Giant Along the Ganghes

The Giant Along the Ganghes
by Marcus A. Ferdinand

        Born along the tranquil waters of the Ganghes, the modern nation of India has grown into a giant on the coast of Southern Asia.  With a population of over 1.1 billion people, it is the second most populous country in the entire world.  Yet the most remarkable thing about India is its diversity.  In 1897, Mark Twain described it as, “The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genies, giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods…” (Insight Guide 15).  India is also the birthplace of four of the world’s great religions:  Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.  Islam and Christianity have also played important roles throughout India’s history.  To further complicate matters, there are 23 major languages spoken in India and over 415 distinct languages spoken throughout the country.  Despite these significant hurdles, India is a nation rapidly modernizing in order to compete in the 21st century.  The true test of India’s future will lie in its ability to control its rapid population growth, while at the same time providing adequate services for its 1.1 billion citizens.  Yet, if the past holds any indication as to India’s future ability; then there should be no doubt that the Mahabharata1 will overcome the challenges that it currently faces and be a prominent player in 21st century world affairs.

The Ethnic Mosaic

        At least six different ethnicities converge in present-day India as the result of millennia of traders, conquerors, colonizers, mercenaries, and missionaries sweeping through the country.  The archetypal Indian is an Adivasi (a Sanskrit word for first-settler).  These aboriginals still dwell in mountainous and jungle zones in a tribal belt that stretches from Arunachal Pradesh’s high forests to India’s southern tip at Kanniyakumari.  The most extensive early Indian civilization was the Harrapa civilization , which developed along the Indus River Valley, in what is now Punjab, northern Rajasthan, and Kathiawar in Northwestern India.  Archeological remains from the two cities of Mohenjodaro and Harappa reveal a civilization marked by its attention to the utilitarian: organized garbage collection, two-storied brick houses, public and private baths, a drainage system, well-planned streets, granaries, cotton textiles, and metal implements and weapons. This early civilization was probably populated by a prosperous merchant community that traded with people of the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia and Egypt.  The Harrapa people worshiped aspects of nature that symbolized fertility – the bull, the tree, the mother goddess.  They are still important in Hinduism.  Harrapa culture flourished around 2300 BC.  By 1700 BC it had declined, making way for the migration of the Aryans about 1500 BC.  The Aryans were cattle-breeders searching for new pastures who settled and cultivated the land.  This was the time in which the hymns of the Rig Veda were collected and written down.  Once part of the oral tradition, these 1,028 hymns to the gods of the Aryans were the first composition in any Indo-European language.