The religious practices of the early Indo-Aryans, known as the Vedic religion (1500 BCE to 500 BCE) were written down and later redacted into the Samhitas, four canonical collections of hymns or mantras, called the Veda, in archaic Sanskrit.

The Late Vedic age (9th to 6th centuries BCE) marked the beginning of the Upanisadic or Vedantic phase. This epoch heralded the start of what became classical Hinduism, with the composition of the Upanishads, later the Sanskrit epics, still later followed by the Puranas. The Sanskrit term Upanishad arose from upa- (nearby), ni- (at the proper place, down) and şad (to sit) thus: "sitting down near"), implying sitting near a teacher to get instruction.

The Upanishads are the philosophical account deemed to be the earliest source of Hindureligion. Out of more than 200 Upanishads the first dozen or so were the oldest and most important. The Brihadaranyaka, Jaiminiya and Chandogya Upanishads were composed during the pre-Buddhist era while the Taittiriya, Aitareya and Kausitaki, which showed Buddhist influence, must have been composed after the 5th century BC. All Upanishads had been passed down in oral tradition.

Shiva

The Puranas (meaning "of ancient times") were a genre of important Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious texts, with stories of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography. Early references to the Puranas are found in the Chandogya Upanishad (7.1.2) (500BCE).

Vedic religion had a strict code of rituals where the kings, the aristocrats and the rich merchants would contribute as the cost of organising such worship was very high and time-consuming. The mode of worship was prayer to the elements like fire and rivers, worship of heroic gods like Indra, chanting of hymns and carrying out sacrifices. Sacrifice was the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals to the gods as an act of propitiation or worship. In Vedic times, Yagya commonly included the sacrifice of milk, ghee, curd, grains, and the soma plant—animal offerings were less common.

PREPARATION OF A VEDIC RITUAL

Priests were trained for the ritual and they had to get proficient in its practice. The specialization of roles focused on the elaboration and development of the ritual corpus over time. Over time a full complement of sixteen priests became the custom for major ceremonies. The sixteen consisted of four chief priests and their assistants, with each of the four chief priests playing a unique role:

The hotri was the reciter of invocations and litanies. These could consist of single verses, or entire hymns (sukta), drawn from the Rig-Veda. As each phase of the ritual required an invocation, the hotri had a leading or presiding role. 

The adhvaryu was in charge of the physical details of the sacrifice. According to Monier-Williams, the adhvaryu "had to measure the ground, to build the altar, to prepare the sacrificial vessels, to fetch wood and water, to light the fire, to bring the animal and immolate it," among other duties. Each action was accompanied by supplicative or benedictive formulas (yajus), drawn from the Yajur-Veda.

The udgātri was a chanter of hymns set to melodies (sāman) drawn from the Sāma-Veda. This was a specialized role in the major soma sacrifices: a characteristic function of the udgātri was to sing hymns in praise of the energizing properties of the freshly pressed juice of the soma plant.
The brahman was superintendent of the entire performance, and responsible for correcting mistakes by means of supplementary invocations, usually from the Atharva-Veda.

Those who had paid for and participated in such rituals prayed for abundance of children, rain, cattle (wealth), long life and an afterlife in the heavenly world of the ancestors. This mode of worship has been preserved even today in Hinduism, which involves recitations from the Vedas by a purohita (priest), for prosperity, wealth and general well-being.

Sacrifice was done in several ways: First, there was simply the gift-offering. There was also a sense in which the sacrifice gave power or a way of spiritually carrying out something through the sacrifice, such as the severing of the heads of enemies through the gods. Sacrifice was seen as a way of pleasing the gods and gaining their favour in contrast to those who did not sacrifice (e.g. Rig 1.110.7 “those who pour no offering forth”). In the soma offering it was the priests offering the gods the juice that gave them pleasure and strength to win wealth and help from the gods for those who offered the Soma.

NARRATION IN THE EPIC ON VEDIC RITUAL

There was an ornate description of the Vedic rites performed at the royal bidding in Kosala. At the prologue of the Ramayana, King Dasaratha was getting ready to perform a grand yagna to have a son.

After some time, when the sweet vernal season appeared, King Dasaratha thought of carrying out the ritual […] to get sons to keep up his lineage.

King Dasaratha, addressing his prime minister, said, O Sumantra, summon priests versed in the Vedas and the Vedangas. When they arrived, Dasaratha, after showing due respect to them, said, having no son I have no happiness in life. Hence, I intend to perform an Asvamedha Yagna. By the blessings of holy Sage Rishyasringa, I am sure, I shall attain my intent. They fully agreed to his words.

The priests erected the sacrificial fireplace with bricks. The fireplace consisting on three sides of eighteen bricks looked like a golden-winged Garuda, the celestial carrier of Vishnu. For the purpose of sacrifice, horses, beasts and birds, reptiles and aquatic animals were collected. To those Yupas (posts) were tied hundreds of animals as well as the horse of the king.

Vishnu Riding Garuda

The meat was tested with a trial fork and then distributed (Rig 1.162.12ff). The Yajur-Veda was full of many more references to animal sacrifices, clear and often repeated references to animal sacrifices, mainly in association with the full moon rite, the Soma sacrifice and its supplement. There was an entire section of the Yajur-Veda devoted to optional animal sacrifices (ii.1): “To the Asvins he sacrifices a dusky, to Sarasvati a ram, to Indra a bull” (Yajur 1.8.21.e).

ASVAMEDHA YAGNA

The Ashvamedha, horse sacrifice, was one of the most important royal rituals of Vedic religion, described in detail in the Yajur-Veda. The Ashvamedha could only be conducted by a king. Its object was the acquisition of power and glory, the sovereignty over neighbouring provinces, and general prosperity of the kingdom. The ceremony narrated in the Ramayana was a departure from the Vedic text as the king wished to perform the ritual for being blessed with sons.

The horse to be sacrificed had to be a stallion, more than 24, but less than 100 years old. The horse was sprinkled with water, and the chief priest whispered mantras into its ear. Anyone who detained the horse was ritually cursed, and a dog was killed, symbolic of the punishment for the sinners. The horse was yoked to a gilded chariot, together with three other horses, and RV 1.6.1, 2 (Y.V. 23.5, 6) was recited. The horse was then driven into water and bathed. After this, the chief queen and two other royal consorts anointed it with ghee (clarified butter). They also adorned the horse's head, neck, and tail with golden ornaments.

After this, the horse, a hornless he-goat and a wild ox were tied to sacrificial stakes near the fire, and seventeen other animals were fastened to the horse. A great number of animals both tame and wild were tied to other stakes, according to a commentator, 609 animals in total.

The chief queen ritually called on the king's fellow wives for pity. The queens walked around the dead horse reciting mantras. The chief queen then had to mimic coitus with the dead horse, while the other queens ritually uttered obscenities.

On the next morning, the priests lifted up the queen from the place where she had spent the night with the horse. The three queens with a hundred golden, silver and copperneedles pointed to the lines on the horse's body along which it would be dissected. The horse was dissected, and its flesh roasted. Various parts were offered to a host of deities.

Now, to get back to the narration in the epic: a scholarly analysis put forward as under: ‘According to the text available to us, it seemed that the queen did not spend the entire night with the horse. Typically, she lay down with the horse and was covered with an upper cloth; at this time she was symbolically said to unite with the horse. Some words suggestive of copulation and fertility were spoken over her and the dead horse.

