India From Indus Valley Civilisation to Mauryas

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The book unveils the Dark age of Ancient Indian History which stretched from 4000 B.C. to the period beginning with the birth of christ. Unveiled what we find is wonder, curiosity and a need for reflection. The author as different from expository style has adopted an interrogative approach. He asks questions, gives the evidence so far available however scanty it may be and then proceeds to give answers. He gives answers which are supported by evidence, archaeological or otherwise. Where there is no evidence to support, he leaves the question either unanswered or produces possible answers, in both cases making his readers reflect, thus sharing with readers not only his knowledge but his doubts as well. This method has an advantage in that when questions come before the answer, it discourages dogmatism and easy certainty. Proceeding in this logical way the whole new vista is opened and new things, new landmarks in the varied history of the ancient India appear and some puzzles are solved. The book brings out that the presiding deity of Indus Valley Civilisation was not Shiv but Rishabh, the first Tirthankar of the Jains and an incarnation of Vishnu as per the Hindus. It also brings out the contrary to the belief that the Indus Valley Civilisation had no contact with the contemporary and ancient civilisation of Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia, but it had very intimate relations. The author looks into the language of Sumer and found in them a large number of word of Hindi. If as he surmises the symbols of such words are also the same in both Sumerian and Indus scripts may be deciphered. Helpfully a list of some common words is appended at the end of the volume. The book also throws light on the vexed puzzle of the origin of the Mauryas and also conjectures on the law of succession among them which brought Bindusar and Ashok on the throne though not necessarily they being the eldest sons. The History is a matter of knowledge but of reflection and the great merit of the book is that the author not only gives information and his reflections but makes the readers to reflect.

Gyan Swarup Gupta (1929-) has a deep interest in History, specially unsolved puzzles of the Ancient Indian History. After stint with teaching English Language and Literature for a few years he joined the government administrative service. His job took him to various parts of the country but mainly in Rajasthan to remote areas, to lowly cottages and tribal habitations. The people of Rajasthan have an instinctive habit of the painting the outer walls of their dwelling with frescoes and old symbols. He was surprised to find the symbols of Indus Valley Civilisation on the walls, further supposed to find the rituals and religion of the Indus Valley Civilisation in their rituals, religion and even in language. This gave him the idea that the cultural and religion ancestry of these people was not some unknown invading tribe but the Indus Valley Civilisation. Reflections on this aspect and observations of the tribal life gave him a glimpse of the society of Indus Valley Civilisation however fleeting it may be. Eight years were spent in writing, recording his observations, study and reflections on paper. The result is this book. He is a prolific writer and his articles on various unsolved problems of history, the correct history of various historical sites have appeared in a very large number of magazines, journals, etc., both in Hindi and English. He is also associated in writing of W books, contributing chapters on the state of society from the ancient times to the present one.

It is an admitted fact that our rulers, both Mughals and specially British, made original efforts to distort and colour Indian History with ulterior motives and make "Indian Intellectuals" mentally slave, incapable of collecting facts impartially, arrange them in a natural order and interpret them correctly. They succeeded admirably. Even fifty year after Independence, these scholars repeat, like a parrot, that India was never one country, or one nation with one culture; it was British who tried to unite India and make it a country; Aryans came from Middle East; and so on. But when excavations at Mohenjodaro and Harappa stare them at face, they look bewildered, unable to explain they prefer to keep mum. Their condition becomes miserable when excavations have revealed that a Dwarka exists under the sea. What a pity for a country like India which has given light to the world.

