Outline Of Ancient India
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Outline Of Ancient India
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ancient India: Ancient India is the Indian subcontinent from prehistoric times to the start of Medieval India, which is typically dated (when the term is still used) to the end of the Gupta Empire around 500 CE. Depending on context, the term Ancient India might cover the modern-day countries of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, though these territories had large cultural differences. General history of Ancient India An elaborate periodisation may be as follows: Pre-history (Neolithic Age) (c. 8000–3500 BCE) * Indian Pre-history Age (–3300 BCE) * Bhirrana culture   (7570–6200 BCE) * Mehrgarh culture () Bronze Age India (c. 3500–1750 BCE) * Indus Valley Civilisation () * Ahar–Banas culture () * Ochre Coloured Pottery culture (–1200 BCE) * Cemetery H culture (–1300 BCE) * Indian Civilizations on peak Indus Valley Civilisation & "First Urbanization " (c. 3300 ...
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Indus Valley Civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread. Its sites spanned an area from much of Pakistan, to northeast Afghanistan, and northwestern India. The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra River, Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. The term ''Harappan'' is sometimes applied to the Indus civilisation after its type site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the ...
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Kuru Kingdom
Kuru (Sanskrit: ) was a Vedic Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan tribal union in northern Iron Age India, Iron Age India, encompassing parts of the modern-day states of Haryana, Delhi, and some parts of western Uttar Pradesh, which appeared in the Middle Vedic period (c. 1200 – c. 900 BCE). The Kuru Kingdom was the first recorded State (polity), state-level society in the Indian subcontinent. The Kuru kingdom decisively changed the religious heritage of the early Vedic period, arranging their ritual hymns into collections called the Vedas, and developing new rituals which gained their position over Indian civilization as the Śrauta, Srauta rituals, which contributed to the so-called "classical synthesis" or Hinduism#Roots of Hinduism, "Hindu synthesis". It became the dominant political and cultural center of the middle Vedic Period during the reigns of Parikshit and Janamejaya, but declined in importance during the late Vedic period (c. 900 – c. 500 BCE) and had become "somethin ...
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Gandhāra (kingdom)
Gandhāra (Sanskrit: ; Pāli: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan kingdom of western South Asia whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The inhabitants of Gandhāra were called the Gāndhārīs. Location The Gandhāra kingdom of the late Vedic period was located on both sides of the Indus river, and it corresponded to the modern Rawalpindi District of modern-day Pakistani Punjab and Peshawar District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. By the 6th century BCE, Gandhāra had expanded to include the valley of Kaśmīra. The capital of Gandhāra was Takṣaśila (Pāli: ; Ancient Greek: ), and its other major town was Puṣkalāvatī ( Prākrit: ; grc, Πευκελαωτις ) or Puṣkarāvatī (Pāli: ). History Kingdom The first mention of the Gandhārīs is attested once in the as a tribe that has sheep with good wool. In the , the Gandhārīs are mentioned alongside the Mūjavants, the Āṅgeyas. and the Māgadhīs in a hymn asking fever to leave the body of the sic ...
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Brihadratha
Brihadratha ( sa, बृहद्रथ; IAST: Bṛhadratha), also known as ''Maharatha'', was the initiator of his dynasty and also because of his greatness, his dynasty came to be known as ''Brihadratha dynasty'', the earliest ruling dynasty of Magadha. He established Magadha on the banks of River Ganges and transferred the power from Chedi (its Neighboring kingdom) to the newly settled Magadha. In his rule and also in the rule of his famous son Jarasandha, Magadha became the Central Power of India. Magadha was the most powerful Mahajanapada of India. He had a daughter named Shashirekha who was the second wife of Dhrishtadhyumna. Brihadratha was the eldest of the five sons of Vasu, (also known as Uparichara Vasu ) the Kuru king of ChediMisra, V.S. (2007). ''Ancient Indian Dynasties'', Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, , pp.129–36 and his queen Girika. His father was the ruler of Chedi and Brihadratha established Magadha at the border of Chedi Kingdom. He is Mentioned in the ...