Wilson, the eminent Vedic scholar, held: […] As was detailed in the Yajur-Veda 22.26, and more particularly in the Sutras of Katyayani (Asvamedha 1-210), the object was the same as that of the Ramayana, or posterity, as one step towards which the principal queen, Kausalya, in the poem, was directed to lie all night in closest contact with the dead steed; in the morning, when the queen was released from the disgusting, and in fact, impossible, contiguity, a dialogue, as given in the Yajus, and in the Asvamedha section of the Satapatha Brahmana, and as explained in the Sutra, took place between the queen and the females accompanying or attending upon her, and the principal priest, which though brief, was in the highest degree both silly and obscene[…] We came across no vestige, however, of these revolting impurities in the Rig-Veda[…] no reasonable doubt could be entertained that the early ritual of the Hindus did authorize the sacrifice of a horse, the details and objects of which were very soon grossly amplified and distorted; at the same time it was to be remarked that these two hymns were the only ones in the Rich that related especially to the subject; from which it might be inferred that they belonged to a different period[…] As the solemnity appeared in the Rich, it allowed a less poetical, a more barbaric character, and it might have been a relic of an ante-Vedic period, imported from some foreign region, possibly from Scythia, where animal victims, and especially horses, were commonly sacrificed (Herod IV 71).

There were many ambiguities and discords between the different sections of the Veda, often causing clashes between members of the priestly class. Further, they spoke of the rewards of carrying out costly rites and rituals. Often, the different sections of the Veda contradicted each other, confusing the common man as to what to believe.

To sum up, the attitude of the Vedic Aryan to unseen forces was simple yet primitive. The gods were thirty-three to begin with. They had no icons. Fire was their emissary. The Aryan man killed an ox, a sheep, a goat, at times, a horse and offered its meat and fat together with milk and butter, barley bread and the intoxicating drink soma by the fire to his gods. The gods were gratified with these offerings of food and drink and in return, they gave the worshipper what he wished for, viz. wealth, sons, long life and victory over enemies. This was the Vedic Aryan ritual of homa or fire-worship.

BASIC CONCEPTS OF RELIGION IN THE VEDA

The gods in the Rig-Veda were mostly personified concepts, who fell into two categories: the devas – who were gods of nature – such as the weather deity Indra (who was also the king of the gods), Agni (fire), Usha (dawn), Surya (sun) and Apas (waters) on the one hand, and on the other hand the asuras – gods of moral concepts – such as Mitra (contract), Aryaman (guardian of guest, friendship and marriage), Bhaga (share) or Varuna, the supreme Asura (or Aditya). While Rig-Vedic deva was variously applied to most gods, including many of the Asuras, the Devas were characterized as Younger Gods while Asuras were the Older Gods (pūrve devāh). In later Vedic texts, the Asuras became demons.

Agni

The Rig-Veda had 10 Mandalas (books). There was essential variation in the language and style between the older family books (RV books 2–7), book 8, the Soma Mandala (RV 9), and the more recent books 1 and 10. The older books shared many aspects of common Indo-Iranian religion and were an important source for the reconstruction of earlier common Indo-European traditions. Especially RV 8 had striking similarity to the Avesta, containing allusions to Afghan Flora and Fauna, e.g. to camels uštra- = Avestan uštra). Many of the key religious terms in Vedic Sanskrit had cognates in the religious vocabulary of other Indo-European languages (deva: Latin deus; hotar: Germanic god; asura: Germanic ansuz; yajna: Greek hagios; brahman: Norse Bragi or perhaps Latin flamen etc.). Above all notable is the fact that in the Avesta Asura (Ahura) was known as good and Deva (Daeva) as evil entity, quite the opposite of the Rig-Veda.

Leaving aside the question of the primary religion of the Hindus at a later section of this essay, let it be made clear that the Veda did not deal with religion alone throughout the volumes one went over. It had been a favourite notion of many scholars that at the time of composition of the hymns of the Veda there were a nomadic and pastoral people. Such an opinion rested solely upon frequent solicitations for food, and for horses and cattle, found right in the hymns. That those people were not nomads became evident from the repeated allusions to fixed dwellings, villages and towns. Also there were references to overthrow of enemies and destruction of their cities after long-drawn-out battles. Not only the hymns were familiar with the ocean, there were merchants sailing to distant places for the sake of grain. There was a naval expedition against a continent, frustrated by a shipwreck. Most curious was the prayer in the Rig-Veda (I.11.7.14), from the peculiar expression used on more than one occasion, in soliciting long life, when the worshipper asked for a hundred winters (himas), a boon not likely to have been desired by the natives of hot climate like north-western part of India, Iran and so on. People coming over at that distant epoch towards India appeared to have been fair-complexioned as one hymn (I.15.7.18) declared that Indra, the supreme God, divided the conquered fields to his white-complexioned people, after destroying the native barbarian races, the term being Dasyu.

SYNTHESIS OF HARAPPA, VEDIC & HINDU RELIGIONS

Hinduism is a label for a wide variety of related religious traditions native to India. Historically, it includes the development of religion in India since the Iron Age traditions, which in turn harks back to prehistoric religions such as that of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilization followed by the Iron Age Vedic religion.

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) that was located in the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent. The mature phase was known as the Harappan Civilization, as the first excavated city was the one at Harappa in modern Pakistan, in the 1920s CE. Around 1800 BCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BCE, most of the cities were abandoned. In 1953 CE, Sir Mortimer Wheeler proposed that the decline of the Indus Civilization was caused by the invasion of an Indo-European tribe from Central Asia called the Aryans. Because of language similarities those Aryans were associated particularly with the Iranians and even further back with the origins of the Indo-European language group. The general consensus seemed to be that this culture must have begun somewhere in the Russian steppes and Central Asia about 2000 BCE. The branch of these speakers, who came to India under the name Aryans, meaning noble ones, was the Indo-Iranian group. In fact "Iran" drew from the Persian cognate of the word for Aryan.

Indus Valley

However, the Indus Valley Civilization did not disappear suddenly, and many elements of the Indus Civilization could be found in later cultures. Harvard archaeologist Richard Meadow pointed to the late Harappan settlement of Pirak, which thrived continuously from 1800 BCE to the time of the invasion of Alexander the Great in 325 BCE. Pirak was located in Baluchistan, Pakistan. After the discovery of the IVC in the 1920s, it was immediately associated with the indigenous Dasyu, inimical to the Rig-Vedic tribes in numerous hymns of the Rig-Veda.

Religion of Indus valley civilization was a theme not found in any ancient accounts. Seals, images and other materials had been unearthed by various archaeologists. Scholars were unable to draw any inference about those people.

Well over 400 distinct Indus symbols (some say 600) had been found on seals, small tablets, or ceramic pots and over a dozen other materials, including a "signboard" that apparently once hung over the gate of the inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira. It was one of the largest and most prominent archaeological sites in India in the Kutch Desert Wildlife Sanctuary of Gujarat, India.

Banner at the North Gate of Dholavira

Typical Indus inscriptions were no more than four or five characters in length, most of which (aside from the Dholavira "signboard") were exquisitely tiny; the longest on a single surface, which was less than 1 inch (2.54 cm) square, was 17 signs long; the longest on any object (found on three different faces of a mass-produced object) had a length of 26 symbols. Each script was written from right to left. However, the script had not been deciphered as yet. It was believed that they used ideograms i.e., a graphic symbol or character to convey the idea directly.