Shri Gyan Swarup Gupta, without pretension of scholarship has done well to make a new scholarly beginning in his book, India: From Indus Valley Civilisation to Mauryas. He gives a new methodology also. He starts with the study of Vedas without any prenotions, but with an open mind. He gets the impression that Vedas also give an idea of the development of our history. So, he hurriedly scans through other connected literature-Brahmanas, Purans, Aryanaks, Valmiki Ramayan, Mahabharat etc. This new methodology threw a flood light which stands amply collaborated by the finds of Indus Valley Civilisation. For example, Shri Gupta seems to compile various hymns in Vedas on various animals (Horse, Tiger, Bulls, Goats etc.), birds (Shyena, etc.), plants, trees etc. A reading of all the hymns on one animal, or bird, or tree or plant gives him the impression that probably in the Vedic period different wandering tribes lived in different parts and the land of the five rivers and the desert now known as Sindh, Punjab and Rajasthan. Each one of these tribes picked up one animal, or bird, or tree of their area, which was considered most important as their totem. For example, the hymns on horse show that horse was just a horse in a few verses, then it was praised which was an ordinary praise, thereafter it was imbued with divinity and ultimately elevated to godhead. Same is true of all animals, birds, trees, plants etc. Shri Gupta, on the basis of these findings rightly concludes that this shows the different stages of development. He makes a very potent conjecture in this connection. He argues that with time, these wandering tribes started settling down and began to befriend some other tribes. So, at one stage, two tribes might have become so close as to lose their individual identity and so agreed to combine their totems. This may explain, for example, God Ganesh's present form or the Shiv family.

In a similar way, Shri Gupta attempts to explain, who was Mudgal and why was he so much praised in Vedas. He explains that Mudgal invented a weapon DRUGHAN (a wooden club) which was lighter and more effective in a war. With this weapon, he could protect his tribe, vast hinterland of Indus Valley and its animals and drive out the enemies. Again, Shri Gupta found out, on the basis of his studies, that not only the names of the rivers changed but their courses also went on changing; that most of the towns were located on these rivers, and with the changing course of rivers, the names of the towns also changed, while some towns were ruined. Today, after the Ecologists and Geographers have with the help of Satellite imaginery and field study scientifically established the course of the river Saraswati and that most of the important sites including the town of Kalibangan were located on its banks, none will dispute Shri Gupta. A day may not be far off when the other conjectures of Shri Gupta, viz that river Jamuna flowed through Rajasthan and joined the Saraswati at Kalibangan, and that it changed its course later may prove correct. Further Shri Gupta infers from available evidence that Pushkar Raj was a centre of stone armoury. It is likely that further excavation work may confirm it.

Indus Valley Civilisation, which was highly developed Civilisation, has opened a new Chapter in the ancient history of India and makes an interesting reading. It is shrouded in a number of mysteries which the scholars of both India and Europe have been making strenuous efforts to unravel for decades. A large number of seals has been discovered by excavators in the Indus towns. The most prominent seal is that of deity Pashupatinath which appears in different settings. Various incidents of his life seem to have been depicted on other seals. There is a group of scholars which believes that the hordes of Aryans who came from Central Asia invaded India and exterminated the earlier race which was Dravidian. It was Marshall who first propagated this view. Marshall identified the deity Pashupatinath as Shiv. Since Shiv is the principal deity of Dravidians, it were the Dravidians who inhabitated in the Indus Valley and who were mercilessly slaughtered and driven out. In the support of this theory Marshall cited the case of Brahui tribe of Quetta in Baluchistan. Brahuis speak a language in which 90 per cent of the words are Baluchi and the remaining 10 per cent can be called the derivatives of Dravidian languages. These Brahuis people, who were subsequently displaced by the invading Aryans, belonged to Indus Valley. Opposed to this is another group of scholars which is critical of this theory of migration of Aryans from Central Asia and extermination of Dravidians. The scholars of this group believe that Aryans did not come from anywhere, but were the original inhabitants of this Valley and Indus Valley Civilisation was nothing but Vedic Civilisation. In view of this they maintain that the principal deity Pashupatinath must be either Indra or Agni, the Fire God. Shri Gyan Swaroop Gupta also subscribes to this view and rules out the migration theory.

**Contents and Sample Pages**