About Ancient India...

Disclaimer:

As I have put in my past blogs, let me fill in all the disclaimers first. I am no instigator/promoter of fanatic emotions. And I don’t aspire to be one. In the sense this blog article cannot be quoted or used for any means/intention of provoking arguments/discussions. This cannot be used as a reference for any cause without the acceptance from the author. I want this to remain just an article for people to garner some knowledge and interest in Indian culture. Though all the facts here are validated and verifiable, all the views expressed are personal and can be a biased. So copiously use your grey matter wherever needed.

Acknowledgements:

As mentioned in my previous blog my greatest inspiration in studying and following culture and traditions is my dad. I should thank him for instilling these values. I should thank, my brother, Ramesh for suggesting me the book “The Pride of India”. I should thank Meenu for helping me with the book “80 questions to understand India”. I should thank all the numerous contributors who updated Wikipedia with referable facts.

The article:

About ancient India:

By Ancient I mean the India even before we have recorded history. The India where Neanderthals started settling down (around 20,000 BC), where the Vedas are written (around 5000 BC) and where the epic battles were fought (around 3000 BC). This India is no resemblance in shape or size to the current Republic of India. This India extended from Caspian Sea to the river Yamuna, spanning current day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North western India. This is the India where all the practices, traditions we follow today are formed and not current day geographical India.

Some claim that Ganges as the main source of inspiration for Vedas. But at the time of writing Vedas, people never know about Ganges. Vedas refer to prominent rivers of India. The first one is Sarayu or the Syr Darayu river in Kyrgyztan. Another one is Saraswathi. This used to be a river originating from the Himalayas and flowing into current day Gujrat. This has been the base of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa civilisations. The Mohenjo-Daro civilisation came to an end for a various factors including drying up river Saraswathi.

At that time the present day North India was thick forest, extending till south (and current day Dandakaranya). The people were savage, but trying to become civilised. Settlements triggered the process of urbanisation. Urbanisation triggered the process of accumulating demographics. (déjà-vu?? Resembles the cities of current day India... then read on). India even then was the most populated geography. One estimate is that they were around 20,000 people in India even before 3000 BC. This cannot be a coincidence. History says that India is the only place where there has never been a mass exodus of people.

About Vedas:

Strictly speaking there is only one veda: Rig Veda. Sama and Yajur veda are formed by rearranging of Sama. There are details on how to perform rituals listed in Sama. Atharvana was formed long later and contains more practical things on how to make tools, diseases and their cures, city planning. So this article focuses on Rig veda only.

Rig Veda has striking resemblance with Zend-Avesta (the sacred book of Zorastrians). Personally since I have read both these, I can comment on the similarity which is quite palpable. Both of them have a head of god: Indra (Rig Veda) and Verethragna (Avesta). They have the devils: Asura (Rig); Ahura Mazda (Avesta). The Gods/God helpers: Devas (Rig); Daevas (Avesta). Otherwise also the source of both the Veda and Avesta is considered to be the same by experts.

Vedic Gods are ten in number headed by Indra. The other prominent gods among them include Agni, Varuna, Mitra and Asvins. Surprisingly there is only one Goddess among Devas: Ushas (or the dawn). This shows that at the time of Vedas the prominence of women was less and it gradually increased with the generations to come (or as man settled down and became more civilised). There is no mention of Narayana/Vishnu, Siva, Brahma, Ganesha. These were tribals gods included later (as Aryans try to move into present day India, they encountered a lot of aborigines) and the prominence of these was emphasised by writing puranas for each: Vishnu purana; Garuda purana, Siva purana. Then there is a list of Gods which have come because of deifying men in flesh. This includes Rama, Krishna, Hanuman.

The Vedas came to India with the Aryans. They took the traditions and culture to all the places where they went. But though they spread to other parts of Asia and Europe, this knowledge was not continued there. We can consider ourselves fortunate to have our ancestors who planned diligently and took lot of pain to pass on this knowledge. I hear arguments that our ancestors never passed on their knowledge to us. But here is a standing example that our ancestors did a more efficient job than others. The only other religion where they follow the ancient traditions is Zoroastrians (or Parsis). They diligently follow all these rituals in the same way even today as we do this.