Indus Valley Civilization was often believed as a literate society on the evidence of such lettering. Even so, Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel (2004) argued that the Indus system did not encode language; it was instead similar to a variety of non-linguistic sign systems used widely in the Near East and other societies. Others had claimed on occasion that the symbols were used for economic transactions, but this claim left unexplained the appearance of symbols on many ritual objects, many of which were mass-produced in moulds. No parallels to these mass-produced inscriptions were known in any other early ancient civilizations.

Several pottery figurines called to mind that female deities had been worshipped. Probably it represented the Mother-Goddess worshipped in the near and Middle East in ancient times. Clay figures resembled the horns of a goat or bull that traced that animal worship was common. The seal amulets and talismans of stone and pottery did indicate the religious attitude of the Harappa people. A nude image of a deity with horns and three faces, seated on a stool with heals closely pressed together pointed to some ritualistic posture. Animals like deer, antelope, rhinoceros, elephant, tiger and buffalo encircled him. Arms were adorned with large number of bangles.

Another seal-amulet showed a horned goddess in the midst of a Peepul or sacred fig-tree before which one more horned deity was kneeling and doing obeisance. A row of female deities occupied the whole of the lower register of the seal-amulet, each figure wearing a spring on the head, a long pigtail behind. Stone objects made out that veneration was paid to phallic symbols.

Several steatite seals discovered at Indus Valley Civilization (3300–1700 BCE) sites portrayed figures in a yoga- or meditation-like posture, "a form of ritual discipline, suggesting a precursor of yoga", according to Indus archaeologist Gregory Possehl. He pointed out sixteen specific "yogi glyptics" in the corpus of mature Harappan artefacts that suggested Harappan devotion to "ritual discipline and concentration", and that the yoga pose "may have been used by deities and humans alike." Some type of connection between the Indus Valley seals and later yoga and meditation practices was supported by many other scholars.

Map of the Indus Valley Civilization

Karel Werner held that "Archaeological discoveries allowed us therefore to speculate with some justification that a wide range of Yoga activities was already known to the people of pre-Aryan India." A seal recently (2008) uncovered in the Cholistan desert was described by Dr. Farzand Masih, Chairman, Archaeology Department, Punjab University, as depicting a "yogi". Thomas McEvilley noted that "The six mysterious Indus Valley seal images...all without exception showed figures in a position known in hatha yoga as mulabhandasana or possibly the closely related utkatasana or baddha konasana...."

REACTION TO AUSTERE RITUALISTIC RELIGION

From early times, there were those who denied faith in divine beings. Even the Vedic hymns referred sharply to scoffers and unbelievers. Those hymns, usually ascribed to Brihaspati, a son of Loka, put into words the first protests against just a study of the Veda and upheld that a man who tried to soak them up was far superior to the reciting priest. Although there was no special animal fable in Vedic literature, in the Rig-Veda there was all the variety of a story. It pointed to the fondness of the Vedic Aryan for tales of all sorts. There was one song in the Rig-Veda where Brahmins singing at a holy offering were compared to croaking frogs. Prof. Max Muller said that this famous hymn was a satire on Vedic priesthood, or better still, on the manner of hymn chanting. Aitereya Aranyaka put forth, why should we repeat the Vedas or offer this kind of oblation? To offset such negative analyses, the cynics adopted the doctrine of svabhava (nature) as the next stage. This doctrine held that all things were self-existent. They did not create themselves nor any cause created them. For instance, there was no cause for the delicate web of the lotus or the eye-like marks on the pea****’s tail. As the cause was not there, they indeed existed on their own. Such was the case with this changing universe. In the same way, feelings like pleasure, pain etc. had no cause, as they were fleeting.

With its claim of pratyaksa or perception as the only means of learning, and physical pleasure being the central object of life, this system was widespread in ancient India. Thus, its name was Lokayata, literally meaning a doctrine spread among the people (loka).

The Vratyas, who were the Aryans from later migrations, came slowly into this belief. Like the Lokayatikas, they too defied everything, including the caste system, sacrifices and the Veda. Drawing upon such generous support, the Lokayatikas exhorted people to strain every nerve for instant earthly welfare rather than striving for a heaven one could not prove existed. Kama or the fulfilment of desire was the central theme of human life. The result of such activity was an urge for freedom—freedom for the individual as well as for society, for the woman as well as for the man, for the poor as well as for the rich. One unique outcome of this struggle for freedom was the rise of the Buddhist culture. Buddha’s views against Vedic sacrifices, memorising verses and the fruitless repetition of Vedic mantras, gory ritual of animal sacrifice, the caste system, the authority of the Veda and the worship of the deities and the magic rites, all had counterparts in the views of the Lokayatikas.

MESSAGE OF THE UPANISHADS

Vedanta was in earlier times a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name was a form of Veda-anta = Veda-end = the appendix to the Vedic hymns. It was inferred that Vedanta stood for the purpose or goal [end] of the Veda. Vedanta was not restricted or confined to one book and there was no sole source for Vedantic philosophy. 

Vedic religion gradually evolved into Vedanta, which was viewed by some as the primary institution of Hinduism. Vedanta deemed itself the 'essence' of the Veda.

All forms of Vedanta were drawn primarily from the Upanishads, a set of philosophical and instructive Vedic scriptures. The Upanishads were commentaries on the Veda. They were considered the fundamental essence of all the Veda. Some segment of Vedantic thought was also derived from the earlier aranyakas.

The Aranyakas were called the forest texts, because ascetics retreated into the forest to study the spiritual doctrines with their students, leading to less emphasis on the sacrificial rites that were still performed in the towns. These writings were transitional between the Brahmanas and the Upanishads in that they still discussed rites and had magical content, dull lists of formulas and some hymns from the Veda. The sages who took in students in their forest hermitages were not as wealthy as the priests in the towns who served royalty and other wealthy patrons.

The primary philosophy weighed up in the Upanishads that of one absolute reality termed as Brahman was the main tenet of Vedanta. The sage Vyasa was one of the major proponents of this philosophy and author of the Brahma Sūtras based on the Upanishads. The concept of Brahman – the eternal, self-existent, immanent and transcendent Supreme and Ultimate Reality which was the divine view of all being - was central to most schools of Vedānta. The notion of God or Ishvara was also there. Vedantic sub-schools differed mainly in how they would identify God with Brahman.

The Upanishads were works of various authors living in different ages. They were the words of spiritual-minded people, who got glimpses of the highest truth by observation and were not necessarily part of a consistent system of philosophy. Their ways were intuitive rather than logical and they dealt with topics like God, man, destiny, soul etc. There were so many hints, suggestions and implications in the Upanishads and so varied that subsequent founders of almost all religions and religious sects in India had been able to quote one or more of these as authority.

In spite of the brilliance of such ideas, they were not adequate for the religious needs of the people. Their appeal lay with the intelligentsia, not with the ordinary man to whom attainment of such profound knowledge appeared a distant dream. Upanishadic philosophers soared to dizzy heights and laid the basis on which Indian thoughts were to be refined in later years.

