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When did Indian Civilization start?

A vintage year for thinkers

For example, it has often been noted how a number of great thinkers appear around the year 500 BC. In Greece, Thales, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Heraclitus and Anaxagorus were laying the foundations for Greek thought; in Israel much of the prophetic writing of the Old Testament was being written down; in South Asia the Buddha and Mahavira were becoming the founding fathers of two great religions, Buddhism and Jainism; and in China, Confucius was busy teaching a system of thought based on correct behaviour to one's fellow humans.

So far, so good. However, whilst developing the DH Maps on Ancient China, Ancient Greece and Ancient India, what struck me was that the great thinkers who flourished in all these civilizations around 500 BC did so at completely different stages of their respective civilizations' development.

Different stages of civilization

What do I mean by that? Well, take China. By 500 BC, Chinese civilization had experienced uninterrupted development for more than a millennium. It had a political tradition reaching back many hundreds of years, and was divided into large, well-organized states, themselves already several centuries old. Large walled cities were home to a highly educated elite of aristocrats, officials and wealthy merchants.

The contrast with India is striking. According to the textbooks, in 500 BC, organized states were only of very recent origin, and may well have still retained many tribal features. There is no real evidence for professional armies at this date, and bureaucracy was in its infancy, if it existed in any meaningful sense at all. Scholars have their doubts whether literacy had come to India by 500 BC (from the Middle East), and believe that towns had only emerged in the Ganges Valley, the heartland of Classical Indian civilization, after about 600 BC.

All in all, India and China were at completely different stages of development at that time.

Urban life makes for new ideas

So how come Indian civilization produced such great thinkers at such an early stage in its civilization?

In a sense, this is an odd question. After all, why shouldn't a great philosopher appear early on in a civilization's development? The Greeks produced a great poet, Homer; why not a great philosopher?

I can think of a few reasons why not. Above all, new ideas grow up in urban societies. Village life is not a good nursery for anything but traditional modes of thought. Rural dwellers are notoriously conservative, and resist new ideas. Anyone starting to teach new ways of thought would get short shrift from his neighbours. In town and cities, however, there is not the same pressure to conform. The larger, denser population allows for greater diversity. Different groups can spring up, debate can flourish. Merchants come to the towns from distant lands, bringing with them strange beliefs. It is notable that both Jainism and Buddhism first attracted converts from amongst townspeople (as did Confucianism and Christianity).

So, a flourishing urban environment seems a prerequisite for the sprouting of great thinkers and new ideas. In all other cases apart from India, it seems that it takes civilizations several centuries to reach a mature enough state to produce great philosophers.

Time-lag

Take Greece, for example. The Greeks are normally thought to have achieved a literate and urban civilization by the early 8th century BC, maybe a little before (some of their overseas colonies date from the 9th century). But it wasn't until the start of the 6th century that the first philosophers started to appear. And Greek philosophy didn't achieve its full maturity until the days of Socrates, in the late 5th century.

With India, we get that civilization's most original thinkers appearing right at the start of its existence. One gets the impression that, after a centuries-long "Dark Age" of tribalism and illiteracy (after the fall of the Indus Valley civilization), Indian civilization appears fully formed in the Ganges Valley in the century or so before the Buddha's life.

Re-dating the beginnings of Indian civilization

This doesn't ring true for me. I think the textbooks may be wrong in saying that urban life did not emerge before about 600 BC. I wouldn't be surprised if towns and cities were emerging here by the start of the 8th century BC – i.e. about the same time that they were appearing in Greece. My guess is also that literacy had arrived in India well before the time of the Buddha – it's just that we don't have any examples of it before the third century BC (when the emperor Asoka had inscriptions carved on stone pillars). Long-distance trade there certainly was by the Buddha's time – his first converts were from amongst the merchant community - and it is difficult to imagine well-organized trade without literacy. The first Indian alphabets were adaptations of the Aramaic alphabet. Aramaic became the established throughout the Middle East under the Assyrians, in the 9th century. That would give plenty of time for merchants to have bought the alphabet to northern India.

So, there's a bit of re-dating for you. Probably for most of you it doesn't mean much, and I wouldn't blame you. But these sorts of thing do bother me – I like to be able to believe my history!

About the Author

The Timemaps project is spearheaded by a father and son team, Peter and Jonny Britton, who co-chair a Creative Board comprising history teachers, members of the Historical Association, and multimedia professionals. Peter has been publishing history resources in schools and on-line for well over 25 years - some (well, most of his colleagues, actually) might say he is an historic relic himself. Jonny has been involved in TimeMaps since 2007 and concentrating on the on-line product and helping develop the new Dynamic History Map product range.

 

http://www.timemaps.com

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