Preview

The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
90943 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline
The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline
D. D. Kosambi

Preface 1. THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 1.1. The Indian Scene 1.2. The Modern Ruling Class 1.3. The Difficulties Facing the Historian 1.4. The Need to Study Rural and Tribal Society 1.5. The Villages 1.6. Recapitulation 2. PRIMITIVE LIFE AND PREHISTORY 2.1. The Golden Age 2.2. Prehistory and Primitive Life 2.3. Prehistoric Man in India 2.4. Primitive Survivals in the Means of Production 2.5. Primitive Survivals in the Superstructure 3. THE FIRST CITIES 3.1. The Discovery of the Indus Culture 3.2. Production in the Indus Culture 3.3. Special Features of the Indus Civilisation 3.4. The Social Structure 4. THE ARYANS 4.1. The Aryan Peoples 4.2. The Aryan Way of Life 4.3. Eastward Progress 4.4. Aryans after the Rigveda 4.5. The Urban Revival 4.6. The Epic Period 5. FROM TRIBE TO SOCIETY 5.1. The New Religions 5.2. The Middle Way 5.3. The Buddha and His Society 5.4. The Dark Hero of the Yadus 5.5. Kosala and Magadha 6. STATE AND RELIGION IN GREATER MAGADHA

6.1. Completion of the Magadhan Conquest 6.2. Magadhan Statecraft 6.3. Administration of the Land 6.4. The State and Commodity Production 6.5. Asoka and the Culmination of the Magadhan Empire 7. TOWARDS FEUDALISM 7.1. The New Priesthood 7.2. The Evolution of Buddhism 7.3. Political and Economic Changes 7.4. Sanskrit Literature and Drama

Preface
IT is doubtless more important to change history than to write it, just as it would be better to do something about the weather rather than merely talk about it. In a free parliamentary democracy every citizen is supposed to feel that he, personally is making history when he elects representatives to do the talking and to tax him for the privilege. Some have now begun to suspect that this may not suffice, that all history may terminate abruptly with the atomic age unless a bit more is done soon. Much that has been talked about India's glorious past, unhampered by fact or common sense, is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Indo-European Aryans

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages

    During the Vedic Age in India, a group of people called the Aryans became a dominant culture if north India. These people spoke an early form of Sanskrit, “an Indo-European language closely related to Persian and more distantly related to Latin, Greek, Celtic, and their modern [linguistic] decendants” (McKay, 68). The Indo-European Aryans created a complex society with it’s own distinctive social structure, religious beliefs, and technologies.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Buddism -vs- Hinduism

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Zysk, K., (1996). Classifying the universe: the ancient indian varna system and the origins of caste. The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 55, Iss. 3; pg. 770…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Story of India is a six set series that tells about one of the world’s largest democracies and the rising economic giant. It explains how India is known for its mastery for computer technology, spiritual traditions, and its many armed gods. It shows how the surviving civilization dates back to pre-history. It shows how, like other civilizations, India has experienced several outstanding golden ages in culture and art. It was the religious leaders and great thinkers that changed the face of the world. It sets out to show the glories and wonders of India, the diversity and richness of the people, landscapes and cultures, and drama concerning the past, (Wood, 2009).…

    • 1272 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. If the writing of the early Indus Valley civilization could be deciphered, what new information could they hope to learn?…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Indian history and the Gupta Hindu Kingdom changed drastically by arts, religions, regionalism, and the caste system. The Gupta Rule also called the Classical Age refers to the time where much of the Indian subcontinent was reunited under the Gupta Empire. From the 5th century BC to the 5th century AD the Gupta Hindu Kingdom region of classical India started as a highly political, regionalized caste system to a religious Hindu based culture, and a more science thinking culture.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ancient India had the indus river valley flowing through and also had large and well planned cities.…

    • 1817 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Through the time period 300 C.E. to 600 C.E the Indian Civilization has changed but also stayed the same culturally and politically. The Gupta Dynasty created peace and prosperity known as the Golden Age of India, the silk road brough relligions and ideas from other areas and united most of India.…

