How and Who named India?

Bharat, India, Hindustan but the official name, states that "India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states." Thus, not only in usage but officially India and Bharat are both accorded primary status. The name India is derived from the river Indus.

The original name of the river came from the fact that in the north-west of the subcontinent, there are seven main tributaries of the one river. The local inhabitants therefore called it Sapta-Sindhu, meaning the seven rivers. As the seven tributaries are part of the one river, the entire river system came to be known in time as Sindhu. In general, Sindhu also means any river or water body in Sanskrit.

Persian explorers visited the area even in ancient times, and the Iranian 'h' is cognate with Sanskrit 's'. Thus Sindhu became Hindu. Similarly, Sanskrit Asura (a spirit, later an evil spirit) is cognate with Ahura, the Supreme God of the early Iranian people.

The name of the river entered Greek from Persian, with the loss of the initial 'h', to become Indos, from which the Greeks derived their name for the region, India. The Latin form of Indos is Indus, the name by which the river system is still known in the West. Its name was given to the entire subcontinent by the Romans, who adapted it to the current India.

The word India is the form used by Europeans over the ages.

Sindhu is also the Sanskrit term for Ocean and for any large water body. It would specifically mean the modern river Indus, if ancient Indic originated there. It could just mean "water dwellers" as well.

Interestingly, the Vedas did not assign any particular name for India, although some scholars assert that references to Indu in the Rig Veda relate to India's present name. Many traditional literary/cultural works from around the globe lack definite terminology for their home culture as a political unit; China, Greece, and many other civilizations lacked fixed names for themselves in traditional literature of their early periods.

In the Matsya Purana 126, the length of India (Bharatavarsa) is 9,000 puranic yojanas, which is a good estimation.

Listed by, among others, Colonel James Todd in his Annals of Rajputana, he describes the ancient India under control of tribes claiming descent from the Moon, or "Indu", and their influence in Trans-Indian regions where they referred to the land as Industhan. This explanation might serve better to explain the term Hindu. Having said that, ancient Greeks do mention the Indic tribes or related tribes (could be of Iranian origin or joint Indo-Iranian origin) inhabiting what is now Ukraine as Sindoi or Sindkoi.

The name India was known in Anglo-Saxon, and was used in King Alfred's translation of Orosius. In Middle English, the name was, under French influence, replaced by Ynde or Inde, which entered early modern English as Indie. The use of the name India dates from the 17th century onwards, and may be due to the influence of Latin, or Spanish or Portuguese.

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Great Stupa

The Great Stupa is an ancient Buddhist temple located in Sanchi, a historic site in the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India. Constructed between the 3rd century bc and the early 1st century ad, the temple is solid and enclosed by a stone outer fence with toranas, or gateways, on all four sides. Worshipers at the site pay their respects to Buddha by circling the dome, which represents the world mountain. Atop the dome, a square fence called the harika represents the heaven. The harika surrounds the yasti, a spire with three chatras, or disk shapes. The yasti represents the axis of the universe.

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The World's first university Takshasila

Takshasila (also known in its corrupted form as Taxila). Takshasila was the world's first center of learning of excellence that existed around 2700 years ago, as early as 700 BCE, located in the northwest region of India (35 km to west of Islamabad Capital territory and to the northwest of Rawalpindi in Punjab-just off the Grand Trunk Road).

It dates back to the Gandhara period and contains the ruins of the Gandharan city of Takshasila which was an important Hindu and Buddhist centre. Takshasila, is reputed to derive its name from "Taksha", who was the son of Bharata (the brother of Lord Rama) and Mandavi, the suffix "sila"means "stone" in Sanskrit.

In the Mahabharata, the Kuru heir Parikshit was enthroned at akshasila. According to tradition the Mahabharata was first recited at Takshasila by Vaishampayana, a disciple of Vyasa at the behest of the seer Vyasa himself, at the sarpa satra yajna, "Snake Sacrifice ceremony" of Parikshit's son Janamejaya.