About Aryans:

Max Muller, an indologist pointed out Aryans as blue eyed men, tall and beautiful. This is just letting imaginations run wild. It is more like a poet designing an aircraft. Aryans were savage killers, war-mongers and nomadic people. They originated from close to Caspian Sea and spread into Europe, Persia and Asia including current day India. They started moving to regions around Saraswathi, Yamuna and Ganges and all through encountered a few civilisations (this was even before Mohen-daro and Harrappa). They saw the fertile land and realised the advantages of settling down and cultivating crops. As they settled down they needed space, and so slowly expanded into hinterlands, pushing the tribes more south. In fact the Ramayana story is about how the tribes thwarted the entry of Aryans into their lands. (Yagnas performed to mark occupation of new places, by sages including Vashista are stopped by demons/tribes who don’t want to give away that place). A tribal king (Ravana) want to save his kingdom from an Aryan king (Rama). In fact in the Singhalese version (and some Indonesian and other versions) of Ramayana, Ravana is portrayed as the hero, while Rama the evil-doer.

Aryans worshipped horse, because this is the only animal which can carry them to far-lands (unlike ox/elephant). They respected cow because it used to give them milk which used to be one of their staple diet. Only recently (after centuries of cultivation, around 2000BC) did they know about grains like rice, wheat and cereals. Else their staple diet consists of beef, horse (yep beef!! Cow slaughter activists beware!! You need to know right what your ancestors ate). Since they are nomadic, gathering fruits would be an uncertain ordeal for daily diet. Cultivation is completely unknown to them. Their only diet is cattle meat and milk products. In fact Rig Veda details on how to kill a cow and eat it right. End of Ashwamedha Yagna details on how to kill a horse and who should consume what part. The Brahmins are supposed to eat the brain, liver and heart while the king eats as much as he can from the rest and distributes the remaining among his soldiers. The priests are also supposed to have only one ox at home and the rest of oxen were supposed to be cooked and eaten along with the guests.

Then where did Vegetarianism come from? Traditions change over a period of time and are influenced with the other religions. One such impact from Buddhism and Jainism is the concept of vegetarianism. Buddhists as well as Jains were (and are) against killing of animals and plants for a man to live. Hence they prohibited vehemently eating flesh and roots of plants (especially Jainism). Certain castes, especially Brahmins and vysyas have imbibed this tradition in themselves so as to appease the Buddhists and jain counterparts. Vysyas needed to appease them because they supported the trading activities quite rigorously. Brahmins needed to appease them because they have to integrate them into mainstream Hinduism. The only way to do this is to show that their traditions are not much different from Jainism or Buddhism. It is quite odd that certain communities (especially Brahmins) are opposed eating of certain roots like garlic and onion, but not potato. This is because they took the tradition of not eating roots long ago when Garlic and Onion are the most commonly available roots at that time. (Yam is predominantly south Indian). But potato was introduced in India only 400 years ago and faces no such restrictions. Had they been strictly following that tradition they should not have eaten potato or yam. Also the fact there are powerful Brahmin communities who eat meat and fish gives credibility to the fact the vegetarianism is a recent development.

About caste system:

Any discussion on ancient India is incomplete without discussion on caste system. This has been embedded in the society for more than 8000 years now and is as old as the Vedas. The Vedas speak about three segments in societies: the priests (the knowledge and God seekers), the warriors (the main chunk of Aryan population) and the slaves (people captured in wars). The religions which are based on the Vedas: Hinduism and Zoroastrianism have this segmentation inherent. Apparently the Aryan population never had a trading community. This is because they were nomadic and war mongering. Only after settling down, did they have anything in surplus and did they ever trade. After this the Arya-Vysa community was added. When the Aryans came to hinterlands, they needed someone to preach about their religion (just like the Christian monasteries that came along with the western countries). This is when they gave a lot of importance and special rights to the priest class. In return the priest class was always humble to the rulers, and became the channel of conveying the rulers decisions/wills to people as a divine command. The priests would be well read about the traditions of Aryas as well as the traditions of local people and hence they became more knowledgeable and popular with the people than the king himself. This made the king more dependable on the priest class.

When Hinduism was on verge of collapse, (by the spread of Buddhism and Jainism) around 300 BC, the only segment of population which stick to Hinduism in vedic form (or the religion of Aryans) were the priest class or Brahmins. After centuries they again had the task of reviving the Aryan tradition and integrating it with the popular religion of the time (unlike previously when they used to integrate it with tribal religions or Gods). For this they have built a network through mutts, peethams and other entities. These can be considered as the infrastructure for reviving and reliving Hinduism. This effort was spear headed by Adi Shankaracharya. He was a pioneer in this initiative and brought back the old Vedic traditions to life. He made the Vedas to be scripted so that they are not lost in word-of-mouth. He integrated Buddhism (which was more dominating in India) with Hinduism by claiming Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu. The old versions of Vishnu Purana never claimed of Buddha avatar until it was rewritten.

