Sources of Ancient History
प्राचीन इतिहास के स्रोत और पाषाण युग
How we know about the past — the sources
| Kind | What it is | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| manuscripts | books written by hand, on palm leaf or the bark of the birch (bhurja) tree | the Vedas, the epics, the Puranas, Buddhist and Jaina texts |
| secular writing | texts not about religion | Kautilya's Arthashastra, Kalidasa's plays, Banabhatta's Harshacharita, Kalhana's Rajatarangini on Kashmir |
| inscriptions | writing cut on hard surfaces — stone or metal | Ashoka's edicts, Samudragupta's praise-poem at Allahabad |
| archaeology | the material remains dug up and studied | tools, pottery, buildings, ornaments, coins |
| foreign accounts | what visitors wrote | Megasthenes' Indica, Faxian, Xuanzang, Al-Biruni's Kitab-ul-Hind |
Dates — BCE means before the Common Era and CE the Common Era; BCE years are counted backwards, so 500 BCE is earlier than 200 BCE.
The land's names — India comes from the Indus, the Sindhu, as Iranians and Greeks said it; Bharata was the name of a group of people in the Rigveda.
The trap: in BCE dates the larger number is the earlier year — 500 BCE came three centuries before 200 BCE.
प्राचीन इतिहास के स्रोत और पाषाण युग
The Stone Age — hunter-gatherers
| Age | Roughly | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) | from about 2 million years ago to 12,000 years ago | hunting and gathering; large, roughly chipped stone tools |
| Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) | about 12,000 to 10,000 years ago | microliths — tiny stone tools hafted onto bone or wood |
| Neolithic (New Stone Age) | 10,000 years ago onwards | polished tools, farming, herding, settled villages |
Hunter-gatherers moved — following animals, the seasons' fruits and water. They used fire for light, cooking and keeping animals away.
Sites
About 12,000 years ago the climate warmed, grasslands spread, and animals that graze on them — deer, antelope, goats, cattle — multiplied.
The trap: microliths mark the Mesolithic, the middle Stone Age — not the Palaeolithic with its large tools.
प्राचीन इतिहास के स्रोत और पाषाण युग
The first farmers and herders — and Bihar's Chirand
From about 10,000 years ago people began to grow crops and tame animals — the Neolithic. The first animal tamed was the wild ancestor of the dog; sheep, goats, cattle and pigs followed. With farming came settled villages, pottery for storage, polished stone tools, and weaving.
| Site | Where | What was found |
|---|---|---|
| Mehrgarh | Bolan pass, Pakistan | among the earliest villages: wheat, barley, sheep and goats; square houses; a burial with goats |
| Burzahom | Kashmir | homes sunk into pits in the earth; dogs buried with their masters |
| Chirand | Saran district, Bihar, on the Ganga | Neolithic bone tools, pottery and signs of settled farming |
| Koldihwa, Mahagara | Uttar Pradesh | early rice |
| Daojali Hading | Assam | stone tools and jadeite, probably brought from China |
| Hallur, Paiyampalli | south India | cattle, sheep, millets |
Why settle? — a crop takes months to ripen, so farmers had to stay and guard it; stored grain and herds became a new kind of wealth.
The trap: the dog was tamed first — before the sheep, the goat or the cow.
प्राचीन इतिहास के स्रोत और पाषाण युग
Scripts, coins, museums — reading the evidence
Scripts and languages
How archaeologists date what they find
Coins — the earliest Indian coins are punch-marked silver pieces, about 2,500 years old; the Kushanas and Guptas struck gold.
Keeping the past
The trap: the Harappan script has never been read — the script Prinsep deciphered was Brahmi.
प्राचीन इतिहास के स्रोत और पाषाण युग
Points to Remember