What is 'Civilizational Continuity'?

[Indus Pakistan]

It has been a hidden, guilty pleasure these last few days of coping with grief, and rushing to perform a mixture of the mundane and the sublime, to look at this thread and the older one and look at your contributions. Understanding the keen, ardent desire of many Pakistanis to carve out an identity for themselves which is not a mere appendix to somebody else is an easy thing.

At the end of the day, even though I disagree profoundly with some of the understanding of how things happened, I believe that this is a very positive development. There was a time when getting either side to talk of history was a frustrating task. The differences in position were too wide to be bridged.

It is my sincere suggestion that you, and those of your way of thinking, continue to engage in these discussions and others like it elsewhere. The exchange of information, of ideas and of perceptions is important enough to justify the effort.

A personal word: my own interest in Pakistan was minimal all my life, and three men highlighted the nature of that interest. In 1961, Brigadier 'Hesky' Baig helped the Calcutta Polo Club beat a strong Ratanada Wanderers team, with the legendary Rao Raja Hanut Singh, son of Sir Pertab Singh, and his sons, Bijay and Hari, playing at their best form. In 1971, I met Mehdi Masud, Deputy High Commissioner in Calcutta, while he was detained in the ground floor of my father's official residence. There was then a gap of 30 years and more, when I met Mohammed Rafi, a professional manager in a firm in the middle east, and a fine gentleman. That was it.

It was only after the carnage in Bombay that I set out to find out what Pakistan was about. Through All Things Pakistan, and then PakTeaHouse, I came to find out that not all Pakistanis were murderous armed terrorists, nor fundamentalist bigots. It also became clear that the vast numbers of Indians who, around the same time as I, had started crowding Pakistani sites, were also looking for answers.

If you check with older members of these fora, you might get an astonishing insight into the psychology of many Indians coming here (there are exceptions). It is not the prurient interest that you have suspected. It is the fascinated horror of a neighbour at seeing an entire country willfully converting itself into an armed arsenal.

Please keep talking to us, however obnoxious our views might seem, from time to time. It has been true in the past, it continues to be true today, it is the Indian side that always seeks out the Pakistani side and attempts to talk. In loud, coarse tones, sometimes, with an irritatingly smug air, sometimes, with fixed ideas about the past, about history, about culture, about everything that might set a Pakistani's teeth on edge - but Indians have always tried to talk things through. So please let us keep talking.

Hey Joe, I can be harsh and tend to get carried away sometimes. I did not intend to disrespect you in anyway. I think your a very well educated person with a fine temperament. By comparison most of us here are crude, crass and coarse and I am a fine example of that.

I hope your family is well and it is nice to have you back. I think Joe, if we can get to terms with our heritage, build on that and I firmly believe lot of our problems will be resolved. India needs to respect our quest to claim our heritage of the Indus Valley and we in turn will be glad to be part of the South Asian family. We are not Arabs and never will be, majority of our roots are deep in this old land, the Indus Valley.

I stress again we accept that while we are unique, we are also part of the wider South Asia and are glad to engage with you guys as equals, Not as mere adjuncts, not as minor sliver of a bigger entity, not just as a smaller shadow of India. Yes, we know we are small in numbers compared to India. It was only a few days ago I realized Pakistan is in terms of population smaller than just one Indian state - Uttar Pradesh and correct me India has 30 states?.

But small we maybe but we are as proud of our corner of South Asia any other. One day I am sure we wil all be part of some wider economic union in South Asia like EC, that is after we can sort out our differances.

 

[indushek]

Unfortunately, due to my bereavement, and the consequent state of affairs in the family, I am unable to contribute usefully. Even an occasional look-in has become a difficult feat. I can only watch intermittently from the sidelines.

Really sorry to hear that Joe i pray for the soul of the departed and that ur family stays strong in this hour.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Hey Joe, I can be harsh and tend to get carried away sometimes. I did not intend to disrespect you in anyway. I think your a very well educated person with a fine temperament. By comparison most of us here are crude, crass and coarse and I am a fine example of that.

I hope your family is well and it is nice to have you back. I think Joe, if we can get to terms with our heritage, build on that and I firmly believe lot of our problems will be resolved. India needs to respect our quest to claim our heritage of the Indus Valley and we in turn will be glad to be part of the South Asian family. We are not Arabs and never will be, majority of our roots are deep in this old land, the Indus Valley.

I stress again we accept that while we are unique, we are also part of the wider South Asia and are glad to engage with you guys as equals, Not as mere adjuncts, not as minor sliver of a bigger entity, not just as a smaller shadow of India. Yes, we know we are small in numbers compared to India. It was only a few days ago I realized Pakistan is in terms of population smaller than just one Indian state - Uttar Pradesh and correct me India has 30 states?.

