Balochi)..
-- Race - The majority of Pakistanis belong to Indo-Aryan (Punjabi, Sindhi).. Balochi,Pathan belong to Aryan.
-- Culture - Pakistani culture is basically an amalgam of Indian culture and 'Muslim' culture.
-- Religion - Pakistan state rellgion is Islam.
-- Origin - Pakistan origin is 1947, when state for muslims of India was created.


3) "Perhaps we should also include Persian/Iranian into this subject."
-- Persian connection with North India and Pakistan has to do with peoples of these regions belonging to Aryan belt ethnic group, which stretches from Turkey, through entire Central Asia, through North India. Linguistic similarites are also seen between them.

4) Define these terms in a modern context.
-- Pakistan was a part of India from 5000 BC till 1947. Jinnah bootlegged Gandhis accomplishment in independence from Britain and basically was permitted to take a chunk of Indian land to form a separate land for Indian Muslims. Basically, I consider anyone in Pakistan from Sindh and Punjab and P.O.Kash to be Indian Muslims. They share 7,000 years (minus 57yrs) of common history, culture, religion with India.

Sorry for the confusion ravi, i did mean Raj

now @ Raj, Indian languages are not soley based on Sanskrit, The other group of Language which is spoken by over 300 Million people in India is the Dravidian Language group, it dates back to 6000 BC

India has 3 racial groups, Aryans, Mongloids and Dravidians

Now only 10% of Pakistan speaks Urdu, rest speak they respective regional Languages, which are all Indo-Iranian Languages.


@Ravi, i am litttle confused, about what said about Muslim invaders, post ur argument again, it was a little unclear to me. And what do you describe as West Punjab, The Punjab in Pakistan? beacuse the Punjab ur talking with the Muslim invasion srecthes to the river Sutlez ( spelling) which is well into Indian Punjab. U have to clarify the boundaries.

raj urdu is not 80 % hindi. its only 33 % hindi, 33 % farsi and 33 % arabic.
if u wanna try the real urdu try reading some devan-e-ghalib and i'm pretty sure u wont understand anything.
why indians and pakistanis can easily communicate between each other is because u have stopped talking in ur own language sanskriti/hindi. ur bollywood movies which u call as hindi movies are totally urdu(easy and understandable urdu). ur real hindi is what u hear on the discovery channel in hindi. beleive me i cant even understand a word of it nor can i ever understand any speech given by primeminister vajpaee to the indian public.
harry this is true that urdu is not the language spoken widely in pakistan. as pakistanis we all know how to speak urdu as its our national language but at our homes and in our daily lives we speak punjabi,pushtu,saraiki,sindhi,hindku,darri,farsi and kalashi.do u know after the creation of pakistan farsi was decided as the pakistani national language. but later on it was decided that urdu should be taken as urdu is the language of the army(it means words taken from many languages) and as pakistan is a place wid many different ethinicities so urdu would be best.
this is not true that people of pakistan were indians or they are indians. this land has been a part of persia as well so would u now call us as persians? how do u think punjab got its name as punjab. is it a sanskriti word? no ! ! punj in farsi means 5 and ab means water so it means land wid 5 rivers.what do u think my persian friends, am i wrong?
now dont think we cant communicate wid our other neighbours in urdu widout speaking farsi or pashtu. i dont know about persians but i'm pretty sure that almost 50 % people in afganistan can speak in urdu. and the rest can clearly understand.
i have been to kabul sometimes and never i have seen anyone overthere who cant speak urdu although i can speak pashtu.haven't u seen the afghan president karzai speaking in urdu.
and devan sorry to pull u in this crap. but i really wanted to pull u in as i have read some very interesting posts from u earlier on some threads so i really wanted u in and widout flaming u i didn't think u would come in.
i have nuthin against parsis or atheits and neither should u have anything against pakistanis because if u dont know then u should go and ask ur elders that during the time of revolution pakistan was the only country which gave refuge to the parsis of iran. around 4 million people came to pakistan some of them went to other countries while most of them decided to live here and they were given a national status as pakistani citizens. still in karachi the biggest city of pakistan there is a very big community of iranian parsis and they enjoy the full benefits of pakistani citizens as any other paki does.