Historically, Takshasila lay at the crossroads of three major trade routes:

1. The uttarapatha, "the northern road" - the later Grand Trunk or GT Road - the royal road which connected Gandhara in the west to the kingdom of Magadha and its capital Pataliputra in the valley of the Ganga in the east.
2. The north-western route through Bactria, Kapisa, and Pushkalavati.
3. The Sindu (English: Indus) route from Kashmir and Central Asia, via Sri nagara, Mansehra, and the Haripur valley across the Khunjerab pass to the Silk Road in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south. To fully understand the importance of Takshasila it must be noted that the Khunjerab pass between Kashmir and Xinjiang - the current Karakoram highway - was already traversed in antiquity.

Takshashila was an important Vedic/Hindu and Buddhist centre of learning. Takshashila was in real sense an international seat of learning where students from as far as Babylonia (Iraq), Greece, Syria, Arabia and China came to study. Takshashila could accommodate 10,500 students and during its time this university was the Harvard and MIT of the world.

The University taught subjects using the best of practical knowledge acquired by the teachers.Takshashila offered as many as 64 different specialized courses like Vedas, grammar, philosophy, ayurveda, agriculture, surgery, politics, archery, accounts, warfare, astronomy, commerce, futurology, occult, music, dance, etc. There were even curious subjects like the art of treasure hunting, decrypting encrypted messages, etc. The students would opt for electives and then would do indepth study and research into their field of choice.

Admission seekers into this great seat of learning first had to complete their basic education in their local institutions and reach the age of 16 before they were eligible for admission. Admission was highly competitive and based purely on merit. Even the sons of Kings would have to prove their merit before they were considered for admission. The course of study at Takshashila extended to as many as seven years. The students were always spoken of as going to Takshasila to 'complete' their education and not begin it. Every single student who graduated from this university would become a well sought after scholar all across the Indian subcontinent. There are not much of evidence to suggest that Takshashila had any female students in its campus.

The students were usually admitted to instruction in Takshashila by their teachers on payment of advance of their entire tuition fees, which would normally include lodging and food. In lieu of paying the fees in cash, a student was allowed to pay them in the shape of services to his teachers. To this class apparently belonged the majority of the students who attended on their teachers by day and received instruction at night. They gathered firewood for their teachers or cleaned their houses and did the cooking. Some were allowed to pay after the completion of their study. Some would even have to beg to pay their cost of education at Takshashila. Payment would normally be in gold.

Some scholars date Takshashila's existence back to the 6th century BCE. It became a noted centre of learning at least several centuries before Christ, and continued to attract students from around the old world until the destruction of the city in the 5th century CE. Takshashila is perhaps best known because of its association with Chanakya. The famous treatise Arthashastra (Sanskrit for The knowledge of Economics) by Chanakya, is said to have been composed in Takshashila itself.

Besides Chanakya other great scholars of their time like Panini (language and grammar), Jivak (medicine and surgery) and Charaka (Ayurvedic healer), the Maurya Emperor Chandragupta are also taught at Takshashila.

The city of Takshashila is mentioned by the Chinese monk Faxian (also called Fa-Hien), who visited ancient sites of Buddhism in India. He came to Takshashila in 405 CE. In his book "A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms. Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon in search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline" he mentions the kingdom of Takshasila (or Chu-cha-shi-lo) meaning "the severed Head" (Chapter 11). He says that this name was derived from an event in the life of Buddha because this is the place "where he gave his head to a man".

Xuanzang (also called Hieun Tsang), another Chinese monk, visited Takshashila in 630 CE. He mentions the city as Ta-Cha-Shi-Lo. The city appears to have already been ruins by his time.

There is some disagreement about whether Takshashila can be considered a university. While some consider Takshasila to be an early university or centre of higher education, others do not consider it a university in the modern sense, in contrast to the later Nalanda University. Takshashila is described in some detail in later Jataka tales, written in Sri Lanka around the 5th century.

