India and her first mark on the world - The Indus Valley Civilization

"India - The land where the sun was born ", as described by the Greeks when Alexander the Great had rendezvous in 325 B.C with Indian king Porus ( Purushottama in Sanskrit) at Battle of Hydaspes (modern day river beas) . Ancient trade relations existed, but the history of India is one which existed far beyond to the times when mankind had started a new phase of their lives- a transition from the nomadic and small village lives to built grand nations, powerful kingdoms (as of Egypt) and an extensive set and complex fabric of beliefs which shaped and had a formative effect in development of the modern day world order, and therefore the role of India cannot be denied by any means in this and has to be deeply studied and examined.

India has been a center of excellence where one of the major religions of the world "Hinduism" [or Sanatana Dharma] developed and her extreme quality of tolerance and power to absorb any shocks and developments ensured that the grieve stricken Jews, who came at around 576 B.C and then Zoroastrians (of the remnant of grand Zoroastrian nation, called Iran in modern times) around 700 A.D fostered and enjoyed their freedom of faith and respect with majority of Hindus. It was a land where Islam came at around 1000 A.D and bought with itself a new wave of development and amalgamation which we see in form of modern day Sufism ( mystical form of Islam) and muslim population which is 3rd largest in world after Indonesia and Pakistan. The story of India is untold and often misleading to many. Western people still think it is a land of Maharajas, and snake charmer [my boss told me this thing once, thus reinstating my beleif :) ] but anyways the glory of this country and the principles and spiritual elevation she stood for are still alive and make relevance to modern day - I guess even more in these times

ANCIENT INDIA
The first major excavation carried out in pre-independent India around 19th century led to the discovery of one of the most advanced civilizations of the ancient world , called the Indus Vally Civilization (IVC), the date of which has been traced back to 3200 B.C (calculated by Carbon dating of the strata found). The civilization was primarily situated in undivided India ( now Pakistan and India ) and extended westwards to countries like Afghanistan, and Iran .
The civilization of India is an ancient one and developed simultaneously with her contemporaries like Sumer ( Mesopotamia , as called by the Greeks , or modern day Iraq) , Egyptians to the west and Chinese in the north. As generally we have seen, many ancient civilizations developed near rivers and Indus Vally Civilization (IVC) was no exception-
1. Egyptians near river Nile
2. Sumer near Tigris and Euphrates
3. Indus Valley near Indus River

The major centers of the civilizations were located in the cities called Harappa, and Mohenjo daro(meaning Mound of the Dead, in modern day Pakistan) , and Lothal, Dholavira ( in modern day India). The cities were magnificent in the sense that there existed an excellent sense of civic society and advanced engineering to design the entire city which was in no way less to the pyramid wonders of the mighty Egyptians. But unlike Egyptian society, which was more of a monarchy with the plight of a worker very poor, IVC exhibited a great sense of society, although she was no match to the might of Egyptians rulers. Some of the key features of the society, as I remember from my class 6th "Ancient History" textbooks are :

• The drainage system was complex and very modern
• There was an extensive canal system in place to hold water for emergencies like drought and for directing it to use for agriculture purposes

Sophisticated Reservoir system at Dholavira(ancient city - now located in Gujarat - a state on west coast of India ) , circa 2900 B.C

• The houses and places like toilets, well etc were made of burnt bricksAncient well at Lothal ( an ancient city situated in Gujarat - a state on the West side of India ), circa 2400 B.C

• There were granaries to store agricultural produce
• It had the world's largest public water tank called The Great Bath ( see below), which measured 12 mt x 7 mt and 2.4 mt deep. Most scholars agree that this tank would have been used for special religious functions where water was used to purify and renew the well being of the bathers The Great Bath at Mohenjo daro(Pakistan), circa 2600 B.C
  
• They had a script consisting of well over 400 symbols. the decipherment of the script is still far from a reality because of the following reasons (courtsey wikipedia)
  

- The underlying language , if any, has not been identified
-The average length of the inscriptions is less than five signs, the longest being
one of only 27 signs
-No bilingual texts (like a Rosetta Stone ) have been found.
And since the IVC was culturally isolated, it is highly unlikely there is one

• There existed a high level of concept of society, with a set of religious beliefs which gelled the entire civilization together. These beliefs and practices laid the foundations, and subsequent shaping up of Hinduism in India. Read the description of the images below
  

A seal discovered from the city of Mohenjo daro depicting a person sitting in a meditating position - believed by many to be the form of prototype form of Lord Siva ( The destruction and annihilation aspect of the GOD who is worshiped by Hindus all around the world) , circa 2600 B.C
One of the figurines of a male from Mohenjo daro. Considered by many to be a chief priest of the society, circa 2600 B.C

THE DEMISE - around 1900 B.C
The civilization disappeared mysteriously around 1900 B.C. Many scholars believe that climatic changes, change of course of river systems, flooding etc might have forced many people to vacate those areas. I remember about some theory of epidemic spread out (but I doubt this reason to have caused people to desert these places)
Whatever be the reason of the demise of this great center of learning, it had a strong influence in the development of science , art, music etc in later history of the Indian subcontinent and the shaping up of religious orders in India which is a continuation of the practices followed by our ancient people. Every Indian should be proud of this heritage and consider it to be something they should flaunt and let people of the different parts of the world know so as they should appreciate the relevance and contributions of the Eastern world and society to the world in the way they never did before

Pranam
Manu

PS:
1. This post is just for an introduction tot he IVC. for detailed information
excellent sources are available on internet and you can take help of them
2. I am extremely grateful to Wikipedia and other relevant sites from which I took
images for this post. You guys are doing a great job and I appreciate it a lot