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IGNOU HISTORY NOTES : India Earliest Times to the 8th Century A.D - REGIONS IN INDIAN HISTORY : FORMATION AND CHARACTERISTICS

IGNOU HISTORY Study Notes for IAS, UPSC Exams

India Earliest Times to the 8th Century A.D

REGIONS IN INDIAN HISTORY : FORMATION AND CHARACTERISTICS

Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Dynamics of Regional Transformation
2.2.1 Uneven Patterns of the emergence of Historical Regions
2.2.2 The Ceramic Evidence
2.2.3 The Literary Evidence
2.3 Force of Regions in Indian History
2.3.1 The Chakravatia Conapt
2.4 The Hierarchy of Regions
2.4.1 Major Geographical Influences
2.4.2 Nuclear Regions
2.4.3 Settlement Structure in Time and Spce
2.5 Formation of Some Regions in Early India
2.5.1 The Gangetic Basin
2.5.2 The Tamil Country
2.5.3 The Deccan: Andhra and Maharashtra
2.5.4 Kalinga and Ancient Orissa
2.5.5 The North-West
2.6 Let Us Sum Up
2.7 Key Words
2.8 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

2.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading this Unit you should be able to explain :

Why it is necessary to know about regions if one has to understand different stages of Indian history,
How regions emerged, and
In what way the nature of a region could differ from that of the other.

2.1 INTRODUCTION

In Unit I we have seen that the Indian subcontinent is constituted by a number of regions and that each region has some special characieristics of its own. In the course of the historical evolution of the country, the regions came to acquire special cultural features as well and in many ways-in the sense of shared historical tradit~on, in language, in social organization, in art fonns-it is possible to recognize differences between one region and another. In Indian history, therefore, there have been dual processes of the evol~ltion of common social and cultural norms and institutions as well as consolidation of the structures of recognizable regions.

It has also to be remembered that in history the processes of the emergence of regions have been uneven. Therefore, in the past, as induced even today, great dissimilarities in pattern of historical change, existed between different regions, although no region has ever remained completely isolated. This unit is concerned with elucidating the processes of the formtion of regions in Indian history and with showing how they differed from one another. An understanding of the nature of regions constituting the Indian sub-continent is necessary t~ understand how the stages of the evolution of Indian society varied in space and time.

2.2 THE DYNAMICS OF REGIONAL TRANSFORMATION

The differences between regions and regional cultures go back in time and can possibly be dated to the beginnings of adaptive subsistence strategies, that is, food production. The beginnings of agriculture and agrarian economy in the main river basins of the sub-continent, being essentially a process and not an event, were spread over several millennia. While Mehrgarh in the Kachhi plain (now in Pakistan) experienced early agricultural activities before 6,000 B.C. and the Indus region experienced it in the 4th-3rd millennia the Gangetic valley saw the advent of agriculture at Koldihwa (U.P) in 5000 + B.C., at Chirand (Bihar) in the second half of the 3rd millennium B.C. and at Atranjikhera (in the Doab) in the first half of the 2nd millennium B.C. In the Ganga valley, however, the beginning of full-fledged, settled agricultural activity, farming villages and the other associated traits like the emergence of towns, trade and the state system go back to the middle of the first millennium B.C.

There were various pockets in Central and Peninsular India where this transition took place only in the concluding centuries of the first millennium B.C. Similarly in the river basins of the Ganga, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri agricultural communities flourished and camed forward the civilizational process. At the same time, however, large pockets in areas such as Assam, Bengal, Orissa, Gujarat and Central India, being relatively isolated or isolated regions, remained for a long time in a stage of primitive economy, largely untouched by any such development. Finally, when the transition to the historical period took place in some of the relatively isolated regions there was not only a time gap but also perceptible differences in the nature and formation of the regions. Cultural influences from the already developed regional epicentres had a formative bearing on the development processes in these isolated areas. It is no surprise therefore, that some regions have advanced more rapidly than others and there are still others wljich have lagged behind.

2.2.1 Uneven Patterns of the emergence of Historical Regions

The uneven pattern of cultural growth and the differential configuration of historical forces in the numerous regions were, as we have seen in Unit-1, greatly influenced by geography. The uneven development of regions can be demonstrated through interesting historical situations. For example in the second half of the third millennium B.C. one encounters mesolithic cultures in Gujarat and at the same time neolithic cattle-keepers were traversing the landscape of the Deccan. What is striking is that the mature, advanced Harappan civilization coexisted with these cultures in other regions. Consequently there is evidence for interactian between cultures and regions at different levels of growth. Such tendencies have persisted all through Indian history. To put it differently, while the Indus and Saraswati basins were colonized in the third millennium B.C., the first large scale agricultural communities of the Deccan, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Gujarat belong essentially to the Iron Age, and can be placed in the second half of the first millennium B.C.

With the advent of iron we see rapid horizontal spread of material culture based on settled agriculture. By the third century B.C. we see a certain homogeneity in the material culture of Gangetic northern India and the fringes of Central India. Although on the basis of the geographical distribution of the Ashokan inscriptions (details in Block 5) a certain measure of cultural uniformity is normally assumed for the sub-continent, the process of the emergence of early historical, literate period with a complex social structure in the area south of the Vindhyas acquired momentum during and after the Mauryas.

In fact, the post-h4auryan period i.e., 200 B.C.-A.D. 300 was the formative period for most of the Deccan and South'India. The archaeologcal date excavated from historic settlements in these regions support this line of argument. It may be added that vast areas of the intermediate zone or forested hills of Central India were never thoroughly colonized and, therefore, they continue to provide shelter and isolation to tribes at different stages of primitive economy. In the sub-continent civilization and a more complex culture with hierarchical social organisation reached different regions in different periods and the regional spread of a more advanced material culture was unevenly balanced.