Thats why i never say i can speak Urdu, i can speak Hindi but i still dont say i can speak Urdu, my uncles, of course we are Punjabi, can speak perfect Urdu, it is much different from Punjabi, Punjabi which also is 50-50 Persian and Sanskrit, when i hear them speak it to me In Urdu, i can understand only a little, i mean i can get by with it, but its like a Portugiese person trying to communicate in spanish, Many words in Urdu are not the same in Hindi, many common words, such as rice, sit down, come here, and what not.

But you have to admit Pakistan is Indian, i mean the craddle of what is Indian civilization started in what is now Pakistan, The Battles of Mahabharat took place in the Indus Valley, And when you say you are not Indian but were rather were under the Persian Empire, for i can say that too, my land too was under Persian Empire, but you do realize that the majority of the Time, the majority of Pakistan was under Indian control. Control of Parts of Pakistan and North Western India, swicthed back forth amoung the Perians and the Indians, but they were under Indian control long margin of the time.

May i ask why do you like to create a difference amoung you and me?, i mean i usually tell people that technically I am half Pakistani, moms side is all from Pakistan Punjab and i say it with no shame, but rather with pride, why cant u admit that u too have the same origins as me?

May i ask what ethnic group of Pakistan you beling to if you are Pakistani?


And i know how much Persian influence my people have, half of our Holy text is written in Persian.

Padishah, go to encarta.com, and on Search bar, type in India. For history sub-heading, it will be clearly said that when it comes to the civilization of India, the entire sub-continent is referred to.
Persian is a different nationality, different civilization, a great one, but we are different. We had extensive trade contacts, just like we have had with Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

Anyway, Iranians, what is it with you trying to claim Indian civilization? The sub-continent is its own dominion, you are your own. Even if we go by Aryan migration theory (now doubted), we must remember that according to this history, the Aryans were nomadic barbarians who destroyed already existing civilization ("Aryan" India didn't have a written script till 500BC, while Indus Valley already had it in 2500BC).
Anyway, logic and science point to no-Aryan invasions. As for logic, we must ask, how can a nomadic technologically inferior people in small numbers defeat a massive technologically superior numerically humongous people? Scientific evidence doesn't show any major genetic input into the sub-continent.

What Cygnus is saying is true.......those who think they speak Hindi are actually speaking Urdu. Urdu spoken is Hindi along with some words with Persian roots. We can say Urdu spoken is contaminated Hindi. Most "Hindi" speakers speak in contaminated Hindi, thus Urdu.
If you want a rare person talking in the pure Hindi, listen to Vajpayee's speeches, not one Persian root (not one contamination).

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

Cygnus, your reply to my post was very heartening, kept me in a good mood all day.
Although the fact that you agree that Pakistanis and Indians are the same people, and we probably have the same ideals (Pakistan was imposed on you, essentially, you are still dharti-worshippers, just that now, the dharti is Pakistan, not India). ****, you read the interview of Danish Kaneria, the Hindu of the Pakistani team? He says Watan before Dharam, that Pakistan is motherland.
Therefore, it is still the same mindset.

Although you may realize that the ideology of Democratic Republic of India is better than Islamic Republic of India, you will still fight for the IRI, because we are still humans, nobody likes being told what is right. Thus, the conflict continues.
I just hope that we are reunified before we do become different peoples. There is no point in uniting with dissatisfied people, that is not a reunification, that is imperialism.

From the side of DRI, I just hope that we don't become the Hindu Rashtra of India, that will be the greatest test in the coming days.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

No harry i'm not trying to create any difference between indians and pakistanis nor have i any superiority or inferiority complex. its just that i dont swallow it when the indians constantly keep on saying that pakistan should be taken back etc etc. the thing is i was born way after the independence. so what happened back then i dont know but what i know is that right now in pakistan i am living with good standards of a free soceity. we are not imposed on religious beliefs. yes offcourse we are taught about religion is schools but again it is our own will to follow the religious path or not and no one can impose anything on us. those who go for jihad go wid there own will. it doesn't matter if they were in pakistan or anywhere else if they want to go they will go and no one can stop them. bharat u urself admitted that the pakis get drunk like hell so i would say it has nuthin to do wid religion but ur own will.
now why wouldn't i want to join india. the reason is whatever i say or how much liberal i may be but i am a muslim and when i see incidents like ahmedabad and gujrat how would i ever think of reuniting wid india when by joining wid india i would put mine and my family's life in the hand of those hindu extremists.how do u expect us to join india when u have so much religious extremists like bal thakrey. and at this point i would like to clarify this point for those who think that islam is a radical or extremist religion. i hear indians constantly sying about islam that it partioned the india. do u know that before partion muslim religious parties were strongly opposing for a seperate nation. they wanted to stay wid india. Maulana Maudoodi the head of Jamaat-e-islami constantly opposed jinnah. jinaah was no way religious but he was very liberal and open minded. so it clearly defines the theory of islam. islam hates no one because if it did religious scholars would never have supported gandhi instead of jinnah.but what is happening in ahmedabad and gujrat is pure extremism and under these circumstances it becomes very difficult for us to even think of reuniting wid india.