Ganesha

India stirred up with freethinking views and the Buddha was the result of this freedom. No man ever lived such a godlike life, without ever talking of a god. The Vishnu Purana had a record of this stage of the school. It alluded to a set of people of very ancient origin who were free to live wherever they liked, unworried by conventions, pure at heart and blameless in action. Virtue or vice they had none; they lived in an ambience of perfect freedom in which men could move without fear of disobeying traditional dogmas of religious and social usage. Still, the ordinary devoted followers were not satisfied merely with social and religious freedom. As the Lokayatikas captured the hearts of the cultured as well as the common people, all were set on working out their immediate earthly welfare.

Before proceeding further on the topic it is necessary to recall certain basic tenets touched upon so far with a view to link with development of a few major religions in India during the coming centuries.

The Upanishads were like a breath of fresh air blowing through the stuffy corridors of power of the Vedic Brahmanism. They were noticed by the priestly authorities because the yogis did not owe allegiance to any established religion or mode of thought. They were very largely saying what may well have been current among other sramanic groups at that time. Such an atheistic doctrine was evidently very acceptable to the authors of Upanishads, who made use of many of its concepts.

The end of the Vedantic period was around the 2nd century CE. In the latter period, several texts were composed as summaries/attachments to the Upanishads. These texts collectively called as Puranas allowed for a divine and mythical interpretation of the world, not unlike the ancient Hellenic or Roman religions. Legends and epics with a multitude of gods and goddesses with human-like characteristics were composed. Two of Hinduism's most revered epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were compositions of this period. Devotion to particular deities was reflected from the composition of texts composed to their worship. For example, the Ganapati Purana was written for devotion to Ganapati (or Ganesha). Popular deities of this era were Shiva, Vishnu, Durga, Surya, Skanda, and Ganesh (including the forms/incarnations of these deities.)

Unlike the early Vedic religion neither the Brahmanic rituals nor the spiritualism of the Upanishads could somehow become popular. A religion, in order that it might become popular, needed a simple and uniform creed, a good deal of mythology, certain easy practices of worship. The failure of the Vedic Brahmanas and the Upanishads in this respect resulted in an indirect support to the non-Vedic religious thought. Non-Vedic religious systems such as Buddhism and Jainism quickly spread. They adopted the mythology, worship of the deities and intelligent speculation of a variety of Upanishads. At the same time they steered clear of the weak points in them.

SHRAMANA TRADITION

Vedic religion of Iron Age India co-existed and closely interacted with the parallel non-Vedic shramana traditions. These were not direct outgrowths of Vedism, but separate movements that influenced it and were influenced by it. The shramanas were wandering ascetics. Buddhism and Jainism were a continuation of the shramana custom, and the early Upanishadic movement was influenced by it.

As a rule, a shramana was one who renounced the world and led an ascetic life for the purpose of spiritual development and liberation. They asserted that human beings were responsible for their own deeds and reaped the fruits of those deeds, for good or ill. Liberation from such anxiety could be achieved by anybody irrespective of caste, creed, colour or culture. Yoga was probably the most important shramana practice to date. Elaborate processes were outlined in Yoga to achieve individual liberation through breathing techniques (Pranayama), physical postures (Asanas) and meditation (Dhyana).

The movement later received a boost during the times of Mahavira and Buddha when Vedic ritualism had become the dominant belief in certain parts of India. Shramanas adopted a path alternate to the Vedic rituals to achieve liberation, while renouncing household life. They typically engaged in three types of activities: austerities, meditation, and associated theories (or views). At times, a shramana was at variance with traditional authority, and he often recruited members from priestly communities as well. Mahāvīra, the 24th Jina, and Gautama Buddha were leaders of their shramana orders. According to Jain literature and the Buddhist Pali Canon, there were also some other shramana leaders at that time.

Indian philosophy was a confluence of shramanic (self-reliant) traditions, Bhakti traditions with idol worship and Vedic ritualistic nature worship. These co-existed and influenced each other. Śramanas held a view of samsara as full of suffering (or dukkha). They practiced Ahimsa and rigorous ascetism. They believed in Karma and Moksa and viewed re-birth as undesirable.

Vedics, on the contrary, believed in the efficacy of rituals and sacrifices, performed by a privileged group of people, who could improve their life by pleasing certain gods. The Sramanic ideal of mendicancy and renunciation, that the worldly life was full of suffering and that emancipation required abandoning desires and withdrawal into a solitary contemplative life, was in stark contrast with the Brahminical ideal of an active and ritually punctuated life. Traditional Vedic belief held that a man was born with an obligation to study the Vedas, to procreate and bring up male offspring and to perform sacrifices. Only in later life would he meditate on the mysteries of life. The idea of devoting one's whole life to mendicancy seemed to disparage the whole process of Vedic social life and obligations. Because the shramanas rejected the Vedas, the Vedics labelled their philosophy as "nastika darsana" (heterodox philosophy).

Astika and nastika were sometimes used to categorise Indian religions. Those religions that believed that God was the central actor in this world were termed as astika. Those religions that did not believe that God was the prime mover were classified as nastika. From this point of view the Vedic religion (and Hinduism) was an astika religion, whereas Buddhism and Jainism were nastika religions.

Note: This article contains text passages from various Wikipedia articles on the subject, copied under the Creative Commons Share Alike license.

EDITORIAL REVIEWThis Article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication.

INTRODUCTION 

Harappa is a large village presently in the province of Punjab in Pakistan.  The modern town is a part of, and lies next to, the ancient city. The site of Harappa is important in that it has provided  proof of not just the Indus Valley Civilization as it was in its prime, but also of preceding and succeeding cultures as well and is the only site included in this category. The old path of the Ravi River runs to the north of the site, which has since shifted six miles further north. 

Harappa Ruins

It is speculated that its oldest mention is in the Rigveda, as the scene of the defeat of the Vrcivants by Abhyavartin Cayamana. The name is recorded as Hari-Yupuya. The previous inhabitants were presumably non-Aryans who were vanquished. Thus it might be said that this site is one of the famed sites where the so-called Aryans overcame the local population and established their dominance. However, until further proof is uncovered to support the theory, this is mostly conjecture. 

The first visit to Harappa was made in 1826 CE by James Lewis, who was a British army deserter and roamed the Punjab and North West areas in search of antiquarian remains. On his journey to Multan he approached Harappa and had the following words in description for it, as recorded by Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry in his book:

East of the village was an abundance of luxuriant grass, where along with many others, I went to allow my nag to graze. When I joined the camp I found it in front of the village and ruinous brick castle. Behind us was a large circular mound, or eminence, and to the west was an irregular rocky height crowned with remains of buildings, in fragments of walls, with niches, after the eastern manner. The latter elevation was undoubtedly a natural object; the former being of earth only, was obviously an artificial one …The walls and towers of the castle are remarkably high, though, from having been long deserted, they exhibit in some parts the ravages of time and decay. Between our camp and it, (there) extended a deep trench, now overgrown with grass and plants. Tradition affirms the existence here of a city, so considerable that it extended to Chicha Watni, and that it was destroyed by a particular visitation of Providence, brought down by the lust and crimes of the sovereigns.

Lewis related the city to Sangala from the age of Alexander (1300 years previous) by which he was mistaken in his assumption.  Later in 1831 CE, an emissary from King William IV, namely Alexander Burnes, recorded the extensive remains at Harappa while travelling from Multan to Lahore to deliver gifts of horses from the King of England to Ranjit Singh. He has also described Harappa while on the same route:

About fifty miles eastward of Toolumba, I passed inland for four miles to examine the ruins of an ancient city, called Harappa. The remains are extensive, and the place, which has been built of brick, is about three miles in circumference. There is a ruined citadel on the river side of the town; but otherwise Harappa is a perfect chaos, and has not an entire building: the bricks have been removed to build a small place of the old name heard by tradition fixes the fall of Harappa at the same period as Shortkot (1300 years ago), and the people ascribe its ruin to the vengeance of God on Harappa; its governor, who claimed certain priveleges on the marriage of every couple in his city, and in the course of his sensualities, was guilty of incest…I have found coins in these ruins, both Persian and Hindu, but I cannot fix its era from any of them.

