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Pakistan
Index
Figure 2. Indus Valley Culture Sites, ca. 2500-1600 B.C.
Source: Based on information from Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler,
Early India and Pakistan: To Ashoka, New York, 1968, 95;
and Joseph E. Schwartzberg, ed., A Historical Atlas of South
Asia, New York, 1992, 9.
Dhyani Buddha, second-century Buddha statue from the historic site
of Taxila
Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
From the earliest times, the Indus River valley region
has
been both a transmitter of cultures and a receptacle of
different
ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. Indus Valley
civilization (known also as Harappan culture) appeared
around
2500 B.C. along the Indus River valley in Punjab and
Sindh. This
civilization, which had a writing system, urban centers,
and a
diversified social and economic system, was discovered in
the
1920s at its two most important sites: Mohenjo-daro, in
Sindh
near Sukkur, and Harappa, in Punjab south of Lahore
(see
fig. 2).
A number of other lesser sites stretching from the
Himalayan
foothills in Indian Punjab to Gujarat east of the Indus
River and
to Balochistan to the west have also been discovered and
studied.
How closely these places were connected to Mohenjo-daro
and
Harappa is not clearly known, but evidence indicates that
there
was some link and that the people inhabiting these places
were
probably related.
An abundance of artifacts have been found at
Harappa--so much
so, that the name of that city has been equated with the
Indus
Valley civilization (Harappan culture) it represents. Yet
the
site was damaged in the latter part of the nineteenth
century
when engineers constructing the Lahore-Multan railroad
used brick
from the ancient city for ballast. Fortunately, the site
at
Mohenjo-daro has been less disturbed in modern times and
shows a
well-planned and well-constructed city of brick.
Indus Valley civilization was essentially a city
culture
sustained by surplus agricultural produce and extensive
commerce,
which included trade with Sumer in southern Mesopotamia in
what
is today modern Iraq. Copper and bronze were in use, but
not
iron. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were cities built on
similar plans
of well-laid-out streets, elaborate drainage systems,
public
baths, differentiated residential areas, flat-roofed brick
houses
and fortified administrative and religious centers
enclosing
meeting halls and granaries. Weights and measures were
standardized. Distinctive engraved stamp seals were used,
perhaps
to identify property. Cotton was spun, woven, and dyed for
clothing. Wheat, rice, and other food crops were
cultivated, and
a variety of animals were domesticated. Wheel-made
pottery--some
of it adorned with animal and geometric motifs--has been
found in
profusion at all the major Indus sites. A centralized
administration has been inferred from the cultural
uniformity
revealed, but it remains uncertain whether authority lay
with a
priestly or a commercial oligarchy.
By far the most exquisite but most obscure artifacts
unearthed to date are the small, square steatite seals
engraved
with human or animal motifs. Large numbers of the seals
have been
found at Mohenjo-daro, many bearing pictographic
inscriptions
generally thought to be a kind of script. Despite the
efforts of
philologists from all parts of the world, however, and
despite
the use of computers, the script remains undeciphered, and
it is
unknown if it is proto-Dravidian or proto-Sanskrit.
Nevertheless,
extensive research on the Indus Valley sites, which has
led to
speculations on both the archaeological and the linguistic
contributions of the pre--Aryan population to Hinduism's
subsequent development, has offered new insights into the
cultural heritage of the Dravidian population still
dominant in
southern India. Artifacts with motifs relating to
asceticism and
fertility rites suggest that these concepts entered
Hinduism from
the earlier civilization. Although historians agree that
the
civilization ceased abruptly, at least in Mohenjo-daro and
Harappa there is disagreement on the possible causes for
its end.
Invaders from central and western Asia are considered by
some
historians to have been "destroyers" of Indus Valley
civilization, but this view is open to reinterpretation.
More
plausible explanations are recurrent floods caused by
tectonic
earth movement, soil salinity, and desertification.
Until the entry of the Europeans by sea in the late
fifteenth
century, and with the exception of the Arab conquests of
Muhammad
bin Qasim in the early eighth century, the route taken by
peoples
who migrated to India has been through the mountain
passes, most
notably the Khyber Pass, in northwestern Pakistan.
Although
unrecorded migrations may have taken place earlier, it is
certain
that migrations increased in the second millennium B.C.