Okay cygnus, answer this question.......is there any Hindutva in Kashmir? Where Muslims are in majority, the minority won't have the BALLS to be extremist. Same happens opposite way.
I can also say, why would India want to reunite with Pakistan and Bangladesh, with the genocide on Bengali Hindus in Bangladesh? Hindus have more to lose in a reunification.
As one of independent India's founding fathers Moulana Abul Kalam Azad said, the creation of Pakistan had weakened the position of Muslims in the sub-continent.
What is happening in Gujarat is happening only because the thugs have infiltrated into government.
In a corrupt and poor country, it is rather hard to maintain the Constitution. Now that the Modi government is in power (the thugs who did the riots), they have total influence over the police. Now, this is wrong, in a System of Checks and Balances, the Legislature cannot influence the Executive, but unfortunately that is what is happening. Young Muslim youths are being picked up randomly by police on suspicion of "terrorism". Thank goodness, at least the third arm of government: Judiciary, isn't influenced by Legislature. Didn't the Supreme Court just pass death sentence on 20 of these thugs, including policemen, for the Bilkis Bano case?
At least, justice is served to crime.

Anyway, the fact that we are the same people means we have to be in the same nation. Also, the fact that we have same ideology takes conflict out of the picture. Not only is there any reason for a conflict between us, we should be in the same nation as well.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

"Anyway, Iranians, what is it with you trying to claim Indian civilization?"


who the hell did that? why are some of you people on this forum pulling facts out of your asses?

-------------------------------------



"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." -James Dean

LOL@Devant, look at Padishah's messages. Two of the common themes in his messages, is that there is no motherland called India, and that whatever civilization has been produced in India (in the northern part) is Persian.

Indians have the right to claim Pakistanis as same people, because it is only 60 years, there are still people who talk of an undivided India, and still, history looks at Indian history as entire sub-continent and not just of the current Democratic Republic of India.
After our grandparents' generation, the only living memory of one nation will be gone. Already, there are citizens of the DRI that are thinking of the IRI as a foreign nation. It will probably take a century or so for Pakistan to be their own people, with their own heritage, with their own path. Then again, there have been kingdoms in India that have been outside the dominion of the major Indian power for 3000 years, but is now part and parcel of India.

Question that just popped into my mind, what would happen if India acceded to Pakistan, lol? I mean, if it is a democracy, playing the number-game, it will be the same as Pakistan acceding to India.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

"LOL@Devant, look at Padishah's messages. Two of the common themes in his messages, is that there is no motherland called India, and that whatever civilization has been produced in India (in the northern part) is Persian."

I read both of his posts and he says no such thing.

-------------------------------------



"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." -James Dean

i dont speak Farsi, but why do i get a feeling that Pahlvi's post is extremely flammatory???

i dont think so, i was just telling him some things about me, and some things about him

Bharat Wrote:

"LOL@Devant, look at Padishah's messages. Two of the common themes in his messages, is that there is no motherland called India, and that whatever civilization has been produced in India (in the northern part) is Persian."


Padishah Replies:

Bharat, you have to be the dumbest SOB on this forum. I never said anything of the sort in my postings on this thread, or ANY thread on this forum.

But...Since you bring it up...

The languages of Northern India are of the Indic branch of the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family of languages. In other words, Punjabi, Hindi, Bengali, Ordu all stem from the same origins as that of the languages of modern Europe. While Hindi and Persian can both trace their origins to Sanskrit, Persian and Hindi both owe their vary existance to what is generally termed as a "proto-Sanskrit" language.