Takshashila was destroyed by the invading Huns who came from across Hindukush into Punjab in the fifth century, and never recovered.

The British archaeologist Sir John Marshall conducted excavations over a period of twenty years in Takshasila.In 1980 Takshashila was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site with multiple locations. Recently it has been ranked as the top Tourist Destination in Pakistan by The Guardian.

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Nalanda University

• The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
• Nalanda, an ancient university located in the state of Bihar, India, was a famous learning center once thought to exist during the lifetime of the Buddha in the 5th century bc.
• Scholars now believe the learning center came into being in the 5th century ad. At its height during the 7th century, it was host to 2000 teachers and 10,000 students.

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Golden Era

In about ad 320, Chandragupta I, the ruler of the Magadha kingdom, united the many peoples of the valley and founded the Gupta dynasty. For about the next century his son Samudragupta and grandson Chandragupta II brought much of India under unified control for the first time since the Mauryan Empire, controlling the lands from the eastern hills of Afghanistan to Assam, north of the Narmada River. Samudragupta conducted a successful military expedition as far south as the city of Kanchipuram, but probably did not directly rule in those regions. The Guptas directly ruled a core area that included the east central Gangetic Plain, located in present-day Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In addition, they conquered other areas, reinstating the kings who were then obliged to pay tribute and attend the imperial court. Both Chandragupta I and Chandragupta II made strategic marriages that extended the empire, the latter with the successors to the Andhra dynasty in central India. A policy of religious tolerance and patronage of all religions also helped consolidate their rule.

The time of the Gupta Empire has been called the Golden age of Indian civilization because of the period’s great flowering of literature, art, and science. In literature, the dramas and poems of Kalidas, who wrote the romantic drama Sakuntala, are especially well known. During this era India’s level of science and technology was probably higher than that of Europe. The use of the zero and the decimal system of numerals, later transmitted to Europe by the Arabs, was a major contribution to modern mathematics

By 550AD the Gupta Empire had fallen.

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The Great Ashoka

Ashoka or Asoka, third king of the Maurya dynasty, who ruled almost the whole of the Indian subcontinent from about 269 to 232 bc. Ashoka stands unique among emperors in world history: After successfully concluding a major military campaign, he was so disturbed by the suffering that it had caused that he forsook war and thereafter endorsed nonviolence and peaceful persuasion in consolidating his vast empire.

The major source of documentation for Ashoka’s reign is the succession of edicts that he issued to his subjects in every part of his empire. These edicts were inscribed on rock surfaces and on specially polished columns with handsomely sculpted capitals. They were written in Prakrit languages (a group of ancient Indian dialects) for the Indian population, and in Greek and Aramaic for the Hellenistic Greeks and Iranians in the northwestern part of the empire. Historians have established the extent of Ashoka’s empire through the location of these edicts, as well as by archaeological excavations of artifacts, monuments, and urban sites associated with the Mauryas. In one of his edicts, Ashoka named as his contemporaries five Hellenistic kings, some of whom he had diplomatic contacts with, and this has provided a chronological cross-reference for his reign.

His son Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitta converted the people of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and other missionaries were sent to Southeast Asia and probably into Central Asia as well. He also sent cultural missions to the west, including Syria, Egypt, and Greece. Ashoka built shrines and monasteries and had rocks and beautifully carved pillars inscribed with Buddhist teachings. Buddhist texts composed by monks in Sri Lanka and northwestern India color the narrative of Ashoka’s life and depict him as concerned closely with the spread of Buddhism, which was then a relatively new religion. One of these narratives associates him with astutely handling a rebellion against oppression by local officers in the city of Takshasila, in Gandhara, an ancient region in northwestern India. Ashoka’s administrative experience may have begun with the control of Gandhara. Another source describes him in a similar capacity in central India, governing from the city of Ujjain.

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Chandragupta Maurya

Chandragupta Maurya (?-286 bc), first king (321?-298? bc) of the Maurya dynasty of the ancient kingdom of Magadha (now Bihār State), India. He expanded the territory of his kingdom and then, according to tradition, abdicated to become a monk.