But curing an injury though gets back normalcy, leaves a scar. The awakening of Hinduism from the siestas of Buddhism and Jainism has had its impacts. One of them was the example of vegetarianism as in previous section. The other one was the stringent caste system (Vedas preach of flexible segmentation. Anyone can be knowledge seeker or anyone can be a warrior). Buddhism practices a stringent egalitarian society. In the initial days of Buddhism it was good because the rules of the game were simple: Kindness (Ahimsa) and Forgiveness (Moksha). But later on it became tough to manage. When Hinduism was revived to its place the egalitarian society became a norm of the day and was integrated into it. The concepts of reincarnation, dharma, karma, ahimsa are alien earlier Hinduism and have been got from these religions. Even Lakshmi the goddess of wealth is an import from Buddhism. Since Buddhism (along with Jainism) encouraged trading and wealth creation they had the epitome of wealth as Goddess Lakshmi.

About Today’s Hindu Gods:

For us today it might be sounding quite weird, to know what the Gods for us meant to our ancestors. Krishna for someone in Aryan civilisation/Vedic days represented a “Leader of Demons” and for someone in 10^th century represented a person (and not God) who gave discourse called “Bhagwad Gita”. Same is the case with Rama. He was not born during Vedic days. He was born long after Aryans came to India. Even then he was just a feeble man waging a war to win his wife back. Only recently he was raised to the incarnation of Vishnu especially after Tulsidas wrote the Ramacharithamanas (1623 AD). Only after this was Ram raised to the status of God. In fact the present day Ayodhya (erstwhile Oudh, is named after the popular mythological/historical city of “Ayodhya”) which Tulsidas celebrates to be birth place of Rama is just a figment of imagination. The actual Ayodhya should have existed somewhere close to Caspian sea or Afghanistan. (Can you believe that? Rama was born in today’s Afghanistan). L.K.Advani, years after Babri masjid incident has acknowledged the fact that the present day Ayodhya need not be the place of Rama’s birth. How witty can our politicians be when it comes to gaining votes? He was openly accepted as a God because “this occurred in late Mughal Period and at a time when very few Hindus had any knowledge of or belief in their rich earlier culture and craved for an authentic Hindu hero. Ramacharitra manas uplifted a badly bruised Hindu pride and fired imaginations of people. ” (quote from “80 questions to understand India” – Murad Ali Baig)

Mahabhartha on other hand has a definite proof of occurrence in North western India. In fact ruins of Dwaraka which have been carefully extracted give an estimate of dates (though not clear) of occurrence of Mahabharata (around 3000BC). Krishna was a philosophical man in flesh and blood, who has given the Bhagwad gita discourse (just like any other gyani baba!!). After the war, he was also instrumental in initiating a movement for taking people away from Dwaraka to safer lands in current day Uttar Pradesh/Bihar. There was a flood which has submerged Dwaraka, and this flooding caused by drifting of river Saraswathi. This river later on dried up during the Mohenjo-Daro civilisation. Krishna was epitomised as a God and reincarnation of Vishnu by later reviewers of Bhagwad Gita. His importance was elevated only during the later years.

Siva should have been a tribal God much earlier than Rama and Krishna. He must have been a cave man who covered himself with skin of animals he killed. He must been living in colder regions (probably Himalayas) and must be dancer. He might have been God of certain war clan which the Aryan priests integrated into Hinduism to make the clan adhere to their Kings. Rigveda speaks of no God similar to Siva. Some later versions of Siva purana speak Siva as a Rudra. Rudra is an angry God of Rig veda but he resembles Siva in no form. So this linking of Siva as Rudra is again dubious.

Similar legends exist for the tribal Gods who have been deified and extolled including Balaji, Hanuman, Ganesha, Saraswathi, Parvathi.

Why did I write this article?

I don’t want to preach anything by writing all this. I just wanted to put the facts in perspective, for people to pick and form opinion. It is tough for everyone to do so much of research on Indian culture. But people (and generally Indians!!) are interested in gaining insights into their culture. This is a good trait. As long as we are interested in understanding our culture we have a sense of direction. “Culture is lifeblood of every race and when it was destroyed, as the Spanish had so ruthlessly done in Central America, people lost all pride in their old traditions and became utterly rootless and lost” (quoted from “80 questions to understand India” – Murad Ali Baig). I have seen this happen in modern day India. People, especially the youth, today are shy to follow their culture and fail to openly acknowledge or feel proud about it. Because of this, they either stick to some superstitious practices (however educated they are) or make a complete mock of them. Neither one is intended. Rather they should know the truth and respect it the way it is. We cannot change history it is already made, we can preserve it so that we gain some knowledge from them. Since I already spent a lot of effort and time, I would like to share the knowledge. I leave the analysis and actions-to-be-taken part for you. I would be happy if you can spread this around so that all those who are interested can learn about Indian culture.