India

History Main article: History of India Ancient India Manuscript illustration, c.  1650 , of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana , composed in story-telling fashion c.  400  BCE  – c.  300  CE [ 1 ] Cave 26, a Buddhist shrine, of the rock-cut Ajanta Caves Based on coalescence of Mitochondrial DNA and Y Chromosome data, it is thought that the earliest extant lineages of anatomically modern humans or Homo sapiens on the Indian subcontinent had reached there from Africa between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, and with high likelihood by 55,000 years ago. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity . [ 6 ] However, the earliest known modern human fossils in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago. [ 3 ] Evidence for the neolithic period in the western margins of the Indus river basin , at Mehrgarh in Balochistan, Pakistan , dates to after 7000  BCE . Domestication of grain-producing plants (including barley ) and animals (including humped zebu cattle) occurred here. These cultures gradually evolved into the Indus Valley Civilisation , which flourished during 2500–1900  BCE in Pakistan and western India. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro , Harappa , Dholavira , Ganweriwala , and Rakhigarhi , [ 9 ] its characteristic features included standardised weights, steatite seals , a written script, urban planning, public works, and arts and crafts including pottery styles, terracotta human figures and animal statuettes. [ 9 ] Networks of towns and villages grew around the cities in a new agro - pastoral economy. [ 10 ] Between 1500  BCE and 1200  BCE , an archaic form of Sanskrit , an Indo-European language , diffused into India from the northwest. Its evidence today is found in the Rig Veda —the oldest scripture associated with what later became Hinduism —which was composed by Indo-Aryan -speaking tribes migrating east from what is today northern Afghanistan and across the Punjab region . [ 11 ] [ 12 ] The settling of the Ganges river plain took place during the next millennium, when large swathes of the river system's adjoining regions were deforested, at times by setting fires, or later by employing iron implements, and prepared for agriculture. The settlement may have involved driving the preexisting people out or enslaving them. [ 13 ] The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the north, creating a broad language family -divide, with the Indo-Aryan languages being spoken mainly in the north and west , and the Dravidian in some parts of east India and most of the south . [ 14 ] Classical Sanskrit , a refined and standardised grammatical form would emerge in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . [ a ] The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. [ 16 ] A second urbanisation had taken place in South Asia by 400  BCE , this time on the Ganges plain. In fortified cities, social differentiation by caste , or varna , had emerged. [ 17 ] By the mid-millennium two new ethical and social systems had arisen: Jainism based on the teachings of Mahavira and Buddhism on those of the Buddha . Both religions stressed non-violence and abjured animal sacrifices conducted in Brahmanism , [ b ] and birth into a fixed hereditary varna . By living ethically, lay people could rise socially and morally in these religions. [ 18 ] Chronicling the life of the Buddha was central to the beginnings of recorded history in India. [ 19 ] The rise of the two religions was a backdrop to the emergence of the first loose-knit geographically extensive power in South Asia, the Maurya Empire . During the rule of the founder's grandson, Ashoka (ca. 268–232 BCE), the empire briefly controlled the major urban hubs and arteries of the subcontinent, except in the deep south. [ 20 ] [ c ] [ d ] The empire's period was notable for creativity in art, architecture, inscriptions, and produced texts, [ 23 ] but also for the declining rights of women in the mainstream Indo-Aryan speaking regions. [ 24 ] Following his conquest of Kalinga , in which his forces caused immense loss of life, Ashoka adopted Buddhism , subsequently adopting a policy of dhamma and commissioning numerous rock and pillar edicts throughout the Maurya Empire to promote ethical conduct, non-violence, and social welfare. [ 25 ] As the edicts forbade both the killing of wild animals and the destruction of forests, Ashoka is seen by some modern environmental historians as an early embodiment of that ethos. [ 26 ] [ 27 ] By the 4th and 5th centuries, the Gupta Empire had created a complex system of administration and taxation in the greater Ganges Plain; [ 28 ] this system became a model for later Indian kingdoms. [ 29 ] Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion, rather than the management of ritual, began to assert itself. [ 30 ] The renewal was reflected in a flowering of art, literature, and science. [ 31 ] [ 32 ] In South India, the Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between 