A Journey To Discover Life

The Indian Subcontinent is a diverse mix of cultures, religions and traditions that make up its value system. The moment we discuss the early Indian Subcontinent and its religions, long before Buddhism or Jainism came into existence or the Abrahamic religions were introduced on the western coasts by travellers and traders, long before any invasion proved any sign of forced conversion, a layman’s idea of the Indian Subcontinent is that of a single unified culture. Religion in Ancient India: Historically speaking, that is far from the truth. The Indian Subcontinent, since evidence of early civilisation has been found in its river banks, like that in Bhirrana or Mehrgarh, dating back to around 6000 BCE, has never had one unifying belief through its geographic boundaries. The terms Hindu, Hindustan and many others come originally from the primary sources of the Ancient West Asian civilisation. But our history starts much earlier than that. And where there is society and civilisation, there...

A Railway route was being laid by the British Government in parts of West Punjab and Sindh (present-day Pakistan) in India. They came across a mound amidst the plains near the village of Harappa. Digging through the plain, they discovered burnt bricks of the exact shape and size. So many of them, as though there underneath the mound lies a huge wall of some fort. The Railway work was stopped, and ASI took over. A few years before this, an Italian youth had discovered some weird-looking seals at a site at Kalibangan. Unfortunately, before he could report it to the ASI chief, he was taken ill and died. With this discovery, the Indian subcontinent that Britishers believed had flourished only a few years before Alexander (some put the date around 800B.C.) was forced to shift the date of the beginning of this civilisation by almost a million years. The Vedas, Puranas, and local folktales were something the Indians were proud of; now, for the first time, they had proof of the actual historic...

The River Of The Rig Veda: The mythical river Sarasvati is an unsolved mystery. Sarasvati means a river full of ponds or lakes. This indicates its course might have been through many such lakes or swamps. There are many references to this river in the Rig Veda as the " Seventh River of the Aryavarta" and " The mother of floods", indicating it was an important river in the land, probably large and perennial and caused floods. Many excavated villages and cities along present-day parts of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat indicate the basin of the Sarasvati River. It is described in the Yajur Vedas as the one where the five rivers meet, and in the Brahmanas, there are indications of the disappearance of its lower course and how its large flow decreases.  The  Mahabharata  describes the ultimate drying up of the river before the ushering in of the  Kali Yuga . Many Puranas describe the civilisation lying between  the Ganga  and the  Saraswati .  ...