As a young stripling, whom the Greeks called Sandrocottus, he is said to have met Alexander the Great in Punjab in 326 bc. Shortly afterward, Chandragupta raised an army and conquered Magadha, defeating the Nandas. He then took advantage of Alexander's death and wrested the Punjab region from the Macedonian forces. By further conquest he extended Magadha until it comprised all northern India between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Chandragupta's power was challenged by King Seleucus I of Syria, Alexander's successor, who invaded the northern subcontinent in 305 bc, but suffered a crushing defeat. Chandragupta there upon added to his lands all the territory north to the Hindu Kush, including Baluchistan and Afghanistan. According to traditional accounts, Chandragupta abdicated, became a monk, and, while in voluntary exile in the south of India, committed suicide by fasting to death about 286 bc. The Maurya Empire was further extended by his grandson, Ashoka.

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The Mauryan era

The rulers of Mauryan empire (India, except the area south of Karnataka) 4th-2nd centuries BC

• 321 to 298 BC - Chandragupta Maurya
• 298 to 272 BC - Bindusara Amitraghata
• 272 to 232 BC - Asoka (Vardhana)
• 232 to 185 BC - later Mauryas

By the 6th century bc, Indian civilization was firmly centered at the eastern end of the Gangetic Plain (in the area of present day Bihar), and certain kings became increasingly powerful. In the 6th century bc the Kingdom of Magadha conquered and absorbed neighboring kingdoms, giving rise to India’s first empire. At the head of the Magadha state was a hereditary monarch in charge of a centralized administration. The state regularly collected revenues and was protected by a standing army. This empire continued to expand, extending in the 4th century bc into central India and as far as the eastern coast.

Chandragupta Maurya, the first king of the Mauryan dynasty, succeeded the throne in Magadha in about 321 bc. In 305 bc Chandragupta defeated the ruler of a Hellenistic kingdom on the plains of Punjab and extended what became the Mauryan Empire into Afghanistan and Baluchistan to the southwest. Chandragupta was assisted by Kautilya, his chief minister. The empire stretched from the Ganges Delta in the east, south into the Deccan, and west to include Gujarat. It was further extended by Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, to include all of India (including what is now Pakistan and much of what is now Afghanistan) except the far southern tip and the lands to the east of the Brahmaputra River. The Mauryan Empire featured a complex administrative structure, with the emperor as the head of a developed bureaucracy of central and local government.

After a bloody campaign against Kalinga in what is now Orissa state in 261 bc, Ashoka became disillusioned with warfare and eventually embraced Buddhism and nonviolence. Although Buddhism was not made the state religion, and although Ashoka tolerated all religions within his realm, he sent missionaries far and wide to spread the Buddhist message of righteousness and humanitarianism. His son Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitta converted the people of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and other missionaries were sent to Southeast Asia and probably into Central Asia as well. He also sent cultural missions to the west, including Syria, Egypt, and Greece. Ashoka built shrines and monasteries and had rocks and beautifully carved pillars inscribed with Buddhist teachings.

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Breif about India

• It is the only society in the world which has never known slavery.
• India never invaded any country in her last 10,000 years of history.
• India was the richest country on Earth until the time of the British in the early 17th Century.
• Robert Clive's personal wealth amassed from the blunder of Bengal during 1750's was estimated at around £401,102
• It has been estimated that the total amount of treasure that the British looted from India had already reached £1,000,000,000 (£1Billion) by 1901.
• Taking into consideration interest rates and inflation this would be worth close to $1,000,000,000,000 ($1Trillion) in real-terms today.