Care to explain how these languages ever entered the top half of modern India, all the while having ZERO connection the the indigenous Dradvidic languages spoken in Southern India?

Do you suggest that it was by magic?


P.S...I could really care less about "stealing" Indian history from you for the sake of Iran. The reality is that Iranian history goes back to the time of Mesopotamia. We simply have no reason to try and connect ourselves with someone elses past.

My point was that the various Iranian(Aryan) peoples(not just Persian, but Balouch, Pashtun, etc) have had a rich historical interaction with the peoples of South Asia, and share some rather common elements and themes as a result of this. I believe that Harry Singh has done an excellent job of point this fact out on this forum.

After all, the Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan for his Persian wife.

Pahlavi, I urge you to try and restrain yourself a little more. Try to be more productive and refrain from initiating any more personal attacks in the future. I will be watching you, and I won't be in a very forgiving mood if I ever have to deal with you again. Omid, I understand you were just firing back, but two wrongs don't make a right. If anyone tries to bait you, just ignore it and inform the mods. Think smart.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Republic of Korea Marine Corps (ROKMC) The Few, the Proud, the Best.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Padishah, the south Indian languages of Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam have more in common with Sanskrit than any of the north Indian ones.

Anyway, I am not disputing that. Going by us both being Aryan theory, we must remember that Aryans weren't civilized at the time of migration. It took 1000 years to get civilized, as for Aryans in Persia, the same story. Therefore, we both may have common ancestor, but we have taken different paths.
All I hope is that Pakistan doesn't exist long enough to become their own different people, and the only similarity we have is common ancestor, because that way, the whole world has a common ancestor.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=621405

Wrote:

"Padishah, the south Indian languages of Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam have more in common with Sanskrit than any of the north Indian ones."


Padi replies:

Show me some REAL proof of that statement. I cannot find one academic source that can support your postion. By contrast, there are MANY that seem to contradict you 100%...


For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Iranian_languages

From Wikipedia:
The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 26 languages that are mainly spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka, as well as certain areas in Pakistan, Nepal, and eastern and central India. Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 200 million people, and they appear to be unrelated to languages of other known families. Some scholars include the Dravidian languages in a larger Elamo-Dravidian language family, which includes the ancient Elamite language of what is now southwestern Iran.


Hey, it looks like both India and Iran were of linguistic relations, even before the Aryan migration took place.

Oh, and this Pahlavi fellow has got to go.

He insults everyone on this forum, and seems to enjoy starting fights between the Iranian and Indian forumers...

Bharat Wrote:

"Don't you feel humiliated at carrying the sword of Islam? Your ancestors were Hindus, brave ones at that. They died saving the motherland from barbarian Turks. Their wives were raped, children enslaved and converted by force. Where you should be licking your wounds and taking revenge, what do you do? You join the bandwagon of the sword of Islam, and attempt at destroying us."



Those Barbarian Turks built the Taj Mahal curry boy, the single most revered architectural monument in the whole of the subcontinent.



COMING SOON TO A BEACH NEAR YOU

"Those Barbarian Turks built the Taj Mahal curry boy, the single most revered architectural monument in the whole of the subcontinent."

The first Mughal--Babur, was an Afghan, with Turkish on his father's side, and Mongol on his mother's side. He despised his Mongol side, and preferred being a Turk.
Babur had Indian wives, his son Humayun was therefore half-Indian. Then, Humayun had Indian wives as well, so Akbar was 75% Indian. Akbar had Indian wives, so Jahangir was 87.5% Indian. Jahangir had a Persian wife Noor Jehan through whom he had Shah Jahan, so Shah Jahan was still Indian by majority. Also, all the Mughal emperors post-Babur were born in India. Also, Noor Jehan wouldn't be Persian really, because she married into an Indian dynasty, so she become Indian, just like Sonia Gandhi, because women are the "inferior" one, and women are the one who take the husband's last name and nationality.
This makes Shah Jahan overwhelmingly Indian, and very little Turk.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

I don't care much about arithmetics when it comes to measure up civilisations, but how come the Moghul civilisation was never equaled in no other parts of the subcontinent, places of supposedly 100% Hindu stock? How come you don't have a Taj Mahal in New Delhi or further south?

Do you reject your Moghul heritage, one of the finest of Islamic kingdoms to be established on the face of this planet? If so you should be categorized right down there with the iconoclasts.