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Painted Grey Ware Culture
The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age Indian culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conventionally dated 1200 to 600–500 BCE, or from 1300 to 500–300 BCE It is a successor of the Cemetery H culture and Black and red ware culture (BRW) within this region, and contemporary with the continuation of the BRW culture in the eastern Gangetic plain and Central India. Characterized by a style of fine, grey pottery painted with geometric patterns in black, the PGW culture is associated with village and town settlements, domesticated horses, ivory-working, and the advent of iron metallurgy. , 1,576 PGW sites have been discovered. Although most PGW sites were small farming villages, "several dozen" PGW sites emerged as relatively large settlements that can be characterized as towns; the largest of these were fortified by ditches or moats and embankments made of piled earth with wooden palisades, albeit smaller and sim ...
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Northern Black Polished Ware
The Northern Black Polished Ware culture (abbreviated NBPW or NBP) is an urban Iron Age Indian culture of the Indian Subcontinent, lasting c. 700–200 BCE (proto NBPW between 1200 and 700 BCE), succeeding the Painted Grey Ware culture and Black and red ware culture. It developed beginning around 700 BCE, in the late Vedic period, and peaked from c. 500–300 BCE, coinciding with the emergence of 16 great states or mahajanapadas in Northern India, and the subsequent rise of the Mauryan Empire. Recent archaeological evidences have pushed back NBPW date to 1200 BCE at Nalanda district, in Bihar, where its earliest occurrences have been recorded and carbon dated from the site of Juafardih. Similarly sites at Akra and Ter Kala Dheri from Bannu have provided carbon dating of 900-790 BCE and 1000-400 BCE, and at Ayodhya around 13th century BC or 1000 BCE. Overview The diagnostic artifact and namesake of this culture is the Northern Black Polished Ware, a luxury style of burnished ...
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Ganges Plain
The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the North Indian River Plain, is a fertile plain encompassing northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, including most of northern and eastern India, around half of Pakistan, virtually all of Bangladesh and southern plains of Nepal. The region is named after the Indus and the Ganges rivers and encompasses a number of large urban areas. The plain is bound on the north by the Himalayas, which feed its numerous rivers and are the source of the fertile alluvium deposited across the region by the two river systems. The southern edge of the plain is marked by the Deccan Plateau. On the west rises the Iranian Plateau. Many developed cities like Delhi, Dhaka, Kolkata, Lahore and Karachi are located in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. History The region is known for the Indus Valley civilization, which was responsible for the birth of ancient culture of the Indian subcontinent. The flat and fertile terrain has facilitated the repeated rise and expans ...
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Black And Red Ware Culture
Black and red ware (BRW) is a South Asian earthenware, associated with the neolithic phase, Harappa, Bronze Age India, Iron Age India, the megalithic and the early historical period. Although it is sometimes called an archaeological culture, the spread in space and time and the differences in style and make are such that the ware must have been made by several cultures. In the Western Ganges plain (western Uttar Pradesh) it is dated to c. 1450–1200 BCE, and is succeeded by the Painted Grey Ware culture; whereas in the Central and Eastern Ganges plain (eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Bengal) and Central India (Madhya Pradesh) the BRW appears during the same period but continues for longer, until c. 700–500 BCE, when it is succeeded by the Northern Black Polished Ware culture. In the Western Ganges plain, the BRW was preceded by the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture. The BRW sites were characterized by subsistence agriculture (cultivation of rice, barley, and legumes), and yiel ...
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Vedic Civilization
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (ca. 1300–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain BCE. The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, which developed in the Kuru Kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes. The Vedas contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Indo-Aryan and Vedic culture to be traced and inferred. The Vedas were composed and orally transmitted with precision by speakers of an Old Indo-Aryan language who had migrat ...
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Iron Age India
In the prehistory of the Indian subcontinent, the Iron Age succeeded Bronze Age India and partly corresponds with the megalithic cultures of India. Other Iron Age archaeological cultures of India were the Painted Grey Ware culture (1300–300 BCE) and the Northern Black Polished Ware (700–200 BCE). This corresponds to the transition of the Janapadas or principalities of the Vedic period to the sixteen Mahajanapadas or region-states of the early historic period, culminating in the emergence of the Maurya Empire towards the end of the period. The earliest evidence of iron smelting predates the emergence of the Iron Age proper by several centuries. North India R. Tewari (2003) radiocarbon dated iron artefacts in Uttar Pradesh, including furnaces, tuyeres, and slag between c. 1800 and 1000 BCE. The use of iron and iron working was prevalent in the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas from the early second millennium BCE. The beginning of the use of iron has been traditi ...
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