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Vedic Civilization

In about 1500 BC the Aryans, a nomadic people from Central Asia, settled in the upper reaches of the Indus, Yamuna, and Gangetic plains. They spoke a language from the Indo-European family and worshiped gods similar to those of later-era Greeks and northern Europeans. The Aryans are particularly important to Indian history because they originated the earliest forms of the sacred Vedas (orally transmitted texts of hymns of devotion to the gods, manuals of sacrifice for their worship, and philosophical speculation). By 800 BC the Aryans ruled in most of northern India, occasionally fighting among them selves or with the peoples of the land they were settling. There is no evidence of what happened to the people displaced by the Aryans. In fact they may not have been displaced at all but instead may have been incorporated in Aryan culture or left alone in the hills of northern India.

The Vedas, which are considered the core of Hinduism, provide much information about the Aryans. The major gods of the Vedic peoples remain in the pantheon of present-day Hindus; the core rituals surrounding birth, marriage, and death retain their Vedic form. The Vedas also contain the seeds of great epic literature and philosophical traditions in India. One example is the Mahabharata, an epic of the battle between two noble families that dates from 400 BC but probably draws on tales composed much earlier. Another example is the Upanishads, philosophical treatises that were composed between the 8th and the 5th centuries BC.

As the Aryans slowly settled into agriculture and moved southeast through the Gangetic Plain, they relinquished their semi nomadic style of living and changed their social and political structures. Instead of a warrior leading a tribe, with a tribal assembly as a check on his power, an Aryan chieftain ruled over territory, with its society divided into hereditary groups. This structure became the beginning of the caste system, which has survived in India until the present day. The four castes that emerged from this era were the Brahmans (priests), the Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), the Vaisyas (merchants, farmers, and traders), and the Sudras (artisans, laborers, and servants).

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Indus Valley civilization

Around 2500 BC to around 1700 BC, a civilization flourished on the valley of the Indus River in what is now Pakistan and western India and its tributaries, extending as far to the northeast as Delhi and south to Gujarat.
The Indus Valley civilization, India's oldest known civilization, is famed for its complex culture and specialized artifacts. Ruins of ancient cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro show that those ancient people built drainage systems that ran into brick-lined sewers. Brick homes many stories high were common. Its cities were carefully planned, with elaborate water-supply systems, sewage facilities, and centralized granaries. The cities had common settlement patterns and were built with standard sizes and weights of bricks, evidence that suggests a coherent civilization existed throughout the region. The people of the Indus civilization used copper and bronze, and they spun and wove cotton and wool. They also produced statues and other objects of considerable beauty, including many seals decorated with images of animals and, in a few cases, what appear to be priests. They also decorated with a script known as the Indus script, a pictographic writing system that has not been deciphered. The Indus civilization is thought to have undergone a swift decline after 1800 BC, although the cause of the decline is still unknown; theories point to extreme climatic changes or natural disasters.

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Great Civilization

• Indus Civilization
• Vedic Civilization
• Saraswati Civilizations
• Rise of Jainism and Buddhism
• Mauryan Period
• Golden Age of Indian Arts & Sciences
• Muslim Invasions
• The Mughal Empire
• Portuguese Invasion
• The British East-India Company
• The British Empire
• India's Freedom Struggle
• Independence
• Modern India

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INDIA: History

India's history begins not with independence in 1947, but more than 5000 years earlier, when the name India referred to the entire subcontinent, including present day Pakistan and Bangladesh. The earliest of India's known civilizations, the Indus Valley civilization (about 2500 to 1700 B.C.), was known for its highly specialized artifacts and stretched throughout northern India. Another early culture the Vedic culture dates from approximately 1500 B.C. and is considered one of the sources for India's predominantly Hindu culture and for the foundation of several important philosophical traditions. India has been subject to influxes of peoples throughout its history, some coming under arms to loot and conquer, others moving in to trade and settle. India was able to absorb the impact of these intrusions because it was able to assimilate or tolerate foreign ideas and people. Outsiders who came to India during the course of its history include the Greeks under Alexander the Great, the Kushanas from Central Asia, the Mongols under Genghis Khan, Muslim traders and invaders from the Middle East and Central Asia, and finally the British and other Europeans. India also disseminated its civilization outward to Sri Lanka and much of Southeast Asia. Buddhism, which originated in India, spread even farther.

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