200  BCE and 200  CE , the southern peninsula was ruled by the Cheras and the Cholas , along the western and eastern plains, respectively, of the Kaveri river valley, and the Pandyas farther south along the Vaigai river valley. [ 33 ] By the sixth century, the Pallavas had grown into a regional power. Simultaneously, Buddhism and Jainism, which had favoured a conservative transactionalism , were replaced by kingly devotion to the gods of particular places, which became a characteristic of the Bhakti movement . [ 34 ] The Pallavas, in particular, traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with West and Southeast Asia . [ 35 ] Medieval India Main article: Medieval India Brihadisvara Temple , built by Chola Rajaraja I between 1003 and 1010 CE Calligraphy on the Qutb Minar , built in the Delhi sultanate from 1199 CE to 1220 CE The Indian early medieval age, from 600 to 1200  CE , was defined by regional kingdoms and cultural diversity. [ 36 ] No ruler of this period was able to create an empire and consistently control lands much beyond their core region. [ e ] [ 37 ] During this time, pastoral peoples, whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agricultural economy, were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling classes. [ 38 ] The caste system consequently began to show regional differences. [ 38 ] In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were composed in Tamil. [ 39 ] They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of Hinduism and the development of all modern languages of the subcontinent . [ 39 ] Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised drew citizens in significant numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well. [ 40 ] Temple towns of various sizes began to appear everywhere as India underwent another urbanisation. [ 40 ] By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in Southeast Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to lands that became part of modern-day Myanmar , Thailand , Laos , Brunei , Cambodia , Vietnam , Philippines , Malaysia , and Indonesia . [ 41 ] Indian merchants, scholars, and sometimes armies were involved in this transmission; Southeast Asians took the initiative as well, with many sojourning in Indian seminaries and translating Buddhist and Hindu texts into their languages. [ 41 ] After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, using swift-horse cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity, repeatedly overran South Asia's north-western plains, [ f ] leading eventually to the establishment of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206. [ 43 ] The sultanate was to control much of North India and to make many forays into South India. Although at first disruptive for the Indian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs. [ 44 ] [ 45 ] By repeatedly repulsing Mongol raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited on West and Central Asia, [ 43 ] setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north. [ 46 ] The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of South India paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire . [ 47 ] Embracing a strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the sultanate, the empire came to control a large portion of peninsular India, [ 48 ] and was to influence South Indian society for long afterwards. [ 47 ] Early modern India The dargah of Sufi Salim Chisti , built by Mughal emperor , Akbar , early 17th century An East India Company rule gold mohur , issued during the reign of William IIII In the early 16th century, northern India, then under mainly Muslim rulers, [ 49 ] fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central Asian warriors. [ 50 ] The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local societies it came to rule. Instead, it balanced and pacified them through new administrative practices [ 51 ] [ 52 ] and diverse and inclusive ruling elites, [ 53 ] leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule. [ 54 ] Eschewing tribal bonds and Islamic identity, especially under Akbar , the Mughals united their far-flung realms through loyalty—expressed through a Persianised culture—to an emperor who had near-divine status. [ 55 ] The Mughal state's economic policies, deriving most revenues from agriculture [ 56 ] and mandating that taxes be paid in the well-regulated silver currency, [ 57 ] caused peasants and artisans to enter larger markets. [ 58 ] The relative peace maintained by the empire during much of the 17th century was a factor in India's economic expansion, [ 58 ] resulting in greater patronage of painting , literary forms, textiles, and architecture . [ 59 ] Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas , the Rajputs , and the Sikhs , gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule, which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military experience. [ 60 ] Expanding commerce during Mughal rule gave rise to new Indian commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India. [ 60 ] The incremental fragmentation of imperial authority during the late 17th and 18th centuries facilitated a process of decentralisation, enabling provincial elites to assert localised autonomy and consolidate control over their own affairs. [ 61 ] By the early 18th century, with the lines between commercial enterprise and political sovereignty increasingly blurred, European chartered companies—notably the English East India Company —solidified their presence through fortified coastal outposts. [ 62 ] [ 63 ] The East India Company's control of the seas, greater resources, and more advanced military training and technology led it to assert its military strength increasingly and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian elite; these factors were crucial in allowing the company to gain control over the Bengal region by 1765 and sideline the other European companies. [ 64 ] [ 62 ] [ 65 ] [ 66 ] Its further access to the riches of Bengal and the subsequent increased strength and size of its army enabled it to annexe or subdue most of India by the 1820s. [ 67 ] India was no longer exporting manufactured goods as it long had, but instead supplying the British Empire with raw materials. Many historians consider this to be the onset of India's colonial period. [ 62 ] By this time, with its economic power severely curtailed by the British parliament and having effectively been made an arm of British administration, the East India Company began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social reform, and culture. [ 68 ] Modern India Main article: History of India (1947–present) Mahatma Gandhi after a visit to the Presidency Jail, Calcutta , April 1938 The Capitol Complex in Chandigarh , commissioned after India's 1947 partition The appointment in 1848 of Lord Dalhousie as Governor General of the East India Company set the stage for changes essential to a modern state: the consolidation and demarcation of sovereignty, the surveillance of the population, and the education of citizens. Technological changes—among them, railways, canals, and the telegraph—were introduced not long after their introduction in Europe . [ 69 ] [ 70 ] [ 71 ] [ 72 ] Disaffection with the company also grew during this time, culminating in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 . Fed by diverse resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and summary treatment of some wealthy landowners and princes, the rebellion rocked many regions of northern and central India and shook the foundations of Company rule. [ 73 ] [ 74 ] After the rebellion was suppressed in 1858, the East India Company was disbanded, and the British government began to directly administer India . Proclaiming a unitary state and a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, [ 75 ] the new rulers also protected princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest. [ 76 ] In the decades following, public life gradually emerged across India, eventually leading to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885. [ 77 ] [ 78 ] [ 79 ] [ 80 ] The rush of technology and the commercialisation of agriculture during the second half of the 19th century was marked by economic setbacks, and many small farmers became dependent on the whims of faraway markets. [ 81 ] There was an increase in the number of large-scale famines , [ 82 ] and, despite the risks of infrastructure development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated for Indians. [ 83 ] However, commercial cropping, especially in the newly canalled Punjab, led to increased food production for internal consumption. [ 84 ] The railway network provided critical famine relief, [ 85 ] notably reduced the cost of moving goods, [ 85 ] and helped nascent Indian-owned industry. [ 84 ] After World War I , in which more than 1.3 million Indians served , [ 86 ] a new period began. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation , by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation led by Mahatma Gandhi . [ 87 ] During the 1930s, the British enacted slow legislative reform; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections. [ 88 ] The next decade was beset with crises: Indian participation in World War II , the Congress's final push for non-co-operation, and an upsurge of Muslim nationalism . All were capped by the advent of independence in 1947, but tempered by the partition of India into two states: India and Pakistan. [ 89 ] India's constitution was adopted in 1950 and established a secular, democratic republic. [ 90 ] Economic liberalisation has created a large urban middle class and transformed India into a fast growing economy . [ 91 ] [ 92 ] However, India has been hamstrung by persistent poverty, both rural and urban; [ 93 ] religious - and caste-related violence ; [ 94 ] Maoist-inspired Naxalite insurgencies ; [ 95 ] and separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and in Northeast India . [ 96 ] India has unresolved territorial disputes with China and with Pakistan . [ 97 ] ^ Lowe, John J. (2017). Transitive Nouns and Adjectives: Evidence from Early Indo-Aryan . Oxford University Press . p. 58. ISBN   978-0-19-879357-1 . The term 'Epic Sanskrit' refers to the language of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. ... It is likely, therefore, that the epic-like elements found in Vedic sources and the two epics that we have are not directly related, but that both drew on the same source, an oral tradition of storytelling that existed before, throughout, and after the Vedic period. ^ Petraglia & Allchin 2007 , p.  10 : "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. [...] Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73 and 55 ka." ^ a b Dyson 2018 , p.  1 : "Modern human beings— Homo sapiens —originated in Africa. Then, intermittently, sometime between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago, tiny groups of them began to enter the north-west of the Indian subcontinent. It seems likely that initially they came by way of the coast. [...] it is virtually certain that there were Homo sapiens in the subcontinent 55,000 years ago, even though the earliest fossils that have been found of them date to only about 30,000 years before the present." ^ Fisher 2018 , p.  23 : "Scholars estimate that the first successful expansion of the Homo sapiens range beyond Africa and across the Arabian Peninsula occurred from as early as 80,000 years ago to as late as 40,000 years ago, although there may have been prior unsuccessful emigrations. Some of their descendants extended the human range ever further in each generation, spreading into each habitable land they encountered. One human channel was along the warm and productive coastal lands of the Persian Gulf and northern Indian Ocean. Eventually, various bands entered India between 75,000 years ago and 35,000 years ago." ^ Mattern 2019 , pp. 146–147 All non-African human populations share a common ancestry in the recent past, about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago. Some time within this period, a group of modern humans migrated from Africa, traversed southern Asia, and crossed the sea to the ancient continent of Sahul (now Australia, Tasmania, and Papua New Guinea), picking up Neanderthal and Denisovan genes along the way; branches reached Europe somewhat later, and Americas last. This was not the first migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa. ... But for the most part, earlier populations of humans around Eurasia sputtered out, returned to Africa, or were replaced by humans from the last migration out of Africa.}} ^ Dyson 2018 , p.  28 ^ Wright 2010 , pp. 45–51. ^ Dyson 2018 , pp.  4–5 . Fisher 2018 , p.  33 . ^ a b Wright 2010 , p. 107. ^ Wright 2010 , pp. 145–146. ^ Lowe 2015 , pp. 1–2: " It consists of 1,028 hymns ( sūktas ), highly crafted poetic compositions originally intended for recital during rituals and for the invocation of and communication with the Indo-Aryan gods. Modern scholarly opinion largely agrees that these hymns were composed between around 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, during the eastward migration of the Indo-Aryan tribes from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across the Punjab into north India." ^ Witzel 2003 , pp. 68–70: "It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE); [...] The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalised early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is in fact something of a tape-recording of ca. 1500–500 BCE. Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in Japanese) has been preserved up to the present. [...] The RV text was composed before the introduction and massive use of iron, that is before ca. 1200–1000 BCE." Doniger 2014 , pp. xviii, 10: "A Chronology of Hinduism: ca. 1500–1000 BCE Rig Veda; ca. 1200–900 BCE Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda [...] Hindu texts began with the Rig Veda ('Knowledge of Verses'), composed in northwest India around 1500 BCE; the first of the three Vedas, it is the earliest extant text composed in Sanskrit, the language of ancient India." Ludden 2014 , p.  19 Dyson 2018 , pp.  14–15 Robb 2011 , pp.  46– ^ Dyson 2018 , pp. 16, 25. ^ Cite error: The named reference Combined-4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page ). ^ Evans, Nicholas (2009). Dying Words: Endangered languages and what they have to tell us . John Wiley & Sons. pp. 27–. ISBN   978-0-631-23305-3 . ^ Lowe, John J. (2017). Transitive Nouns and Adjectives: Evidence from Early Indo-Aryan . Oxford University Press. p. 58. ISBN   978-0-19-879357-1 . The term 'Epic Sanskrit' refers to the language of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. ... It is likely, therefore, that the epic-like elements found in Vedic sources and the two epics that we have are not directly related, but that both drew on the same source, an oral tradition of