Talk:Middle kingdoms of India

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[edit] Clean Up

I propose either removing this from this section as it doesn't correspond to the time period under discussion. I also beleive this is either covered elsewhere or needs a section of its own that pre-dates the Middle Kingdom period. This is line with the timeline in the History of India article as well as the Template of the history of south asia.

:==Kingdoms and Empires==

The Aryans are said to have had arrived in India from the Northwest, according to the Aryan Invasion Theory, and settled in the Punjab region. From there, according to this theory, they gradually penetrated eastward, clearing dense forests and establishing 'tribal' settlements along the Ganga and Yamuna (Jamuna) plains between 1500 BCE and 800 BCE; they ruled over this area after forming the basis of the three upper castes. This period corresponds to the Vedic Sanskrit language, and is also referred to as Vedic civilization.

By around 500 BCE, most of northern India was inhabited and had been brought under cultivation, facilitating the increasing knowledge of the use of iron implements, including ox-drawn plows, and spurred by the growing population that provided voluntary and forced labor. As riverine and inland trade flourished, many towns along the Ganga became centers of trade, culture, and luxurious living. Increasing population and surplus production provided the bases for the emergence of independent states with fluid territorial boundaries over which disputes frequently arose.

The rudimentary administrative system headed by tribal chieftains was transformed by a number of regional republics or hereditary monarchies that devised ways to appropriate revenue and to conscript labor for expanding the areas of settlement and agriculture farther east and south, beyond the Narmada River. These emergent states collected revenue through officials, maintained armies, and built new cities and highways. By 600 BCE, sixteen such territorial powers—including the Pandya, Magadha, Kosala, Kuru, and Gandhara—stretched across the North India plains from modern-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh. The right of a king to his throne, no matter how it was gained, was usually legitimized through elaborate sacrifice rituals and genealogies concocted by priests who ascribed to the king divine or superhuman origins.

The spirit of the era prior to the formation of the sixteen powers described above is captured by the Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

==The Mauryan Empire==

Main article: Mauryan Empire

By the end of the 6th century BCE, the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent became a satrap of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. This integration marked the beginning of administrative contacts between Central Asia and India.

Although Indian accounts ignored Alexander the Great's Indus campaign in 326 BC to a large extent, primarily because it affected only the northwestern parts of the subcontinent, Greek writers recorded their impressions of the general conditions prevailing in South Asia during this period. These accounts, prominent among them being the ones told by Megasthenes, are the oldest recorded accounts of life in South Asia by an European. A two-way cultural fusion between several Indo-Greek elements — especially in art, architecture, and coinage — occurred in the next several hundred years. Northern India's political landscape was transformed by the emergence of the Magadha Empire in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain. In 322 BCE, Magadha, under the rule of Chandragupta Maurya, began to assert its hegemony over neighboring areas. Chandragupta (known to the Greeks as Sandracottus) ruled from 324 to 301 BCE, and was the architect of the first Indian imperial power — the Mauryan Empire (326 – 184 BCE) — whose capital was Pataliputra, near modern-day Patna, in the state of Bihar.

Situated on rich alluvial soil and near mineral deposits, especially iron, Magadha was at the center of bustling commerce and trade. The capital was a city of magnificent palaces, temples, a university, a library, gardens, and parks, as reported by Megasthenes, the third-century BC Greek historian and ambassador to the Mauryan court. Legend states that Chandragupta's success was due in large measure to his adviser Kautilya, the Brahman author of the Arthashastra (Science of Material Gain), a textbook that outlined governmental administration and political strategy. There was a highly centralized and hierarchical government with a large staff, which regulated tax collection, trade and commerce, industrial arts, mining, vital statistics, welfare of foreigners, maintenance of public places including markets and temples, and prostitutes. A large standing army and a well-developed espionage system were maintained. The empire was divided into provinces, districts, and villages governed by a host of centrally appointed local officials, who replicated the functions of the central administration.

Silver punch-mark coin of the Mauryan empire, with symbols of wheel and elephant. 3rd century BCE.

Ashoka, grandson of Chandragupta, ruled from 269 to 232 BCE and was one of India's most illustrious rulers. Ashoka's inscriptions chiseled on rocks and stone pillars located at strategic locations throughout his empire—such as Lampaka (Laghman in modern Afghanistan), Mahastan (in modern Bangladesh), and Brahmagiri (in Karnataka)—constitute the second set of datable historical records. According to some of the inscriptions, in the aftermath of the carnage resulting from his campaign against the powerful kingdom of Kalinga (modern Orissa), Ashoka renounced bloodshed and pursued a policy of nonviolence or ahimsa, espousing a theory of rule by righteousness. His toleration for different religious beliefs and languages reflected the realities of India's regional pluralism although he personally seems to have followed Buddhism. Early Buddhist stories assert that he convened a Buddhist council at his capital, regularly undertook tours within his realm, and sent Buddhist missionary ambassadors to Sri Lanka.

Contacts established with the Hellenistic world during the reign of Ashoka's predecessors served him well. According to the Edicts of Ashoka, set in stone, he sent diplomatic-cum-religious missions to the rulers of Syria, Macedon, and Epirus, who learned about India's religious traditions, especially Buddhism. India's northwest retained many Persian cultural elements, which might explain Ashoka's rock inscriptions—such inscriptions were commonly associated with Persian rulers. Ashoka's Greek and Aramaic inscriptions found in Kandahar in Afghanistan may also reveal his desire to maintain ties with people outside of India.

--Tigeroo 06:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hunas Defeats

There is a great void over the dissapearance of the Hunas. We know the Gupta Empire was finished and overrun even as the Huna King Mihirkula was devastating Buddhism and expanding across North India in 520 BC from Sialkot. The Kidarites had been vanquished earlier and the Sassanians displaced until they returned in 565 BC and defeated the Huna. While they may have cleared the Huna from their rear they were getting to busy with the more significant Byzantines on their Western front to extend their influence beyond the Indus on the east. We do know they had some sort of influence on their satrapies as they were able to raise levies from there for their wars with the Romans and the Muslims later. However the question is just how far and how much did they control and how when and where did the Rajput arise to fill the void left by the collapse of the Hun. Did they descend from Huna warlords or lineages or did they eject the Huna following their defeat in the surging tides of the post Gupta political situation or a syncretism of both. Harsha does not seem to have fought the Huna so there is a political story here that needs filling in, the rise of Pratiharas and the Rai dynasty of Sindh, and the Balhara Jat King that later muslim geographers would call the primary king of India. Ferishta and Chachnama already mention the practice of Jauhar as being established when dealing with mlechhas when Qasim came with the first sucessful Muslim conquests in 720 and of the Gandaharan Turki-Shahi dynasty being called Rajputs when they encountered Sabuktigin. Unfortunately the Rajptu article does not help at all at helping understanding this story. Can definitely use some help here with this section. --Tigeroo 09:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)