"
Babur, a seasoned military commander, entered India in 1526 with his well-trained veteran army of 12,000 to meet the sultan's huge but unwieldy and disunited force of more than 100,000 men. Babur defeated the Lodi sultan decisively at Panipat (in modern-day Haryana, about ninety kilometers north of Delhi). Employing gun carts, moveable artillery, and superior cavalry tactics, Babur achieved a resounding victory. A year later, he decisively defeated a Rajput confederacy led by Rana Sangha. In 1529 Babur routed the joint forces of Afghans and the sultan of Bengal but died in 1530 before he could consolidate his military gains. He left behind as legacies his memoirs (Babur Namah), several beautiful gardens in Kabul, Lahore, and Agra, and descendants who would fulfill his dream of establishing an empire in Hindustan.
"

"
Padshah Shah Jahan I (January 5, 1592 - January 22, 1666) was the ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1627 until 1658.

Although a grandson of the Muslim apostate Akbar the Great he was a firmly orthodox Muslim who initiated forty-eight military campaigns against non-Muslims in less than thirty years. Following the Ottoman practice, on coming to the throne in 1628 he killed all his male relations except one who escaped to Persia.
"

So you might as well have 2.52365% Turkish blood coursing through your veins. You should be proud of it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moguls

Mogul Empire


The Mughal or Mogul Empire was founded by Babur in 1526, when he defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans at the First battle of Panipat. It was largely conquered by Sher Shah during the time of Humayun, but under Akbar, it grew considerably, and continued to grow until the end of Aurangzeb's rule. After Aurangzeb died in 1707, the empire started a slow and steady decline in actual power, although it maintained all the trappings of power for another 150 years. In 1739 it was defeated by an army from Persia led by Nadir Shah. In 1756 an army of Ahmad Shah looted Delhi again. The final defeat was by the British Empire in 1857, although it had become almost a ceremonial title by then, with no real control.



Religion
The Mughal Empire was Islamic, although many of the subjects of the Empire, up to and including very high-ranking members of the court, were Hindu. When Babur first founded the Empire, he did not emphasize his religion, but rather his Turkic heritage. (The name Mughal, seems to have been attached somewhere in the 19th Century. It is derived from Mongol, another piece of Babur's ancestry.) Under Akbar, the court dropped use of the jizya, the tax on non-Muslims, and dropped use of the lunar Muslim calendar in favor of a solar calendar, more useful for agriculture. These actions were later retracted by Aurangzeb, known for his religiosity, but even under Aurangzeb, one quarter of his court princes were Rajput Hindus.

Political Economy
The Mughals used the mansabdar system to generate land revenue. The emperor would grant revenue rights to a mansabdar in exchange for promises of soldiers in war-time. The greater the size of the land the emperor granted, the greater the number of soldiers the mansabdar had to promise. The mansab was both revocable and non-hereditary; this gave the center a fairly large degree of control over the mansabdars.
Greater Mughal Emperors:


Establishment and reign of Babur
In the early 16th century, descendants of the Mongol, Turkish, Iranian, and Afghan invaders of South Asia--the Mughals--invaded India under the leadership of Zahir-ud-Din Babur. Babur was the great-grandson of Timur Lenk (Timur the Lame, from which the Western name Tamerlane is derived), who had invaded India and plundered Delhi in 1398 and then led a short-lived empire based in Samarkand (in modern-day Uzbekistan) that united Persian-based Mongols (Babur's maternal ancestors) and other West Asian peoples. Babur was driven from Samarkand and initially established his rule in Kabul in 1504; he later became the first Mughal ruler (1526-30). His determination was to expand eastward into Punjab, where he had made a number of forays. Then an invitation from an opportunistic Afghan chief in Punjab brought him to the very heart of the Delhi Sultanate, ruled by Ibrahim Lodi (1517-26).
Babur, a seasoned military commander, entered India in 1526 with his well-trained veteran army of 12,000 to meet the sultan's huge but unwieldy and disunited force of more than 100,000 men. Babur defeated the Lodi sultan decisively at Panipat (in modern-day Haryana, about ninety kilometers north of Delhi). Employing gun carts, moveable artillery, and superior cavalry tactics, Babur achieved a resounding victory. A year later, he decisively defeated a Rajput confederacy led by Rana Sangha. In 1529 Babur routed the joint forces of Afghans and the sultan of Bengal but died in 1530 before he could consolidate his military gains. He left behind as legacies his memoirs (Babur Namah), several beautiful gardens in Kabul, Lahore, and Agra, and descendants who would fulfill his dream of establishing an empire in Hindustan.