However, their records were noticed by Alexander Cunningham, who visited the site in 1853 CE and 1856 CE, resulting in a small excavation in 1872 CE, which then identifies the site with that of Malii, which Alexander had ordered to be blockaded when he invaded the subcontinent. That city was near extensive marshes and to the east or south-east of Kot Kamalia, and Harappa lies exactly in such a place on the banks of the old course of the Indus and 16 miles east-south-east of Kot Kamalia.

The site even at this time was used as a brick quarry by brick robbers working on the Multan Railway, in the same way that Mohenjo-Daro and Kalibangan became quarries for the Sind and Bikaner Railways respectively. During his excavations Cunningham found pottery, chert blades, and a seal. Cunningham termed the seal foreign to India at that time. Also according to locals, the citadel hill was the site of a major Hindu temple that was destroyed and was at the time the site of a tomb of Nur Shah. Some artifacts were found with this tomb. The bricks taken from the site were more than enough to furnish 100 miles of the Lahore Multan Railway, testifying to the scale of the buildings that existed there. Despite several excavations, Cunningham found very little to preserve as the majority of the settlement had been stripped of bricks. Subsequent excavations at Kalibangan, Suktagendor and Mohenjo-Daro revealed the extent of this civilization, but it wasn’t until 1922 that extensive investigations were carried out at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa and the corresponding sites were labeled as the Indus Valley Civilization.

John Marshal then sent a deputy, Harry Hargreaves, on an inspection of Harappa in 1914 CE to determine if it should be further excavated, and it was his work that allowed the acquisition of the Harappan mounds for further study. Further seals were found and similar seals were found in Mesopotamia which pushed the age of these sites beyond even what had been previously considered into the 3rd-4th millennium BCE and this was attested by Dr Ernst Mckay as well who was working at Kish in Sumeria. John Marshal abandoned his Taxila digs to work on the sites in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in 1923-24 CE and this is considered the point where the Indus Civilization is finally considered to have been identified. Other archaeologists who worked on the IVC at this time were Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni, Madho Sarup Vats, Rakhal Das Banerjee, Ahmad Hasan Dani, Aurel Stein and E. J. H. MacKay. Mortimer Wheeler then took over the excavations in 1944 CE and continued this into the post partition era when he was archaeological adviser to the government of Pakistan. The later work of Dales, Meadow and Kenoyer specifically in Mound E has pushed the historical dates back to the early 4th millenium BCE.

TOWN PLANNING AT HARAPPA

Harappa is located near the Ravi River, which is a tributary of the upper Indus region. The patterns of settlements were based on the behavior of rivers which is based around the flood plain ecology, regional trade over rivers, favorable climate for daily life, access to trade routes and natural resources etc. Easy access to water table near rivers and arable land due to alluvial soil encourages human habitation. Cities like Harappa, which lie on the periphery of the known Indus Valley Civilization, served as gateway cities into the main region where that civilization held sway and were hence more robust or powerful than smaller cities. It is spread over 450,000 sqm of space. 

Ransacked by local housebuilders and mostly demolished during the 19th century CE construction of the Lahore Multan railway during the British Raj, the ruins at Harappa now stand in a fragile state but nonetheless still have a host of information to provide us. Most obviously what we see is the same general layout as at Mohenjo Daro in Larkana, Sind. The circuit of both cities spreads to about 3 miles, and both have the same differentiations of areas in terms of town planning as well. These areas can simply be divided into the lower (public) and upper (acropolis) areas. Both had the same shape where the acropolis is concerned namely a parallelogram that was 400-500 yards north-south and 200-300 yards east-west. The height is 40 feet from the flood-plain and both the cities are similarly oriented, with the major axis north-south. The grid plan is indicative of an evolved civil engineering principle that had developed at the time, which is not seen in the older towns of Mesopotamia such as Ur which have a meandering street layout that is more natural. Although the plan at Harappa isn’t fully excavated, the general similarities mean that it was probably the same as at Mohenjo Daro. 

Massive defensive walls on all sides have been partially exposed. Sections reveal post Harappan cultures linked with Rana Ghundai to be at the very base of the structure, after which some time of no occupation is followed by a fully mature Harappan culture. A tapered bankment to protect against floods was made along the outer defensive wall as well. This was formed by filling up the previous alluvial deposits that had been washed away by rains with more mud bricks and mud. 6 variants of the internal plan are seen made using baked bricks and spreading over a considerable period of time. Bastions are seen at regular intervals as well with the main entrance seen at the north end. There is also an entrance to the west end next to a bastion. This leads to ramps and terraces outside the gates and supervised from guardrooms. Ramps are in evidence in many places and the existence of stairs is also known from the accounts of Alexander Cunningham but those stairs have been removed since that time by brick-robbers. The fortifications themselves have been built and rebuilt even in antiquity, first utilizing simple brick bats and once those had worn down they were replaced nearly from the ground up by baked bricks of refined Harappan style.

The cities of the Indus Valley all have a number of common factors that distinguish them from the civilizations of the Bronze Age. The defining feature of overall town planning of the cities is the cardinal orientation, with the longer grid aligned north-south to take advantage of prevailing winds. The layout and compartmentalization of the cities look to have a visual and conceptual connection to the geometric designs on seals from the Early Chalcolithic and even the houses of Mehergarh and perhaps if not directly connected, there is probably indication of a cultural template for the organization of space that continued to form a basis for cultural styles and patterns in the Harappan era. This organization of space into grids is seen not just in town planning in this area but also in house plans, designs on pottery, diagrams on seals and even the designs of the individual script characters.

Harappan Ceremonial Vessel

This pattern existed well before mature Harappan era and is found even in the 2nd Period of Harappa that dates from 2800-2600 BCE where there are large north-south streets, a pattern repeated in the Indus and Saraswati towns and cities such as Kalibangan, Rehman-Dehri, Nausharo and Kot Diji. Mohenjo-Daro has a high water table and hence its deepest levels have not yet been excavated properly but it is reasonable to assume based on available evidence that the earlier stages were typical of the Harappan period. 

Although the general Upper and Lower town divisions of Harappan cities is understood to be the norm, this has proven to not be the case as large public areas, markets, big and small private houses and craft workshops have all been found throughout the various “districts”. The western mound at Harappa stands only slightly higher than those at Mohenjo-Daro, which has a much higher Western or “main” mound. 

The Citadel area has a huge mud brick platform which is 6m high and underlies all the construction. Wheeler and M.S. Vats both have identified the structure, although whether it is one giant platform or made in parts cannot be said as of yet. 

In terms of the orientation, the cities were probably oriented based on the rising sun and moon, certain stars in the sky whose movements were known (not the North Star as it was not in the same position as it currently is) or other methods involving tracing the sun path on the ground with a stick and string. The slightly lopsided angled plan of the town may indicate that many hundreds of centuries worth of planning and re-planning based on older sighting techniques resulted in a skewed direction of the plan due to the changing position of stars in the sky that led to slightly different cardinal points being determined by the ancients. The star Aldebaran and the constellation of Pleiades were used as measuring benchmarks for determining the cardinal points. 

