Highlights of 9000 Years History of India

Dear all,
Have a nice day.
Following from some of the articles to my university alumni during 2002-05.
Subject: Highlights of History of India since 7000 BC.
Motivation: To convey the fact that there is more of India than Gandhi, freedom fights movements and the unfortunate political dramas of the recent past 400 years of India.

7000 BC: Indus-Sarasvati area residents of Mehrgarh grow barley, raise sheep and goats. They store grain, and construct buildings of sun-baked mud bricks.

6500 BC: Rig Veda verses say winter solstice begins in Aries (according to Dr. Frawley), indicating the antiquity of this section of the Vedas.

6000 BC: Early sites on the Sarasvati River, then India's largest, flowing west of Delhi into the Rann of Kutch; Rajasthan is a fertile region with much grassland, as described in the Rig Veda. The culture, based upon barley (yava), copper (ayas) and cattle, also reflects that of the Rig Veda.

5500 BC: Mehrgarh villagers are making baked pottery and thousands of small, clay female figurines and are involved in long-distance trade in precious stones and sea shells.

5000 BC: Beginnings of Indus-Sarasvati civilizations of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. Brick fire altars exist in many houses, suggesting Vedic fire rites, yajna. This mature culture will last 3,000 years, ending around 1700 BC.

4000 BC: Excavations from this period at Sumerian sites of Kish and Susa reveal existence of Indian trade products.

3928 BC: July 25th, the earliest eclipse mentioned in the Rig Veda (according to Indian researcher Dr. Shri P.C. Sengupta).

3100 BC: Early Vedic period ends, late Vedic period begins. India includes Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia.

2600 BC: Indus-Sarasvati civilization reaches a height it sustains until 1700 BC. Spreading from Pakistan to Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, it is the largestof the world's three oldest civilizations with links to Mesopotamia, Afghanisthan, Central Asia and Karnataka.- Major portions of the Veda hymns are composed during the reign of Vishvamitra I (Dating by Dr. S.B.Roy).

2500 BC: Main period of Indus-Sarasvati cities. Culture relies heavily on rice and cotton, as mentioned in Atharva Veda. Ninety percent of sites are along the Sarasvati, the region's agricultural bread basket.

2300 BC: Sargon founds Mesopotamian kingdom of Akkad, trades with Indus-Sarasvati Valley cities.- Indo-Europeans in Russia's Ural steppelands develop efficient spoked-wheel chariot technology, using 1,000-year-old horse husbandry and freight-cart technology.

2050 BC: Vedic people are living in Persia and Afghanistan.

2000 BC: Indo-Europeans (Celts, Slavs, Lithuanians, Ukranians) follow cosmology, theology, astronomy, ritual, society and marriage that parallel early Vedic patterns.

1900 BC: Drying up of Sarasvati River, end of Indus-Sarasvati culture. After this, the center of civilization in ancient India relocates from the Sarasvati river to the Ganga river, along with possible migration of Vedic peoples out of India to the Near East.

1500 BC: Submergence of the stone port city of Dwarka near Gujarat, where early Brahmi script, India's ancient alphabet, is used. Recent excavation by Dr. S.R. Rao said its larger than Mohenjo-daro. Indicates second urbanization phase of India between Indus-Sarasvati sites like Harappa and later cities on the Ganga.- Indigenous iron technology in Dwarka and Kashmir.

1450 BC: Early Upanishads are composed during the next few hundred years, also Vedangas and Sutra literature.

1316 BC: Mahabharata epic poem composed by Sage Vyasa.

1300 BC: Panini composes Ashtadhyayi, systematizing Sanskrit grammar in 4,000 rules.

975 BC: King Hiram of Phoenicia, for the sake of King Solomon of Israel, trades with the port of Ophir (Sanskrit: Supara) near modern Bombay, showing the trade between Israel and India. Same trade goes back to Harappan era.

950 BC: Jewish people arrive in India in King Solomon's merchant fleet. Later Jewish colonies find India a tolerant home. Gradual breakdown of Sanskrit as a spoken language occurs over the next 200 years.

900 BC: Iron Age in India. Early use dates to at least 1500 BC.

800 BC: Upanishads are recorded. Later smriti is composed, elaborated and developed during next 1,000 years.

750 BC: Priestly Sanskrit is gradually refined over next 500 years, taking on its classical form.

700 BC: Life of Zoroaster of Persia, founder of Zoroastrianism. His holy book, Zend Avesta, contains many verses from the Rig and Atharva Veda. His strong distinctions between good and evil set the dualistic tone of God and Devil which distinguishes later Western religions.