The
records of these people--who spoke an Indo-European
language--are
literary, not archaeological, and were preserved in the
Vedas,
collections of orally transmitted hymns. In the greatest
of
these, the "Rig Veda," the Aryan speakers appear as a
tribally
organized, pastoral, and pantheistic people. The later
Vedas and
other Sanskritic sources, such as the Puranas (literally,
"old
writings"--an encyclopedic collection of Hindu legends,
myths,
and genealogy), indicate an eastward movement from the
Indus
Valley into the Ganges Valley (called Ganga in Asia) and
southward at least as far as the Vindhya Range, in central
India.
A social and political system evolved in which the Aryans
dominated, but various indigenous peoples and ideas were
accommodated and absorbed. The caste system that remained
characteristic of Hinduism also evolved. One theory is
that the
three highest castes--Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and
Vaishyas--were
composed of Aryans, while a lower caste--the Sudras--came
from
the indigenous peoples.
By the sixth century B.C., knowledge of Indian history
becomes more focused because of the available Buddhist and
Jain
sources of a later period. Northern India was populated by
a
number of small princely states that rose and fell in the
sixth
century B.C. In this milieu, a phenomenon arose that
affected the
history of the region for several centuries--Buddhism.
Siddhartha
Gautama, the Buddha, the "Enlightened One" (ca. 563-483
B.C.),
was born in the Ganges Valley. His teachings were spread
in all
directions by monks, missionaries, and merchants. The
Buddha's
teachings proved enormously popular when considered
against the
more obscure and highly complicated rituals and philosophy
of
Vedic Hinduism. The original doctrines of the Buddha also
constituted a protest against the inequities of the caste
system,
attracting large numbers of followers.
At about the same time, the semi-independent kingdom of
Gandhara, roughly located in northern Pakistan and
centered in
the region of Peshawar, stood between the expanding
kingdoms of
the Ganges Valley to the east and the Achaemenid Empire of
Persia
to the west. Gandhara probably came under the influence of
Persia
during the reign of Cyrus the Great (559-530 B.C.). The
Persian
Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 330 B.C., and he
continued
his march eastward through Afghanistan and into India.
Alexander
defeated Porus, the Gandharan ruler of Taxila, in 326 B.C.
and
marched on to the Ravi River before turning back. The
return
march through Sindh and Balochistan ended with Alexander's
death
at Babylon in 323 B.C.
Greek rule did not survive in northwestern India,
although a
school of art known as Indo-Greek developed and influenced
art as
far as Central Asia. The region of Gandhara was conquered
by
Chandragupta (r. ca. 321-ca. 297 B.C.), the founder of the
Mauryan Empire, the first universal state of northern
India, with
its capital at present-day Patna in Bihar. His grandson,
Ashoka
(r. ca. 274-ca. 236 B.C.), became a Buddhist. Taxila
became a
leading center of Buddhist learning. Successors to
Alexander at
times controlled the northwestern of region present-day
Pakistan
and even Punjab after Maurya power waned in the region.
The northern regions of Pakistan came under the rule of
the
Sakas, who originated in Central Asia in the second
century B.C.
They were soon driven eastward by Pahlavas (Parthians
related to
the Scythians), who in turn were displaced by the Kushans
(also
known as the Yueh-Chih in Chinese chronicles).
The Kushans had earlier moved into territory in the
northern
part of present-day Afghanistan and had taken control of
Bactria.
Kanishka, the greatest of the Kushan rulers (r. ca. A.D.
120-60),
extended his empire from Patna in the east to Bukhara in
the west
and from the Pamirs in the north to central India, with
the
capital at Peshawar (then Purushapura)
(see
fig. 3).
Kushan
territories were eventually overrun by the Huns in the
north and
taken over by the Guptas in the east and the Sassanians of
Persia
in the west.
The age of the imperial Guptas in northern India
(fourth to
seventh centuries A.D.) is regarded as the classical age
of Hindu
civilization. Sanskrit literature was of a high standard;
extensive knowledge in astronomy, mathematics, and
medicine was
gained; and artistic expression flowered. Society became
more
settled and more hierarchical, and rigid social codes
emerged
that separated castes and occupations. The Guptas
maintained
loose control over the upper Indus Valley.
Northern India suffered a sharp decline after the
seventh
century. As a result, Islam came to a disunited India
through the
same passes that Indo-Aryans, Alexander, Kushans, and
others had
entered.
Data as of April 1994
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