    • 298 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In chapter two I had read about the emergence of civilization in India and the Harappan society. Approximately four thousand years ago the Aryan people moved southward which were settled in central Asia before. India has and still is country of diversity the religions Buddhism and Hinduism started in India. Also India is home to some of the highest mountains on earth which are the Himalaya and Karakoram mountain ranges. The Harappan civilization shared some of the cultures of Nile valley and Mesopotamia. The people of Harappan civilization had lived in small villages and settled in small red mud-brick homes. The people of the harappan civilization were raised on mostly agriculture which meant that barley, wheat and rice were their only crops. They were also the first to work with cotton seeds. The Harappan people started a trading network with the country Sumer. They would exchange lumber and copper for textiles and foodstuffs these products were imported by ships but rarely by land. Although the Harappan civilization came to an end in 1500 b.c.e. which is still a mystery to this day. The remains of the Harappan civilization were later destroyed by the Aryans which who were nomads that came from the north. The Aryans had arrived there around the second millennium. They were also the first to invent the horse-drawn chariots which gave them an advantage with their lives. Than in 1500 and 1000 b.c.e. the Aryans moved to the northern part of India. The Aryan people were intelligent they managed to create their own writing system that was based on the Aramaic script. Most Aryan groups were led by a chief which than was called a raja or a “prince”. That’s why India is still known as a diversity country till this…

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Indus Valley Civilization

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Indian sub-continent was the home of one of the earliest civilizations of man. In the history of ancient India we see many forms of society ranging from urban civilization of Indus Valley to the Classical Age of Gupta Dynasty. During this period we see a hierarchy of centralized and decentralized government. Some of which were highly organized in their political structure and government while others were merely weakened by internal problems and division of power.…

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Today in Social Studies class I learned about India. The five topics Ms. Chan taught me for India is Science, Technology, Writing, Math, and Art. There were a lot of interesting things I didn’t know.…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The early civilizations of India have proven to be a highly intellectual, god fearing, and advanced collaboration of people. From approximately 2700 B.C.E to around 500 B.C.E two societies flourished in the northern region of India known as the Indus Valley. The Indus Valley Civilization and later, the Aryans - believed by some to have migrated to India from Europe and the middle East - paved the foundation of Hinduism through the influences of their cultures, early religions and social structures. Unfortunately, there is little to be said of the earliest inhabitants, the people of the Indus Valley Civilization because there still does not exist a decipherment of the Indus Valley Script. Based on loose interpretations of artifacts found in ancient Indus Valley cities, we have been able to depict that the people of the Indus Valley were originally a nomadic tribe, but later had a high degree of uniformity amongst city development, a language written on a variety of small 1 inch seals, and may have worshiped Goddesses or a pre-Siva God, often seen on these seals with three faces, bullhead, sitting in a yogic position. According to A.L Bashman’s book The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism, over time the Indus Valley Civilazation began to dwindle because they were driven from their lands by natural disasters, such as the sudden rise in the level of the sea bed south of the delta of the Indus River (Bashman, 1989, pg. 2).…

    • 1988 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first chapter of Metcalf and Metcalf’s A Concise History of Modern India, addresses the popular assumption that India is a “timeless” country. Because of that misconception, people often correlate India’s past directly with the present, especially when it comes to the caste and other social organizational systems (Metcalf & Metcalf, 3). In reality, referring to the Mughal and Sultanate era of India as a stagnant period of time is misleading and incorrect. This underlying theme of the development and evolution of South Asia during this period of time reappears throughout the chapter, enforcing the idea that the Mughal rule was in fact, an age of substantial growth and change. The authors’ argument is concisely stated when they write, “The…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Walsh, Judith E. A Brief History of India. New York: Facts on File, 2006. Print.…

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ancient India Religion

    • 2118 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Ancient India saw the relationship between knowledge of science and technology, with religion and social relations. The archaeological remains of the Indus Valley reveal knowledge of applied sciences. Scientific techniques were used in irrigation, Metallurgy, making of fired bricks and pottery, and simple reckoning and measurement of areas and volumes. Aryan achievements in the field of astronomy, mathematics and medicine are well known. Chinese records indicate knowledge of a dozen books of Indian origin. Brahmagupta's Sidhanta as well as Charaka's and Susrata's Samhitas were translated into Arabic in the 9th or 10th centuries A.D.In ancient Indian mathematics was known by the general name of Ganita, which included arithmetic, geometry,…

    • 2118 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Shastriya Sangeet

    • 4050 Words
    • 17 Pages

    Hindustani classical music (Hindi: हिन्दुस्तानी शास्त्रीय संगीत्, Urdu: کلاسیکی موسیقی‎) is the Hindustani or North Indian style of Indian classical music found throughout the northern Indian subcontinent. The style is sometimes called North Indian classical music or Shāstriya Sangīt. It is a tradition that originated in Vedic ritual chants and has been evolving since the 12th century CE, primarily in what is now North India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and to some extent in Nepal and Afghanistan. Today, it is one of the two subgenres of Indian classical music, the other being Carnatic music, the classical tradition of South India.…

    • 4050 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays