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== India ==

== India ==

The history of ancient India is sketchy, but we do know that there was a massive immigration into the country around 3000 B.C. by people who called themselves “Aryans” or “nobles”.  They spoke an Indo-European language which formed the basis for Sanskrit, which is the standard ancient language of India just as Latin is the standard ancient language of Europe.  Yet while Latin is a dead language today, Sanskrit is still an official language in India and the scriptures of Hinduism (the most sacred are the Vedas) were written in Sanskrit.

Little information survives concerning the history of ancient India.  There was a massive immigration into the country around 3000 B.C. by people who called themselves “Aryans” or “nobles”.  They spoke an Indo-European language which formed the basis for Sanskrit, which is the standard ancient language of India just as Latin is the standard ancient language of Europe.  Yet while Latin is a dead language today, Sanskrit is still an official language in India and the scriptures of Hinduism are written in Sanskrit.  The most sacred of these scripts form the [[Vedas]] and [[Upanishads]], which are considered to be of the greatest authority, importance, and antiquity.

=== Ancient India ===

=== Ancient India ===

The roots of ancient India were settlements in the fertile Indus River Valley in what is now Pakistan and northwest India.  This was one of the most fertile region in the world at the time, with plentiful farm products and animals.  The region was surrounded in the north by the Himalaya mountains, protected to the west by the Indu Kush mountains, and insulated from the east by the Great Indian Desert.  Like Egypt, this region had unique geographic protections against invasion by foreign enemies.  Two cities have been discovered there:  Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa (huh-ROP-uh).  Other small towns have also been unearthed.  This ancient civilization existed from about 3000 B.C. to 1300 B.C., and its peak was 2600 to 1900 B.C.  It is known as the Indus Valley Civilization or Harappan Civilization, named after its big city.  These early settlements were long before classical Indian civilization, which was from 300 B.C. to A.D. 500.

The roots of ancient India were settlements in the fertile Indus River Valley in what is now Pakistan and northwest India.  This was one of the most fertile regions in the world at the time, with plentiful farm products and animals.  The region was surrounded in the north by the Himalaya mountains, protected to the west by the Indu Kush mountains, and insulated from the east by the Great Indian Desert.  Like Egypt, this region had unique geographic protections against invasion by foreign enemies.  Two cities have been discovered there:  Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa (huh-ROP-uh).  Other small towns have also been unearthed.  This ancient civilization existed from about 3000 B.C. to 1300 B.C., and its peak was 2600 to 1900 B.C.  It is known as the Indus Valley Civilization or Harappan Civilization, named after its big city, Harappa.  These early settlements existed long before classical Indian civilization, which was from 300 B.C. to A.D. 500, and are among the largest ancient civilizations we know of.

Writings have been found from ancient India, but no one has been able to decipher them yet.  These ancient peoples did have advanced use of water:  pipes, drains and indoor bathrooms.  The people survived on agriculture and traded with Mesopotamia.   

Writings have been found from ancient India, but no one has been able to decipher them yet.  The reason these writings are so difficult to decipher is that the symbols are extremely tiny, and all the writings we have contain only a few of these symbols. 

 

In terms of technology, the inhabitants of these cities were quite advanced.  The ancient peoples of the Indus River Valley civilization had advanced use of water:  pipes, drains and indoor bathrooms.  They were precise with mathematics, and used this skill to measure weight and mass quite accurately.  But unlike most other civilizations at the time, the ruins of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa do not contain any large palaces or monuments to false gods.

 

The people survived on agriculture and traded with Mesopotamia, but a good portions of the inhabitants were tradesmen, as artistic artifacts from Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa bear testament.  The fertile land and geographic protection of the Indus River Valley allowed early civilizations to thrive there.

The Sarasvati River was the largest in ancient India, flowing west of Delhi and providing water to a fertile region as described in the Rig Veda, which is the most fundamental of the sacred Vedic Hindu texts.  (The river has since completely dried up, but was proven to have existed by looking at satellite photographs of India.)  Food and commerce was based on barley (yava), copper (ayas) and cattle.  By 2600 B.C., the Indus-Sarasvati civilization became the largest civilization in the ancient world, spreading from Pakistan to many areas of India today.  It had links to Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Central Asia and elsewhere.  Its population is estimated to have been 100,000.

The Sarasvati River was the largest in ancient India, flowing west of Delhi and providing water to a fertile region as described in the Rig Veda, which is the most fundamental of the sacred Vedic Hindu texts.  (The river has since completely dried up, but was proven to have existed by looking at satellite photographs of India.)  Food and commerce was based on barley (yava), copper (ayas) and cattle.  By 2600 B.C., the Indus-Sarasvati civilization became the largest civilization in the ancient world, spreading from Pakistan to many areas of India today.  It had links to Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Central Asia and elsewhere.  Its population is estimated to have been 100,000.