There was an unwritten law that nothing in India could be a greater antiquity than the civilization of Greece. This statement is problematic as it perpetuates a Eurocentric perception of Ancient Indian history. Europeans considered ancient historical books present in the Indian subcontinent as exaggerative and superstitious texts but this is very one sided. The other side of the story was never given a chance to be explored or understood. This essay will try to challenge the Eurocentric view of perceiving ancient historical texts such as the Vedas and Puranas as nothing more that superstitious and useless books. This essay will also try to explain how the Indian subcontinent was far more advanced and superior compared to their European counterparts …show more content…
According to the theory, Aryans invaded and settled in the Indian subcontinent by defeating the indigenous Dravidian (European term) people of the land. This theory is not accurate as there no evidence to prove it. Although one of their argument to support this theory was Sanskrit being an Indo-European language and hence Aryans must have originated from Europe. This obviously was biased as the same claim can be flipped with the opposite value judgement by Indian counterparts. This was a way for Europeans to say that civilization began in India because of them. The inaccuracy of the European claim can be further supported with the fact that there is no evidence of demographic discontinuity or significant influx of people into Indian subcontinent as there are no differences in archaeological remains during the period 4500 to 800 BC. According to the work of Kenneth Kennedy of Cornell University, formation of Kashmir lakes were reported in ancient Sanskrit texts and it was confirmed by the modern geophysicists that the formation of lakes happened 40,000 years ago. This new information tends to either dismiss the Aryan invasion theory or to place it back at such an early point in history (before 3000 BC or even 6000 BC) and this has little bearing on what we know as the culture of India. After invading India, the British felt so inferior compared to the richness of Hindu civilization and Vedic culture. This was another reason for why they wanted to re-write the whole history of humanity and attribute fraudulently all kinds of greatness to
Cricket in some ways was a unifying force for the various classes in India as well as the relationship between Great Britain and India. As seen in Document 2, an Indian cricketer was invited to “...join the Sussex team,” that was a team from European country. This shows some equality between n...
The Vedas, which are the oldest written tradition in India, (2,000 - 600 B.C.) were written largely by the Indo-European invaders of India, known as the Aryans. The Aryans were said to have entered India on chariots, and the original meaning of the word chakra as "wheel" refers to the chariot wheels of the invading Aryans. (The correct spelling is cakra, though pronounced with a ch as in church.) The word was also a metaphor for the sun, which "traverses the world like the triumphant chariot of a cakravartin." (ruler) and denotes the eternal cycle of time called the kalacakra, or wheel of time. In this way, it represents celestial order and balance.
There are many cultural and societal influences that have made Hinduism vital to the region in which it originated. Hinduism can be traced to the Indus Valley Civilization that took place in 4000 BC to 2200 BC. India was a land of diverse cultures, religions, races and ethnicities. Hinduism was the unifying umbrella that brought peace to the land. The belief in Ahimsa or non-violence reduced warfare. In Ancient India, the caste system brought about social order but later this system decayed and gave rise to social ills. Many other cultures and invaders of the region influenced the development of Hinduism over the centuries. When the Indo-Europeans invaded India during 1500 to 500 BC, their religion of Vedas also greatly influenced the indigenous beliefs of Hinduism. Over 80% of Indians still practice Hinduism in modern India. The Hindus brought up in Hindu families are so steeped in the various Hindu traditions from infancy that they are totally imbibed into the Hindu religious system. The sages and seers over the ages held a prominent place in the religious beliefs of the region and their teachings of non-violence, unity, prayers and a life of righteousness have greatly influenced Hinduism.
" India was where the riches of the world came from, the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. The British needed to dispel the threat of other Europeans in Africa to maintain control of India, and they did so efficiently. They quickly gained control of both the major sea routes to India and then turned their eyes to the rest of the continent. Whether the British were trying to foster public support or prevent another nation from becoming a threat, all British actions in Africa were directly or indirectly linked to India. The British were motivated by their desire to become powerful, and they skillfully combined enterprise and conquest to create a globe spanning empire centered around the wealth of India.