Reign of Humayun
When Babur died, his son Humayun (1530-56), also a soldier, inherited a difficult task. He was pressed from all sides by a reassertion of Afghan claims to the Delhi throne, by disputes over his own succession, and by the Afghan-Rajput march into Delhi in 1540. He fled to Persia, where he spent nearly ten years as an embarrassed guest at the Safavid court. In 1545 he gained a foothold in Kabul, reasserted his Indian claim, defeated Sher Khan Sur, the most powerful Afghan ruler, and took control of Delhi in 1555.

Reign of Akbar
Humayun's untimely death in 1556 left the task of further imperial conquest and consolidation to his thirteen-year-old son, Jalal-ud-Din Akbar (r. 1556-1605). Following a decisive military victory at the Second Battle of Panipat in 1556, the regent Bayram Khan pursued a vigorous policy of expansion on Akbar's behalf. As soon as Akbar came of age, he began to free himself from the influences of overbearing ministers, court factions, and harem intrigues, and demonstrated his own capacity for judgment and leadership. A "workaholic" who seldom slept more than three hours a night, he personally oversaw the implementation of his administrative policies, which were to form the backbone of the Mughal Empire for more than 200 years. He continued to conquer, annex, and consolidate a far-flung territory bounded by Kabul in the northwest, Kashmir in the north, Bengal in the east, and beyond the Narmada River in central India--an area comparable in size to the Mauryan territory some 1,800 years earlier.
Akbar built a walled capital called Fatehpur Sikri (Fatehpur means Fortress of Victory) near Agra, starting in 1571. Palaces for each of Akbar's senior queens, a huge artificial lake, and sumptuous water-filled courtyards were built there. The city, however, proved short-lived, perhaps because the water supply was insufficient or of poor quality, or, as some historians believe, Akbar had to attend to the northwest areas of his empire and simply moved his capital for political reasons. Whatever the reason, in 1585 the capital was relocated to Lahore and in 1599 to Agra.

Akbar adopted two distinct but effective approaches in administering a large territory and incorporating various ethnic groups into the service of his realm. In 1580 he obtained local revenue statistics for the previous decade in order to understand details of productivity and price fluctuation of different crops. Aided by Todar Mal, a Rajput king, Akbar issued a revenue schedule that the peasantry could tolerate while providing maximum profit for the state. Revenue demands, fixed according to local conventions of cultivation and quality of soil, ranged from one-third to one-half of the crop and were paid in cash. Akbar relied heavily on land-holding zamindars. They used their considerable local knowledge and influence to collect revenue and to transfer it to the treasury, keeping a portion in return for services rendered. Within his administrative system, the warrior aristocracy (mansabdars) held ranks (mansabs) expressed in numbers of troops, and indicating pay, armed contingents, and obligations. The warrior aristocracy was generally paid from revenues of nonhereditary and transferrable jagirs (revenue villages).

An astute ruler who genuinely appreciated the challenges of administering so vast an empire, Akbar introduced a policy of reconciliation and assimilation of Hindus (including Maryam al-Zamani, the Hindu Rajput mother of his son and heir, Jahangir), who represented the majority of the population. He recruited and rewarded Hindu chiefs with the highest ranks in government; encouraged intermarriages between Mughal and Rajput aristocracy; allowed new temples to be built; personally participated in celebrating Hindu festivals such as Deepavali, or Diwali, the festival of lights; and abolished the jizya (poll tax) imposed on non-Muslims. Akbar came up with his own theory of "rulership as a divine illumination," enshrined in his new religion Din-i-Ilahi (Divine Faith), incorporating the principle of acceptance of all religions and sects. He encouraged widow re-marriage, discouraged child marriage, outlawed the practice of sati, and persuaded Delhi merchants to set up special market days for women, who otherwise were secluded at home. By the end of Akbar's reign, the Mughal Empire extended throughout most of India north of the Godavari River. The exceptions were Gondwana in central India, which paid tribute to the Mughals, Assam in the northeast, and large parts of the Deccan.