623 BC to 543 BC: Life of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, born in north east of India.

600 BC: Life of Sushruta, of Varanasi, the father of surgery. His ayurvedic treatises cover pulse diagnosis, hernia, cataract, cosmetic surgery, medical ethics, 121 surgical implements, antiseptics, use of drugs to control bleeding, toxicology, psychiatry, classification of burns, midwifery, surgical anesthesia and therapeutics of garlic.

599 BC to 527 BC: Lifetime of Mahavira Vardhamana, revered renaissance Jain master. His teachings stress strict codes of vegetarianism, asceticism and nonviolence.

560 BC: In Greece, Pythagoras teaches math, music, vegetarianism and yoga along knowledge/cultural exchanges from ancient India's wisdom ways.

500 BC: Dams to store water are constructed in India.Over the next 300 years (according to the later dating of Muller) numerous secondary scriptures (smriti) are composed: Shrauta Sutras, Grihya Sutras, Dharma Sutras, Mahabharata, Ramayana and Puranas, etc.

500 BC: Tamil Sangam age begins. Agastya writes Agattiyam, first known Tamil grammar. Tolkappiyar writes Tolkappiyam Purananuru, also on grammar; gives rules for absorbing Sanskrit words into Tamil.
Other famous works from the Sangam age are the poetical collections Paripadal, Pattuppattu, Ettuthokai Purananuru, Akananuru, Aingurunuru, Padinenkilkanakku.

400 BC: Panini composes Sanskrit grammar, the Ashtadhyayi.

350 BC: Rainfall is measured by Indian scientists.

326 BC: Alexander the Great of Greece invades, but fails to conquer, Northern India. His soldiers mutiny. He leaves India the same year. Greeks who remain in India intermarry with Indians. Interchanges of philosophy influence both civilizations. Greek sculpture impacts Indian styles.

305 BC: Chandragupta Maurya, founder of first pan-Indian empire; at its height under Emperor Ashoka, the Mauryan Empire includes all India except the far South of India.

302 BC: Kautilya (Chanakya), minister to Chandragupta Maurya, writes Arthashastra, a compendium of laws, administrative procedures and political advice for running a kingdom.

302 BC: In Indica, Megasthenes, envoy to King Seleucus, reveals to Europe in colorful detail the wonders of Mauryan India: an opulent society with abundant agriculture, engineered irrigation and 7 professional classes: philosophers, farmers, soldiers, herdsmen, artisans, magistrates and counselors.

273 BC: Ashoka , grandson of Chandragupta, is coronated. Repudiating conquest through violence after his brutal invasion of Kalinga, he converts to Buddhism. Excels at public works and sends diplomatic peace missions to Persia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Crete, and Buddhist missions to Sri Lanka, China and other Southeast Asian countries.

200 BC: Lifetime of Tiruvalluvar, poet-weaver who lived near present-day Madras, author of Tirukural, "Holy Couplets," the classic Tamil work on ethics and statecraft (sworn on in today's South Indian law courts).

145 BC: Chola Empire of Tamil Nadu is founded, rising from modest beginnings to a height of government organization and artistic accomplishment, including the development of enormous irrigation works.

10 BC: Ilangovadikal, son of King Cheralathan of the Tamil Sangam age, writes the outstanding epic Silappathikaram, classical Tamil treatise on music and dance.

...and the start of A.Ds....

4 AD: Jesus of Nazareth, founder of Christianity, is born in Bethlehem (current Biblical scholarship).

80 AD to 180 AD: Lifetime of Charaka. Court physician of the Kushan king, he formulates a code of conduct for doctors of ayurveda and writes Charaka Samhita, a manual of medicine.- Lifetime of Shandilya, first systematic promulgator of the ancient Pancharatna doctrines.- Zhang Qian of China establishes trade routes to India and as far west as Rome, later known as the "Silk Roads/Routes".

175 AD: Greek astronomer Ptolemy, known as Asura Maya in India, explains solar astronomy, Surya Siddhanta, to Indian students of the science of the stars.