But small we maybe but we are as proud of our corner of South Asia any other. One day I am sure we wil all be part of some wider economic union in South Asia like EC, that is after we can sort out our differances.

I am puzzled and a little worried. No disrespect was conveyed, none was sensed. I am quite well aligned with what you are saying, even more with what Rafi and Developereo is saying, and believe that my own views might vary from yours, but that variation is not intended to slight anyone, or denigrate anyone, and also believe that this detachment in conveying these views, the result of analysis of fact, is well undestood by my Pakistani friends.

Your defence was entirely unnecessary. You made your points with the vigour and zeal that should be expected from any young man, and those points are none the worse for it. Do please remember that all - all right, most Indians read you with filters that remove the occasional flight of excess. Don't worry about it.

 

[Porus]

India needs to respect our quest to claim our heritage of the Indus Valley and we in turn will be glad to be part of the South Asian family. We are not Arabs and never will be, majority of our roots are deep in this old land, the Indus Valley.

Will you please tell me Why doy you think you need India's acceptance, affirmatin or testimony that "tolerates" your claim on the heirtage that truly belongs to you, and why do you think you need to prove and ascertain some strangers here that you are not an Arab but the true son of the soil, therefore a true inheritor of those civilizations?

 

[newdelhinsa]

Joe Shearer :

There are profound benefits in being academic, and, of course, in being a 'typical historian'; we are constrained by facts, and not at liberty to participate in discussions on subject matters alien to us.

I was hardly appreciating but pointing out your selective speculation. One can present different schools of thought on your quote and unquote claims as well and history is volatile subject for all the claims and counter claims, so why so much prejudice against those who disagree with you ? Most of the time you will start with a stiff opening statement and then become speculative/academician in all the following arguments presented by you. You are putting unnecessarily information which is available on open internet sources.

The subject in hand is Civilizational continuity. There are so many overwhelming proves/traces available still in practice which can establish that the best available group of population is Hindus who are in continuity with IVC and Vedic civilization.

The Vedic pantheon is not the present Hindu pantheon.

Prove it.

One has to set the rule of the game and the first rule is Hinduism is not Abrahamic religion.

Even today, different Hindus groups do not worship all the collective Gods of same mythology.

It evolved and adapted, to accommodate the figures worshipped by those living in the country that the Indra-worshipping immigrants entered. One of the most important figures in what might be termed the Puranic pantheon was Shiva, a name unknown to the Rig Veda as a god, and a term used as an attribute of the wild, fierce, braided haired wind god encountered there.

Rudra in the Rig Veda is a Wind God, one of the Maruts, and has a terrible, fear-inspiring reputation. To avoid the wrath of this red-hued archer, he was called 'sivam' in a propitiatory sense. He has in the Rig Veda nowhere near the power and cosmic significance of the Destroyer within the trinity that Shiva has in later cosmogony. There are two verses in which he is called Father of the Universe, or Lord of the Universe, nowhere near the number of references to Indra as the supreme among the gods, and nowhere near his elevation to equality with Vishnu in later developments (perhaps even post-Puranic, contemporary with the Mahabharata, where the name-lists of both appear).

Rudra transformed into Shiva, a name first used by itself and not as an attribute, as late as the Upanishads (specifically, within an Upanishad attached to the Yajurveda, not, interestingly, one attached to the Rg Veda). It is thought that a powerful nature god worshipped by authochthones was absorbed into the Vedic pantheon as Shiva. The overwhelming importance of this nature god to the authochthones is reflected in his elevation to the supreme god who ranks with Brahma and Vishnu, far beyond the supremacy of Indra in the Rg Veda, at a fairly late date (perhaps as late as the Mahabharata - see above).

Shiva is a deity in continuity from the Upanishads, that is to say, from around 600 BC. The Indus Valley Civilisation probably had disintegrated by 1300 BC, at the latest, 1200 BC.

The Upanishad were composed while the city states and statelets of Kuru-Panchala and Kashi-videha dominated. A bizarre location for the elevation of an Indus Valley deity.

Again the subject in hand is Civilization continuity and all what you have stated is proving the continuity of Vedic civilization with present day Indians. Vedas are not the words of God but a creation of Rishis; Vedas have opinion of Rishis. These opinions cannot be used by vested interests against people who claim that heritage (common rants eating beef, no temples etc.).

The continuity is not dependent on a Rishi’s opinion/school of thought but the common script used by him in vedas and following texts (Upnishad).