Akbar's empire supported vibrant intellectual and cultural life. A large imperial library included books in Hindu, Persian, Greek, Kashmirian, English, and Arabic, such as the Shanameh, Bhagavata Purana and the Christian Bible. Akbar sought knowledge and truth wherever it could be found and through a wide range of activities. He regularly sponsored debates and dialogues among religious and intellectual figures with differing views, and he welcomed Jesuit missionaries from Goa to his court. Akbar directed the creation of the Hamzanama, an artistic masterpiece that included 1400 large paintings.





"Long lived the doodool's Vision. I believe in the power of Doodool!"

So? What's your point?

My point, is that these men were overwhelmingly Indians, so you should stop claiming them as yours, cause the Mughals were as Indians as anyone else, and the Muslims of India today are in no way related to Mughals, you think Akbar had the time to **** 500 million women, lol.

Also, the Taj was built by a Persian engineer.

And yes, I am proud of the Taj Mahal, a work by an INDIAN (note, not Turkish)emperor, who had paid a Persian engineer to do the job.

And what do you mean, so what if you have 2% Turkish, and that you should be proud of it? If you are born in the sub-continent, I could give 2 ****s whether your daddy was a redneck KKK, you are an Indian, your loyalty is to the motherland, your brotherhood with the people of the sub-continent, not with your ancestors.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

So you deny that one of the greatest civilisations that the sub continent ever spawned was originated by Muslim Turks? Do you maintian that the Moghul civilisation was an Indian one fueled by the love of the Elephant Goddess or whatever?


COMING SOON TO A BEACH NEAR YOU

So you deny that one of the greatest civilisations that the sub continent ever spawned was originated by Muslim Turks?
Yes, the dynasty was Muslim, secular politically, personally they were very religious Muslims.
Turkish fatherline, but as I said, arithmetically, mostly Indian.
Officially Indian, because all were born in India.
And the Mughals are usually called the last Indian dynasty that had India united, note, they are not like the British who are considered foreign. The Mughals are considered Indian.
And yes, I am proud of them.

Do you maintian that the Moghul civilisation was an Indian one fueled by the love of the Elephant Goddess or whatever?
They were Indians, and they were Muslim. So, the love wasnt for an elephant goddess. Seriously dude, you have a problem, why do you act like Hindus are Indians and the Muslims are foreign invaders? If a Muslim loves the motherland, I can't say I am more Indian than him cause I am a Hindu because Hinduism is simply a religion, it has nothing to do with the nation, just like Islam has nothing to do with the nation.
Islam is truly an Indian thing now. A third of the worlds Muslims are in the Indian sub-continent. Arabs make up only 18%, you Turks, you make only 2%, am I mistaken? Therefore, if an Indian Muslim is an Indian, then Islam must be Indian because majority rules. Islam is part and parcel of all that is Indian, so STFU and go to sleep.

If all Indian Muslims said today that exactly 1400 years ago, at this minute, Muhammed had farted, then 1400 years ago, at this exact minute, Muhammed had farted. How can you change that? Who are you? How can you call yourself more Islamic than those in India?

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

Bharat i suggest u to stop posting on this forum as it is for mature people. u should concentrate more on ur studies and atleast finish ur high school first.
Taj Mahal wasn't designed by a persian engineer alone. it gathered architects from all over the middle east. calligrapher i.e amanat khan is beleived to be iranian from shiraz. some say that the main architect was isa khan and again from iran but some claim the isa khan was turkish. taj mahal also consisted the natives of lahore and multan.

EDIT: Harry

We don't know who was the chief architect of the Taj Mahal or where he was from. We do know that it was a joint effort by masters from many Islamic countries and it should stand as a testament to Islamic cooperation.

I don't know why anybody is so interested in the Taj Mahal or the various buildings in Istanbul (as good as they may be). It is quite clear that Esfahan in Iran is the greatest accomplishment of so-called Islamic architecture. I have heard many Pakistanis acknowledge this and Turks would too if they were not so insecure about this kind of thing.

well if u say that India muslims are turkish or persian or w/e shyt just bcuz there ancetors were turkish/persian , then going by the same theory , the whole world is African and u guys aint turkish/persian but Africans or negroids , cuz ur ultimate ancestors were Africans as Africa is known as the birthplace of the first homo-sapien, right???
so today , the wolrd is actually African bcuz it all started from Africa....heh ,u guys r amazing , telling others to complete their HS studies , when u havent even crossed the kindergarten mentality????