storytelling that existed before, throughout, and after the Vedic period. ^ Dyson 2018 , p.  16 ^ Cite error: The named reference Fisher2018-59 was invoked but never defined (see the help page ). ^ Stein 2010 , pp. 21, 61–62. ^ Dyson 2018 , pp. 16–17. ^ Roy 2012 , p. 28. ^ Iori 2023 , pp. 184, 219. ^ Ludden 2014 , pp. 28–29. ^ Dyson 2018 , p. 19. ^ Stein 2010 , p. 73. ^ Elverskog, Johan (2020). The Buddha's Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 56. ISBN   978-0-8122-5183-8 . The imperial edicts of Asoka echo this commodity view of trees. In Pillar Edict V, Asoka decreed that "forests must not be burned without reason." The Buddhist community took this mandate further by declaring that in order to protect forests from such conflagrations monks were allowed to set counterfires ^ Fisher 2018 , p. 72. ^ Kulke & Rothermund 2016 , pp. 118, 126. ^ Robb 2011 , pp. 68–69. ^ Stein 2010 , pp. 93–94. ^ Gilbert 2017 , pp. 54–55. ^ Kulke & Rothermund 2016 , pp. 122–123. ^ Stein 2010 , p. 98. ^ Stein 2010 , pp. 100–101. ^ Stein 2010 , p. 99. ^ Stein 2010 , p. 116. ^ a b Stein 2010 , pp. 115–116. ^ a b Stein 2010 , pp. 116–117. ^ a b Stein 2010 , p. 118. ^ a b Stein 2010 , pp. 118–119. ^ a b Stein 2010 , pp. 121–123. ^ Ludden 2014 , p. 87. ^ a b Ludden 2014 , p. 85. ^ Asher & Talbot 2022 , p. 54. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2012 , p. 41. ^ Asher & Talbot 2008 , pp. 50–51. ^ a b Asher & Talbot 2008 , p. 53. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2012 , p. 47. ^ Robb 2011 , p. 97–98. ^ Stein 2010 , p. 159. ^ Asher & Talbot 2022 , p. 136. ^ Robb 2011 , pp. 108–109. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2012 , p. 15. ^ Asher & Talbot 2022 , pp. 136, 151–152. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2012 , p. 17. ^ Asher & Talbot 2008 , p. 158. ^ Stein 2010 , pp. 164. ^ a b Asher & Talbot 2022 , p. 187. ^ Asher & Talbot 2008 , p. 186. ^ a b Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 23–24. ^ Asher & Talbot 2008 , p. 256. ^ a b c Asher & Talbot 2008 , p. 286. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 44–49. ^ Robb 2011 , pp. 115–117. ^ Ludden 2002 , pp. 128–132. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 51–55. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 68–71. ^ Asher & Talbot 2008 , p. 289. ^ Robb 2011 , pp. 169–171. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 94–99. ^ Brown 1994 , p. 83. ^ Peers 2006 , p. 50. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 100–103. ^ Brown 1994 , pp. 85–86. ^ Stein 2010 , p. 227. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 103–108. ^ Robb 2001 , p. 183. ^ Sarkar 1983 , pp. 1–4. ^ Copland 2001 , pp. ix–x. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 123. ^ Stein 2010 , p. 249. ^ Stein 2010 , p. 245: An expansion of state functions in British and in princely India occurred as a result of the terrible famines of the later nineteenth century, ... A reluctant regime decided that state resources had to be deployed and that anti-famine measures were best managed through technical experts. ^ Stein 2010 , pp. 247–248. ^ a b Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 126. ^ a b Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 97. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 163. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 167. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 195–197. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 203. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 231. ^ Javalgi, Rajshekhar (Raj) G.; Grossman, David A. (2016). "7 Understanding the Characteristics and Entrepreneurial Activities of Middle-Class Consumers in Emerging Markets: The Case of India". In Marsh, Leslie L.; Li, Hongmei (eds.). The Middle Class in Emerging Societies: Consumers, Lifestyles and Markets . Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies Series. Routledge. doi : 10.4324/978135717692-10 (inactive 19 July 2026). ISBN   978-1-138-85882-4 . Between now and 2039, India is projected to add over 1 billion people to the global middle class creating the world's fifth-largest consumer market (Dobbs). ... India's middle class saw its largest growth during the early 1990s when economic reforms led to integration into global markets. As Western countries were experiencing economic contraction, India's economy continued to grow above 5 percent. {{ cite book }} : CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2026 ( link ) ^ Cite error: The named reference MetcalfMetcalf2012-265 was invoked but never defined (see the help page ). ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 265–266. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 266–270. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 253. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , p. 274. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006 , pp. 247–248. Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page ). 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