The town planning was achieved through the development of compass, plum bob and scale, tools which are still found to be in use today. 

Walled areas were spread around a central depression that might have been a reservoir and each major mound was surrounded by a mud brick wall, with brick gateways and bastions located at intervals on every face like modern forts. 

Mound E is the oldest section of area which also has a pre-Harappan settlement underneath. It has a mud brick perimeter wall faced in places with baked bricks. The south wall has a major gateway in the center of a large curve that extends out into the plain seemingly encompassing a public space on the outside. The wall here is 9-11 meters wide if the existence of bastions is considered. The gate is made of baked brick of 1 meter thickness bonded to the mud brick city walls. The possible existence of stairs is in evidence here and the opening is only 2.8 meters wide, just enough for one ox cart to pass through which shows the defensive nature of the gate. It probably stood between 3-4 meters high and had rooms and lookout posts on the top.

A large open area inside the gateway was probably a staging area for checking or taxing of goods or a public market for out of town traders. A large street to the east of the gateway leads north to the center of the city where evidence of workshops of agate, shell and copperworks are found.

Thirty meters due south of the main mound gateway is a small mound of the Harappan period with houses, drains, bathing areas and a possible well, which probably served as an externally placed traveler’s stop for incoming caravans. Even the modern road exists adjacent to this location showing that it possibly lies on the same ancient route as the Harappans used 4500 years ago, and a caravanserai of modern times is also found next to this road and opposite to the Harappan one. The ancient well and bathing platforms were still used in recent historical times as well.

Between Mound E and ET is the second gateway of Mound E. Although the gate here is only 2.6 meters wide, the bastions to either side are a massive 25 meters across and 15 meters deep showing heavy defensive nature of the construction. This controlled access to the main workshop areas of Mound E and also faced the smaller Mound ET that was again another caravanserai for traders engaging in trade with this area. 

Only the walls around mound AB have been properly excavated and these were 14 meter wide at the base and larger and higher than the ones of Mound E. These were faced with baked bricks and tapered 11 meters high above the plain level. Gates from 3 different periods are in evidence in the West wall originally excavated by Mortimer wheeler and a gate in the North wall has a ramp that leads to the smaller Mound F, which itself is strewn with what appear to be house structures and a large building with multiple rooms that might be a granary, great hall or palace. The Citadel  has an exact size of 460 yards north-south and 215 yards east to west. It is higher on north side with the summit at 45-50 ft above the plain. The buildings inside are raised on a mud and mud brick platform 25ft. or so above former ground level. 

Working platforms and craft debris is also found.  This mound is also enclosed in the same manner as Mound ET. 

These Mounds, although belonging to varying periods, still formed part of the same overall culture and were related to each other in that the same people occupied them, the same type of artifacts are found in them and they were directly connected to each other although why they were made as separate mounds and not as a part of a continuous city cannot be said as of now.

Although there are some indications as to the defensive nature of the walls, this cannot be taken as a certainty due to some missing elements that were known to exist in other defensive walls of the era such as those at Dholavira which had moats and two to three walls instead of just one. These walls were hence probably more to control the trade within the city and make sure it occurred exactly as the administrators of the city wanted. This is further evidence of the control the authority had and how architectural techniques were used by the city to safeguard its interests.

STREETS & EXTERNAL DRAINAGE

The most prominent feature of Harappan era architecture is the drainage system. It shows how important cleanliness was for them, and it was achieved through having a series of drains running along the streets that connected to larger sewers in the main streets. Smaller drains from household latrines and bathing areas connected to these larger drains, which had corbelled roofs so they could be buried underneath the main streets when required without caving in. Some sections had removable brick paving or dressed stones on top to allow cleaning when required. Drains exiting the city even had wooden doors that were probably closed at night to prevent vagrants or negative elements from entering the city through that access. Sump pits were found at intervals along the drains which allowed heavier solid waste to collect at the bottom. These were regularly cleaned to avoid blockages. There is evidence in some places of drains being blocked for a long period of time, possible 100 to 150 years, after which new drains were made by a new incoming authority. Coupled with this new construction the entire street level ended up rising to the extent that after consecutive re-constructions, entire stories of buildings had to be covered over and the ground level raised in order to bring it on par with the new street so there wouldn’t be sewage backflow.

Mound AB contains a large gable roofed drain with a spill water jar. Another drain is made of a solid mass of bricks with a sharp gradient with polished bricks on the edge as well. 

HOUSES

Varying types of houses and buildings are found in both large and small settlements.  Rural areas tend to have exclusively mud brick buildings whereas urban areas have buildings partially or wholly made of baked bricks. Small and large houses and public buildings are the main categories.

Houses range from 1-2 stories in height, with a central courtyard around which the rooms are arranged. The interior is not visible from the street, shut off using corridors or walls in the inside. Openings are also restricted to side streets to maintain privacy on the inside of the houses. Stairs led to the upper stories through a side room or the courtyard and the size of foundations has shown that a third floor might also have existed at one point. Average thickness of walls was 70cm and average ceiling height about 3 meters. Doors were made of wood with wooden frames and the pivot was a brick socket set in the threshold. Door frames were possibly painted and simply ornamented and also had holes at the base and two at the top of the door to secure and hang curtains respectively. The windows had both shutters and grills, which were embedded into the building itself. Grills might have been of reed or matting but alabaster and marble latticework has also been found suggesting that although it was a common feature of houses, the more refined ones were obviously kept for the more affluent homes. This element continued to be used through historical era into modern times as well.

Larger houses had smaller dwellings connected to them and evidence of repeated rebuilding in the interior shows that the internal spaces were constantly reorganized. Whether the adjoining dwellings were for extended family or servants cannot be accurately ascertained at this time. 

Large public buildings are the third major category and include both public spaces such as markets, squares and courtyards and administrative buildings including granaries. The great hall or great bath structures are also a part of this serving possibly a religious as well as social function. 

Groups or clusters of houses are also in evidence, which probably housed several families together and had their own facilities such as latrines and bathing areas as opposed to using the communal facilities. 

Although well planned, they are not as impactful as the houses of other cities due to floods and brick robbery which has left the buildings in a sorry state. Mound F has two nearly complete houses with courtyard and rooms and an angled entrance for privacy along with a latrine as well and a central dividing lane. Fifteen units of workmen’s quarters have been found and this complex was surrounded by a wall. 

Well and Bathing Platform, Harappa

WELLS & SANITATION

Drinking water or water in general was made available in abundance to the people of Harappa to the very close proximity of the city to the pre-Indus Gaggar/Hakra River which allowed fewer water wells to serve the people as the majority could attain their water from the river itself. There is also found in Harappa a central depression that might have been a public pool for drinking and washing which allowed wider access to the resource. As a result there are a few wells at Harappa totaling perhaps a total of only 30 wells as compared to 700 or more at Mohenjo-Daro. Only 8 have so far been found and the total number of wells has been projected by their layout.  There are more private than public wells, which points to the fact that the public wells probably got polluted or run out due to heavy use and affluent citizens then dug their own. Bathing rooms in these houses were situated next to the well which itself was raised above ground level. Bathing rooms had tightly fitted brick floors which made them more or less waterproof. Drains from these rooms led separately to the main drains on the outside from the latrine drains, and care was taken to separate the water and sewage drains. The drains were tapered out into the street. Almost every house in Harappa has been found to contain a latrine which was a large terracotta jar sunk into the ground and sometimes connected to the external drains. A small hole in the bottom of the jar allowed water to seep out to the ground. A special class of laborers probably periodically cleaned these rooms. 