200 AD: Indian kingdoms established in Cambodia and Malaysia.

205 AD to 270 AD: Lifetime of Plotinus, Egyptian-born monistic Greek philosopher and religious genius who transforms a revival of Platonism in the Roman Empire into what present-day scholars call Neoplatonism, which greatly influences Islamic and European thought.

350 AD: Imperial Gupta dynasty flourishes. During this "Classical Age" norms of literature, art, architecture and philosophy are established.

350 AD: Lifetime of Kalidasa, the great Sanskrit poet and dramatist, author of Shakuntala and Meghaduta.

400 AD: Laws of Manu (Manu Dharma Shastras) written. Its 2,685 verses codify cosmogony, four ashramas, government, domestic affairs, and morality.- Shaturanga, Indian forerunner of chess, has evolved from Ashtapada, a board-based race game, into a four-handed war game.
- Vatsyayana writes Kamasutra, famous text on erotics.

450 AD to 535 AD: Life of Bodhidharma of South India, 28th patriarch of India's Dhyana Buddhist sect, founder of Ch'an Buddhism in China, known as Zen in Japan.

499 AD: Aryabhata I, Indian astronomer and mathematician, using Indian numerals accurately calculates pi to 3.1416, and the solar year to 365.3586805 days.

500 AD: Sectarian folk traditions are revised, elaborated and reduced to writing as the Puranas, encyclopedic compendium of culture and mythology.

570 AD to 632 AD: Lifetime of Mohammed, preacher, founder of Islam. Begins to preach in Mecca, calling for an end to the "demons and idols" of Arab religion and conversion to the ways of the one God, Allah.

598 AD to 665 AD: Lifetime of Brahmagupta, preeminent Indian astronomer, who writes on gravity and sets forth the astronomical system in his Brahma Sphuta Siddhanta. Two of 25 chapters are on sophisticated mathematics.

600 AD: Life of Banabhatta, master of Sanskrit prose, author of Harshacharita and Kadambari.

610 AD: Muhammed begins prophecies (to Mecca in 622)

630 AD: Vagbhata writes Ashtanga Sangraha on Ayurveda.

630 AD to 644 AD: Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang (Huan Zang) travels in India, recording voluminous observations. Nalanda Buddhist university (his biographer writes) has 10,000 residents, including 1,510 teachers, and thousands of manuscripts.

650 AD: More than 60 Chinese monks have traveled to India and her colonies. Four hundred Sanskrit works have been translated into Chinese, 380 survive to thepresent day.

750 AD: Indian astronomer and mathematician travels to Baghdad, with Brahmagupta's Brahma Siddhanta (treatise on astronomy) which he translates into Arabic, bestowing decimal notation and use of zero on Arab world.- Valmiki writes 29,000-verse Yoga Vasishtha.

788 AD: Adi Shankara (788-820) is born in Malabar, famous monk philosopher who writes mystic poems and scriptural commentaries including Viveka Chudamani, and regularizes ten monastic orders called Dashanami.

1017 AD to 1137 AD: Life of Ramanuja of Kanchipuram, Tamil philosopher.

1440 AD to 1518 AD: Lifetime of Kabir. (his Hindi songs remain immensely popular to the present day).

1469 AD to 1538 AD: Lifetime of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism, originally a reformist sect of Hinduism stressing devotion and faith in guru.

1498 AD: Portugal's Vasco da Gama sails around Cape of Good Hope to Calicut, Kerala, first European to find sea route to India.

1520 AD: Poet Purandardas (1480-1564) of the Vijayanagara court systematizes Carnatak music.

1589 AD: Akbar rules half of India, shows tolerance for all faiths.

1647-49 AD: Shah Jahan completes Taj Mahal in Agra beside Yamuna River. Its construction has taken 20,000 laborers 15 years. Also Red Fort is completed in Delhi.

1780 AD to 1830 AD: Golden era of carnatic music. Composers include Thyagaraja, Dikshitar and Shastri.

1803 AD to 1882 AD: Lifetime of Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet who popularize Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads in US.

1800 AD to 1947 AD: British-ruling of India and freedom fights of Gandhi and team till independence in 1947!.

For reference:
1. Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar (1993) By Konrad Elst.
2. Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization (1995) By N.S. Rajaram and David Frawley (World Heritage Press)
3. Dawn and Development of the Indus Civilization (1991) By S.R. Rao.
4. The Astronomical Code of India (1992) By Subhash Kak.
5. Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth By N.S. Rajaram.

regards,
Rajesh Sulabha.