Chapter Thesis: South and Southeast Asia in between the periods 1500 B.C.E to 600 C.E., with their growth of Indian civilization. FOUNDATIONS OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION, 1500 B.C.E.-300 C.E. India is known as subcontinent by the cause of how big it is and how it’s a secluded area.
The British considered Indian civilization to be inferior and implemented their western ways, overriding ancient Indian customs. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that British imperialism in India resulted in both positive as well as negative reforms in political, economic and social aspects of its new colony. To begin with, one can observe that the British colonizers did indeed improve Indian civilization by developing means of communication and transport. They built a great number of bridges, over 40,000 miles of railway and paving an astounding 70,000 miles of road (Doc. 4. The adage of the adage.
...ng religion and foreign to the people of India, yet there is a defied truth that Islam’s spread peacefully throughout India with the alliances formed between the Indian people, the Turks, and the Mongols. The encounters that the ancient Indian people had to endure with the Turks, Mongols, and Islam have had the most memorable impact and impression on Indian culture and other societies throughout the east. Ancient Indian history is often overlooked within our society, but perhaps there should be a second look at how the Indian people have became who they are today, what attributes that have given society, and what pandemonium they have overcame as a civilization to stay in existence and stand against the test of time.
Pandey, T. N., 2014. Lecture 1/9/14: Culture of India: Aryan and Indigenous Population. Cultures of India. U.C. Santa Cruz.
2 Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 432,
The decision to grant independence to India was not the logical culmination of errors in policy, neither was it as a consequence of a mass revolution forcing the British out of India, but rather, the decision was undertaken voluntarily. Patrick French argues that: “The British left India because they lost control over crucial areas of the administration, and lacked the will and the financial or military ability to recover that control”.
When in 1978 Edward W. Said published his book Orientalism, it presented a turning point in post-colonial criticism. He introduced the term Orientalism, and talked about 2 of its aspects: the way the West sees the Orient and the way the West controls the Orient. Said gave three definitions of Orientalism, and it is through these definitions that I will try to demonstrate how A Passage to India by E. M. Forster is an Orientalist text. First, Said defined Orientalism as an academic discipline, which flourished in 18th and 19th century.
The settlements of the Indus civilisation were either destroyed or abandoned by about 1750 B.C. to be rediscovered only three thousand years later. What happened after the collapse of this rich civilisation is one of the most intriguing questions of human history and centres around the Aryan problem. Who were the Aryans where did they come from, what was their original language these are questions over which there have been many debates and much written. But more the debate, more the mystery seems to deepen. One of the major question regarding the Aryans in India revolves around whether they arrived from outside or were indigenous people According to some scholars, we nee not look outside India for their origin and that the Aryans predated and not succeeded the people of the Indus civilisation According to others, including Max Muller the Aryans had their original home in Central Asia from where they migrated due to climatic and other reasons. In support of their theory, they point out the similarity be tween the language of the Rig veda.
India was the first major Asian civilizations to fall victim to European predatory activities (Duiker 31). With conquering India, the British had various purposes behind it. Their main purpose was to achieve a monopolistic trading position (The Economic and Social Impact of Colonial Rule in India). The second purpose was the control of India; this was a key element in the world power structure, in terms of geography, logistics and military manpower (The Economic and Social Impact of Colonial Rule in India). When the East India Company continued to trade under the British, huge armies were created, largely composed of Indian sepoys (Marshall). The armies were used to defend the Company’s territories protect the Indian states (Marshall).
“The only people for whom we can even begin to imagine properly human, individual, existences are the literate and the consequential, the wazirs and the sultans, the chroniclers, and the priests—the people who had the power to inscribe themselves physically upon time” (Ghosh 17). History is written by the victorious, influential and powerful; however, history has forgotten the people whose voices were seized, those who were illiterate and ineloquent, and most importantly those who were oppressed by the institution of casted societies. Because history does not document those voices, it is the duty to the anthropologist, the historiographer, the philosopher as well as scholars in other fields of studies to dig for those lost people in the forgotten realm of time. In In An Antique Land, the footnotes of letters reveal critical information for the main character, which thematically expresses that under the surface of history is something more than the world can fathom.
Crane, Ralph J. Inventing India: A History of India in English Language Fiction. London: Macmillan, 1992.