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Ancient India

Ancient India was a vast civilization comprised of numerous religious, political, and ethnic traditions. While historically established as a predominantly Hindu Empire, to speak of ancient India as a homogeneous society is problematic, for it neglects the multiplicity of ideas, convictions, and practices that comprised social networks in ancient India. Corresponding to successive periods of invasion and commerce from the 3rd millennium B.C.E. to the 2nd century C.E., the intercultural fusion of religions, rituals, literature, languages, and customs became indispensible with ancient India's tradition of heterodoxy, the remnants of which are apparent in the country's dynamic, present-day cultural mosaic.

Networks Formed by Land and Water

Social relations in ancient India were largely influenced by the country's geography. In the north, east, and west, the Himalayan mountains surrounded the fertile plains of the Indus and the Ganga (Ganges) rivers. The importance of the Himalayas to ancient India lay in the mountain ranges' supply of water to the district, where civilization flourished through interdependent agricultural communities. The first known culture in ancient India, referred to as the Indus Valley civilization, developed around the plains of the Indus River (present-day Pakistan) around 3000 B.C.E. In 2000 B.C.E., groups of Indo-Europeans called Aryans traveled to the fertile terrain of northwest India and ruled during what is referred to as the Vedic period. The Aryans introduced Sanskrit to India, and the synthesis of Aryan and Indus Valley religions around the Ganga region formed the basis of Hinduism.

With the Ganga revered by Hindu texts as the most sacred river on earth, water was both sacred to Indian culture and literally the source of life and civilization upon which social networks flourished. The summer monsoon provided extremely fertile farmland to India's inhabitants as a result of the rich soil left over from the annual flooding of the river Indus, from which India gets its name. Given people's dependence on water for fertile crops and harvests, the monsoon was welcomed as a sacred blessing that nourished India's otherwise arid landscape. Key religious ceremonies were collectively celebrated on the banks of the river at cities, such as Varanasi, where pilgrims bathed in the river Ganga for redemption, cremation, mourning, and purification. Discovered in the citadel area of Mohenjo-Daro, one of the earliest Indus Valley societies, was a large bath that indicates the central importance of ritual bathing and the purifying effects of water in ancient India that has endured into present-day Indian culture.

Groundwork of Beliefs and Practices

Religion played a central role in the social structure of ancient Indian communities, with beliefs and practices affecting the way in which people lived and networked with one another. More than prescriptive dogma, religions were celebrated as ways of life that connected and divided social networks through shared systems of belief and common practices. Historically, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Parsees, Jews, and Christians have coexisted in India. In fact, Buddhism was the dominant religion in ancient India for approximately 1,000 years, with Islam introduced through Arab traders during the 7th century before becoming a state religion for three centuries, followed by the introduction of Sikhism in the 15th century. Despite the imprint that religious pluralism has left on the country, there are nevertheless a series of ancient texts and literature that reveal the impact that the Hindu religion had on social relations in ancient India.

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