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

What is proposed to be a granary is located on Mound F, lying on a massive mud brick foundation with a rectangular plan of 50m x 40m, with the length corresponding to the North-South axis. The foundations point to a total of 12 rooms in two rows (6 rooms per row) divided by a central passageway that is 7m wide and partially paved with baked bricks. Each room measures approx. 15m x 6m and has three walls at the long ends with air between them pointing to hollow floors. The main structure would probably have been of wood build on these foundations with stairs leading up from the central path. There have also been found triangular openings in the floor which might have been air ducts to remove moisture from the inside. The evidence for this being a granary has not been found during excavations and is mostly based on comparisons with Roman building techniques and does not coincide with local traditions. Grain is kept in large jars raised from the ground in South Asia and not in rooms as proposed here, and the circular platforms near the buildings thought to be for husking of wheat are found in many other places and spread over a considerable amount of time showing that their function was probably not for agricultural use. Hence it can be said that this “granary” was probably a public or state building for rulers or administrators or for other purposes related to the everyday workings. Due to the lack of any single monumental structure in the cities, we can say that the cities themselves were monumental in an otherwise rural environment. 

BUILDING MATERIALS

The main materials used were sun-dried and burnt bricks, which were made in molds of 1:2:4 ratios. Easy availability of wood for burning meant baked bricks were used in abundance in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Mud mortar and gypsum cement is also in evidence, and mud plaster and gypsum plaster are also found to have been used. Mud mortar is most evident at Harappa. Wooden frames were probably used for the doors and windows which have since rotted away. 

CONCLUDING WORDS

Although relatively little data has been found at Harappa as compared to other sites of the Indus Valley, it nonetheless holds the distinction of being considered the first identified site of the IVC and hence is still a major site in terms of excavations. The data still being discovered from there is helping us to piece together its history bit by bit, even in the absence of a complete structure such as those at other cities, but this makes the work at Harappa that much more intriguing, in that the archaeologist must connect the pieces like a puzzle to create a whole picture. No doubt much more work needs to be done to preserve the heritage from this most important of sites due to the heavy encroachment and wear and tear it is witnessing in this day and age.

EDITORIAL REVIEWThis Article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication.

Cyrus the Great (558-530 BCE) built the first universal empire, stretching from Greece to the Indus River. This was the famous Achaemenid Dynasty of Persia. An inscription at Naqsh-i-Rustam, the tomb of his able successor Darius I (521-486 BCE), near Persepolis, records Gadara (Gandhara) along with Hindush (Hindus, Sindh) in the long list of satrapies of the Persian Empire.

By about 380 BC the Persian hold on Indian regions slackened and many small local kingdoms arose. In 327 BCE Alexander the Great overran the Persian Empire and located small political entities within these territories. The next year, Alexander fought a difficult battle against the Indian monarch Porus near the modern Jhelum River. East of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the powerful kingdom of Magadha, under the Nanda Dynasty.

Plutarch (46 – 120 CE) was a Greek historian, biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He gives an interesting description of the situation:

As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at arms and horsemen and elephants.

Exhausted and frightened by the prospect of facing another giant Indian army at the Ganges River, his army mutinied at the Hyphasis (modern Beas River), refusing to march further East. Alexander left behind Greek forces which established themselves in the city of Taxila, now in Pakistan.

After the death of Alexander in 323 BCE, Seleucus was nominated as the satrap of Babylonin 320 BCE. Antigonus forced Seleucus to flee from Babylon, but, supported by Ptolemy, he was able to return in 312 BCE. Seleucus' later conquests include Persia and Media. He invaded what is now Punjab in northern India and Pakistan in 305 BCE.

EARLY ALLUSION TO THE GREEKS IN INDIA

Long before the arrival of Alexander the Great on India's north-western border, there are references in early Indian literature calling the Greeks Yavanas. Pāṇini, an ancient Sanskritgrammarian, was acquainted with the word yavana in his composition. Katyaanaa explains the term yavanānī as the script of the Yavanas. Nothing much is known about Pāṇini’s life, not even the century he lived in. The scholarly mainstream favours  4th century BCE. Pāṇini’s grammar, known as Ashtadhyayi , meaning eight chapters, defines classical Sanskrit, so that Pāṇini by definition lived at the end of the Vedic period: An important hint for the dating of Pāṇini is the occurrence of the word yavanānī  (in 4.1.49, either "Greek woman", or "Greek script"). It is unlikely there would have been first-hand knowledge of Greeks in Gandhara before the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 330s BCE, but it is likely that the name was known via the Old Persian word yauna, so that the occurrence of yavanānī taken in isolation allows for as early as 520 BC, i.e. the time of Darius the Great's conquests in India.

Katyayana (3rd century BCE) was Sanskrit grammarian, mathematician and Vedic priest who lived in ancient India. He explains the term yavanānī as the script of the Yavanas. He takes the same line as above that the Old Persian term yauna became Sanskrtised to name all Greeks. In fact, this word appears in the Mahabharata.

HELLENIZATION: THE CULTURAL LEGACY

The start of the so-called Hellenistic Period is usually taken as 323 BCE, the year of death of Alexander in Babylon. During the previous decade of invasion, he had conquered the whole Persian Empire, overthrowing King Darius. The conquered lands included Asia Minor, the Levant, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Media, Persia and parts of modern Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of the steppes of central Asia, almost the entire earth known to the Greeks at that time.

The Empire of Alexander the Great

As Alexander marched deeper into the East, distance alone presented him with a serious problem: how was he to remain in touch with the Greek world left behind? A physical link was vital as his army drew supplies and reinforcement from Greece and, of course, Macedonia. He had to be sure he was never cut off. He thought of a unique plan.

He went on planting military colonies and cities in strategic places. At those places Alexander left Greek mercenaries and Macedonian veterans who were no longer involved in active campaign. Besides keeping the supply routes open, those settlements served the purpose of dominating the countryside around them.

Their military significance apart, Alexander's cities and colonies became powerful instruments in the spread of Hellenism throughout the East. Plutarch described Alexander's achievements:

Having founded over 70 cities among barbarian peoples and having planted Greek magistracies in Asia, Alexander overcame its wild and savage way of life.

Alexander had indeed opened the East to an enormous wave of immigration, and his successors continued his policy by inviting Greek colonists to settle in their realms. For seventy-five years after Alexander's death, Greek immigrants poured into the East. At least 250 new Hellenistic colonies were set up. The Mediterranean world had seen no comparable movement of peoples since the days of Archilochus (680 - 645 BCE) when wave after wave of Greeks had turned the Mediterranean basin into a Greek-speaking region.

One concrete and almost exotic example of these trends comes from the newly discovered Hellenistic city of Ay Khanoum. Situated on the borders of Russia and Afghanistan and not far from China, the city was mostly Greek. It had the typical Greek trappings of a gymnasium, a choice of temples, and administration buildings. It was not, however, purely Greek. It also contained an oriental temple and artistic remains that showed that the Greeks and the natives had already embraced aspects of each other's religions. One of the most curious discoveries was a long inscription written in Greek verse by Clearchus, a pupil of Aristotle. The inscription, carved in stone, was put up in a public place for all to see. Clearchus had simply copied the precepts of famous Greeks. The inscription was philosophy for the common people, a contribution to popular culture. It provided the Greeks with a link to their faraway homeland. It was also an easy way to make at least some of Greek culture available to residents.

Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic culture, aspects of which were evident until the mid-15th century CE. The overall result of Alexander's settlements and those of his successors was the spread of Hellenism as far east as India. Throughout the Hellenistic period, Greeks and Easterners became familiar with and adapted themselves to each other's customs, religions, and ways of life. Although Greek culture did not entirely conquer the East, it gave the East a vehicle of expression that linked it to the West. Hellenism became a common bond among the East, peninsular Greece, and the western Mediterranean. This pre-existing cultural bond was later to prove quite valuable to Rome, itself strongly influenced by Hellenism in its efforts to impose a comparable political unity on the known world.

Hellenization is a term coined by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen to denote the spread of Greek language, culture, and population into the former Persian Empire after Alexander's conquest. That this export took place is certain, and can be seen in the great Hellenistic cities such as Alexandria in Egypt (one of around twenty towns founded by Alexander), Antioch in modern Syria and Seleucia south of modern Baghdad. However, just how widespread and deeply permeating this was, and to what extent it was a conscious policy, is debatable. Alexander's successors openly rejected such policies after his death.

TRADE IN THE HELLENIC WORLD

In many respects the Hellenistic city resembled a modern city. It was a cultural centre with theatres, temples, and libraries. It was a seat of learning, home of poets, writers, teachers, and artists. It was a place where people could find amusement. The Hellenistic city was also an economic centre that provided a ready market for grain and produce raised in the surrounding countryside. The city was an emporium, scene of trade and manufacturing. In short, the Hellenistic city offered cultural and economic opportunities but did not foster a sense of united, integrated enterprise.

The Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties traded as far afield as India, Arabia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Overland trade with India and Arabia was conducted by caravan and was largely in the hands of Easterners. The caravan trade never dealt in bulk items or essential commodities; only luxury goods could be transported in this very expensive fashion. Once the goods reached the Hellenistic monarchies, Greek merchants took a hand in the trade.

Essential to the caravan trade from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan and India were the northern route to Dura on the Euphrates River and the southern route through Arabia. The desert of Arabia may seem at first unlikely and inhospitable terrain for a line of commerce, but to the east of it lay the plateau of Iran, from which trade routes stretched to the south and still farther cast to China. Commerce from the East arrived in Egypt and at the excellent harbours of Palestine, Phoenicia, and Syria. From these ports goods flowed to Greece, Italy, and Spain. The backbone of this caravan trade was the camel - shaggy, ill-tempered, but durable.

Hellenic Trade Routes, 300 BCE

Over the caravan routes travelled luxury goods that were light, rare, and expensive. In time these luxury items became more of a necessity than a luxury. In part this development was the result of an increased volume of trade. In the prosperity of the period more people could afford to buy gold, silver, ivory, precious stones, spices, and a host of other easily transportable goods. Perhaps the most prominent goods in terms of volume were tea and silk. Indeed, the trade in silk gave the major route the name "Silk Road", for not only was this route prominent in antiquity, but it was used until early modern times. In return the Greeks and Macedonians sent east manufactured goods, especially metal weapons, cloth, wine, and olive oil.

Although these caravan routes can trace their origins to earlier times, they became far more prominent in the Hellenistic period. Business customs developed and became standardized, so that merchants from different nationalities communicated in a way understandable to all of them.

INNOVATIVE YEARS ON THE BORDERS OF INDIA

There was a succession of more than thirty Hellenistic kings, often in conflict with each other, from 180 BC to around 10 CE. This era is known as the Indo-Greek kingdom in the pages of history. The kingdom was founded when the Greco-Bactrian King Demetrius invaded India in 180 BCE, ultimately creating an entity which seceded from the powerful Greco-Bactrian kingdom centred in Bactria (today's northern Afghanistan). Since the term "Indo-Greek Kingdom" loosely described a number of various dynastic polities, it had several capitals, but the city of Taxila in modern Pakistan was probably among the earliest seats of local Hellenic rulers, though cities like Pushkalavati and Sagala (apparently the largest of such residences) would house a number of dynasties in their times.

During the two centuries of their rule, the Indo-Greek kings combined the Greek and Indian languages and symbols, as seen on their coins, and blended ancient Greek, Hinduand Buddhist religious practices, as seen in the archaeological remains of their cities and in the indications of their support of Buddhism. The Indo-Greek kings seem to have achieved a level of cultural syncretism with no equivalent in history, the consequences of which are still felt today, particularly through the diffusion and influence of Greco-Buddhist art.

According to Indian sources, Greek ("Yavana") troops seem to have assisted Chandragupta Maurya in toppling the Nanda Dynasty and founding the Mauryan Empire. By around 312 BCE Chandragupta had established his rule in large parts of the north-western Indian territories as well.

In 303 BCE, Seleucus I led an army to the Indus, where he encountered Chandragupta. Chandragupta and Seleucus finally concluded an alliance. Seleucus gave him his daughter in marriage, ceded the territories of Arachosia (modern Kandahar), Herat, Kabul and Makran. He in turn received from Chandragupta 500 war elephant which he used decisively at the Battle of Ipsus.

The peace treaty, and "an intermarriage agreement" (Epigamia, Greek: Επιγαμια), meaning either a dynastic marriage or an agreement for intermarriage between Indians and Greeks was a remarkable first feat in this campaign.

MEGASTHENES, FIRST GREEK AMBASSADOR

Megasthenes (350 – 290 BCE) was a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica. He was born in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) and became an ambassador of Seleucus I to the court of Sandrocottus, who possibly was Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra (modern Patna in Bihar state), India. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain. Scholars place it before 288 BCE, the date of Chandragupta's death.

At the start of the Indica, Megasthenes talks about the older Indians who knew about the prehistoric arrival of Dionysus and Hercules in India. This story was quite popular amongst the Greeks during the Alexandrian period. He describes geographical features of India, such as the Himalayas and the island of Sri Lanka.

Especially important are his comments on the religions of the Indians. He mentions the devotees of Hercules (Shiva) and Dionysus (Krishna or Indra), but he does not write a word on Buddhists, something that gives ground to the theory that Buddhism was not widely spread in India before the reign of Asoka (269 BCE to 232 BCE).

Indica served as an important source to many later writers such as Strabo and Arrian. The 1st century BCE Greek historian Apollodorus, quoted by Strabo, affirms that the Bactrian Greeks, led by Demetrius I and Menander, conquered India and occupied a larger territory than the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, going beyond the Hyphasis (modern Beas River) towards the Himalayas.

Indo-Greek Campaigns

The Roman historian Justin also cited the Indo-Greek conquests, describing Demetrius as "King of the Indians" ("Regis Indorum"), and explaining that Eucratides in turn "put India under his rule" ("Indiam in potestatem redegit"). "India" only meant the upper Indus for Alexnder the Great. Since the appearance of Megasthenes, "India" meant to the Greeks most of the northern half of the Indian subcontinent. Greek and Indian sources tend to indicate that the Greeks campaigned as far as Pataliputra until they were forced to retreat following a coup in Bactria in 170 BCE.