OBJECTIVE ONE:          To stress for students that the beginning of civilization in South Asia
                                           goes back to time immemorial

OBJECTIVE TWO:          To make students aware of the approximate beginnings of organized urban 
                                            life in South Asia--the civilization known as the Indus Valley or Harappa 
                                            Civilization (the former name deriving from the principal river in the region, 
                                            the latter name deriving from the name of the principal city in the early urban 
                                            context)

OBJECTIVE THREE:     Although this survey of India's cultures and civilizations is being presented in 
                                           chronological order, it should be made clear to students that such a  
                                           periodization is only a modern convenience--in fact, the discovery of the various 
                                           periods in India's history actually occurred in reverse order, that is, scholars first 
                                           uncovered the earlier Islamic period, then the classical or Indic period, then the 
                                           earlier Shramanical and Brahmanical and only quite recently have been making 
                                           important progress in understanding the earliest "Indus Valley" period.

     From ancient times, according to Bridget and Raymond Allchin, the Indian subcontinent has been characterized by its "frontier regions" and its "interior regions." The "frontier regions" are twofold, (l) the North-West, including both the area of Baluchistan in contact with the Iranian plateau as well as the North-West Frontier in contact with Central Asia and China, and (2) the North-East, including both the Himalayan zone in contact with Tibet as well as the area of Bengal and Assam in contact with Burma, south China and southeast Asia.  The "interior regions" of the subcontinent include (a) the Western, with its focus on the Indus River system and the Punjab, (b) the Northern and Eastern, with its focus on the Ganges River system, and (c) the Southern or Peninsular, with its focus on the Deccan and the Tamil plain.   The latter "interior region" is separated from the two other interior regions by the forested Vindhya mountains.   Two major corridors or paths have historically been the trajectories  through which communication and peoples have passed through the "interior regions", first, a "northern corridor" stretching from the North-West Frontier and the region of the Indus, through the Punjab, the Gangetic plain, and on into what is now Bengal; and, second, a "southern corridor" stretching from Sind to Gujarat, Malwa and the southern part of Rajasthan, and then into Maharashtra, the southern Peninsula and the Tamil Nadu region. The "northern corridor," encompassing the agricultural regions related to the Indus and Ganges river systems, passes through what  the Allchins have designated as the "Northern Nuclear Region." The "southern corridor," encompassing the agricultural areas of the western and southern regions of the subcontinent is designated by them as the "Southern Nuclear Region."  These, then, are the basic geographical parameters within which the cultural histories of South Asia unfold.

     There has been some sort of human habitation in South Asia from 400,000 to 200,000 B.C.E., based on the discovery of pebble tools coming from the paleolithic Soan Culture. Domestication of various sorts of animals may have occurred as early as l0,000 years ago or earlier in West and South Asia, thus making possible pastoral nomadic and semi-nomadic life.  Nearly as old are some examples in West Asia of the planned growth of certain strains of wheat and barley, suggesting the beginnings of sedentary settlement. The further development of agriculture and the emergence of organized village life probably begain in the Middle East some time after the beginning of the neolithic period (roughly 6000 B.C.E.), and the first evidence for settled village life in South Asia can be dated approximately in the fourth millenium (4000 - 3000 B.C.E.) in such areas as Baluchistan and Sind in the North-West of the subcontinent (in what is now Pakistan). We know very little about the religion of these village settlements beyond what we know about comparable village cultures of other early agricultural groups in the Mediterranean and the Middle East generally, that is, a widely diffused folk or village spirituality based on the cycles of the seasons, fertility rituals of one kind or another, and various local spirits and deities.

As was mentioned earlier when characterizing the notion of "Hindu," as many as 400 million in modern India follow some sort of "village Hindu" religiosity in contrast to literate, scripture-based, so-called "great tradition" Hindus and "renaissance" or modernist Hindus (the latter of which groups make up about l00 million).  To the extent that this "village Hindu" spirituality is not unlike the folk spirituality that goes back to time immemorial, it is not implausible to suggest that a majority of Hindus in present-day India still follow a pre-historic spirituality that pre-dates even the Indus Valley layer of civilization.