Whys Spiderman so happy...

Since when did Taj Mahal become an Islamic architecture? It is not a mosque, it is simply a tomb, a very beautiful one, one that makes all Indians (south Asians I mean) proud, and all humanity (Turks fall under humanity, don't even claim special responsibility for the Taj, it is ours).

And also cygnus, again, as I have said, you are not a Turk or a Persian, you are a Bharatiya, and a Punjabi, go back 3000 years, and your dadaji is still a Bharatiya and a Punjabi. Natives of Multan and Lahore were definitely involved, how does that make the Taj non-Indian? Multan and Lahore are major centers of Indian civilization.

Pakistan is making use of the Western concept of nation-state, where only one ethnicity, one religion, one race is the basis for a nation, and not the collective civilization that is the basis. Pakistanis know very well that nations of the Orient are determined by civilization (example China), and they know very well that India is a secular nation (if India were Hindu, then there would be a reason for Islamic Segregation, but there isn't, and every day that India survives, it proves the existence of Pakistan wrong and racist).

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

And here again, we find the usual example of the Pakistani who will say that he is closer to Martians than to Indians.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

Guys, when do you come online, right now, it is almost 0100 EST or 0600 GMT.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/hist-2nation.html

For me Paki and Hindu is indeed the same S...T.

Bharat, the "seeds" of the Mughal civilization were planted by Turks. And those Turks insemianted the region for a few more hundred years. I agree that at the end anything that was Turkish was finally assimilated by the dark masses. I mean you bring your own women with you but after a few generations you are obliged to taste the local fruits.

The Mughal Empire and anything that it has offered wider India was inherently Turkish. I accept that the Turks that stormed into India had already incorporated many Persian cultural elements into their Central Asian characteristics.

But my point is: where are the Taj Mahals of Bombay, Delhi, Lahore, or whatever?

Bharat punjabis and bengalis are definitly not the same race. really why do u have such an inferiority complex that u try to confuse ur own race wid the punjabi race. no race is superior or inferior to eachother. so u can be proud of urself being a bengali. but please dont try to confuse bengalis wid punjabis.
i have said it before and let me say it again.if india is a mini continent as it is called sub-continent then we pakistanis are definitly indians. if u call indians as a race then maybe we pakistanis should be called indians as we are the real inhabitants of indus and not the people who are living in present day india. bengalis definitly have no connection to indus civilization no matter what u say or how many logics u try to give. indus civiliztaion was completely based on the beds of river indus which is completely in pakistan and bengal is 1000's of km's away from it. so let me say it again if u think that we pakistanis are indians then ok i am an indian. but if u try to call urself as indians too i.e the same race as pakistanis then i'm sorry to say i would prefer to call my self a negroid or chinese instead of an indian. bharat get it in ur head punjabis,sindhis,balouchs and pashtuns have no similarities or connections we bengalis in cuture,genes or traditions. we have more similarities wid people living on our western borders than those living on our eastern borders.yes we do have similarities wid some north indians but again those indians are in real minority in present day india.
i have said it before and lemme say it again. pakistanis have no connections wid the majority population in india that consists of bengalis,beharis,malayams and telgus etc etc.
so stop pushing it and be proud of ur own race, and dont feel disgrace as calling urself as a bengali.u r not a punjabi so dont try to become one.
and btw bharat i might be punjabi as i speak punjabi and everything i know i have adopted from punjabi culture but my great dadaaji was definitly not punjabi.he was a pashtun from kabul.
but anyway plz dont try to mix urselves wid us. just look for urself, india has progressed so much and it is going so much further in tech and development than pakistan. on the otherhand we pakistanis are still way behind. so plz just think this way if u call pakistanis and idians as same race u'll disgrace urself wont u? so plz do urself a favour AND DONT CALL US AS THE SAME RACE AS URS.

ALP-ER-TUNGA this is the Taj Mahal of lahore.













actually i wont call it tajmahal as taj mahal is much more superior to it in architecture but atleast this is what we have in lahore.

Nice.

Mughal cavalry by Osprey:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1855323443/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-1308619-3463366#reader-link

a nice mix of Turkish, Persian and "Indian" features