Be that as it may, the Indus Valley civilization, sometimes called the Harappan Civilization (after the name of one of its principal cities), flourished from the third through the first half of the second millenium B.C.E. in the region of the Indus valley and in the areas known as the Punjab and Gujarat.  It should perhaps be noted here that that the name "Indus" is the origin of the word "Hindu."  The original Indian name of the river is Sindhu.  The ancient Iranians had difficulty in pronouncing an initial sibilant "s" and changed  it to an aspirate sound "h", hence, "H-indu" instead of "S-indhu."  The Greeks referred to the river as the "Indos," and the later Arabs referred to it as "al-Hind."  Eventually the name came to be applied to the people of the subcontinent, namely, the "Hindi," the "Hindus" and the "Indians."  In ancient times Indians themselves referred to their country as Bharata-varsha (the "land of the sons of Bharata," a legendary ruler), Jambudvipa (the "continent of Jambu" or of the rose-apple tree), Aryavartta (the "abode of the noble or excellent ones") and Brahmavartta (the "abode of the brahmanical people").

To some extent the culture of the Indus Valley civilization resembles the older village cultures of Baluchistan and Sind, but it also represents a significant advance beyond scattered village life.  It was a sizable civilization, covering as much as half a million square miles (covering what is now Pakistan and much of North-West India as well) and including several large cities, the two most prominent of which were Mohenjo-daro and Harappa.  Very little is known about the origins of the civilization or about its end.  Regarding origins, there is some evidence from archaeological excavations that there had been some minimal contact between the Indus Valley and Sumeria and Mesopotamia in the ancient Near East, but the evidence is insufficient by way of establishing any extensive borrowing or dependence either way.  Regarding the decline of the civilization in the middle of the second millenium, some have speculated that its decline was caused by invading nomadic Aryans.  Such an invasion theory is now largely discredited, mainly because of the lack of clear evidence.   Others have suggested that the civilization was the victim of a major natural disaster, possibly a flood, earthquake or famine.

     Recent research by J. M. Kenoyer and others, however, has suggested  that it is possible to identify a broadly based "Indus Valley Tradition" that places the sophisticated urban development into a wider contextual historical development as follows: first, an early "food-producing era" of scattered village life (c. 6500 - 5000 B.C.E., a Neolithic/Chalcolithic phase); second, a "regionalization era" of early urban settlements (c. 5000 - 2600 B.C.E.); third, an "integration era" of a widely unified cultural region with a central focus on the main cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro (c. 2600 - 1900 B.C.E.), followed, finally, by a "localization" era of decentralization when the urban centers of power lose much of their hold over the larger region and the area overall reverts to its earlier regionalized status (c. 1900 - 1300 B.C.E.).  This new research would suggest,  in other words, that there was no precipitous decline or demise of the Indus Valley civilization.  There was, rather, a long process of decentralization and the emergence over time of new clan and regional groups into dominance within the region.

     In terms of artifacts, numerous small (about one-inch or two-inches square) soapstone seals have been uncovered, depicting various animals (for example, bulls, tigers, and monkeys), trees, and human figures.  There are also inscriptions on many of the seals in some sort of pictographic script that has unfortunately never been deciphered.  One seal shows a strange, horned figure sitting in what could be described as a Yogic or meditation posture and surrounded by four animals.  Some older archaeologists have suggested that this might be some sort of "proto-Shiva" figure, since in later Hindu traditions the great Hindu god, Shiva, is considered to be the lord of Yoga.  Moreover, the four animals might suggest  Shiva as "lord of animals" (pashupati), a well-known designation of Shiva in later times.   Some more recent archaeologists and art historians have disputed this interpretation.

     In any case, in addition to the seals, archaeologists have also uncovered what appear to be phallus-shaped stones and crude terra-cotta female figurines, suggesting some sort of fertility cult and belief in a mother goddess.  All of this is highly speculative and debatable, mainly because the Indus Valley script and language has not yet been deciphered.  One is left largely with scholarly guesses, but it is intriguing to entertain the possibility that traditions of ritual bathing, some sort of tradition of meditation or Yoga, possible proto-types of Shiva and a mother goddess, and a cult of sacred animals, all of which are prominent features in later Hindu traditions, may indeed be traceable ultimately all the way back to the third millenium B.C.E., and possibly earlier to the Baluchistan and Sind village cultures that go back to time immemorial.