The hard work you have done above proves the continuity with present day Hindu religion or the best possible group available to claim the continuity not anyone else. The seal impression sitting in a Yogic posture who may not be Shiva (according to few critics) is adequate lineage trace what Hindus practise even today.

Naturally, we are free, each of us, to assign whatever symbolism we will to figures found in the IVC seals. We may select one or two of the seals that just happen to coincide with some obscure attribute of a well-known icon; we may choose to ignore the hundreds of others to be seen which do not find any resonance with the later Hindu pantheon.

Others may find our assignments ridiculous, even risible, but we are free.

The nursery rhyme Little Jack Horner comes forcefully to mind.

You do not need overwhelming proves to prove a point on continuity, one is enough, also other available evidences if do not prove its association with Hindu religion it doesn't dissociate itself from the same either.

A brilliant point!

Yes, It is.

Let us take it further.

Please can you identify some people named Dadhikravana, Manyu, Kapinjala or Prajanya? Let us have loads of continuity.

How about Vishnu, Indra and Ashwin, Agnivesh, Bharadwaj, Atri, Vishwamitra, Kashyap, I mean continuity with vedic civilization. Is it given or not?

 

[IND151]

Civilizational Continuity means continuation of civilization for thousands of years despite suffering invasions, impact of culture of invaders, changing situations ( social or political ) and changes in climate

only those civilizations survive which can change themselves to adapt with time and have support of masses

i once read somewhere>

most civilizations on earth till now,were limited, to few people from the top layer of society and thus didn't last too much.

 

[newdelhinsa]

Pakistan

Indus Valley Civilization = Connect (Geography) Yes, Yes.

Continuity No.

Vedic Civilization = Connect Yes.

Continuity No, No.


India

Indus Valley Civilization = Connect Yes,

Continuity ~Yes.

Vedic Civilization = Connect Yes.

Continuity Yes, Yes.

 

[vsdoc]

Is this whole discussion not veering (ad nauseum given some of the usual participants from the other side) towards self-serving semantics now.

"South Asian" civilization? LOL Give me a break.

Why?

Because we are NOT Indian and therefore while we want to reclaim our past (well, some of us at least per Dr. Vinod's WIP thesis) we abhor the fact that the past is still linked to its origins - which inconveniently (for us) is still alive and thriving and did not succub en masse to a foreign faith of a foreign invader.

Please. A little honesty would go such a long way in mending ties between us.

IVC is ours you say. Convenient geographic dovetailing from thousands of years ago.

Did you perchance forget that India over its 8000 year recorded history had MANY such geographically discrete and overlapping pockets of mankind (often inclusive of and undifferentiated from the current political state of Pakistan) - but all linked by a COMMON thread?

Namely .....

BLOOD

FAITH

SOIL

If ever there was an event that challenged the above theorem of mine, it was the advent of Aryans on to the subcontinent, and the interplay over the next millenia between them and the native Dravidian race.

I am open to the idea that originally one civilization was displaced by another dominant one.

Are you open to the idea that the recent waves of invasion in contrast had very little cross seding in comparison and that you belong to the same stock?

Are you open to the idea that culturally and geographically and militarily the population of the present political entity called Pakistan has been traditionally the gateway to foreign invaders throughout history?

The first to fall.

The first to adopt a new and different faith?

IVC > Ancient Vedic > Hindu > Buddhist > back to Hindu > Islam.

Are you open to the idea that based on your historic propensity for the same, were a new dominant faith to be born in this world today, and spread inorganicaly via invasion, the chances of you falling to the same before us would be so much stronger?

These are all thoughts that need to be discussed when we talk about the continuity of civilizations.

Beause what is man without his faith?

 

[Developereo]

Is this whole discussion not veering (ad nauseum given some of the usual participants from the other side) towards self-serving semantics now.

South Asian civilization? Give me a break.

Why? Because we are NOT Indian and therefore while we want to reclaim our past (well, some of us at least per Dr. Vinod's WIP thesis) we abhor the fact that the past is still linked to its origins - which inconveniently (for us) as still alive and thriving and did not succub en masse to a foreign faith of a foreign invader.

Please. A little honesty would go such a long way in mending ties between us.

IVC is ours you say. Convenient geographic dovetailing from thousands of years ago.

Did you perchance forget that India over its 8000 year recorded history had MANY such geographically discrete and overlapping pockets of mankind - but all linked by a COMMON thread?

Namely .....

BLOOD

FAITH

SOIL

If ever there was an event that challenged the above theorem of mine, it was the advent of Aryans on to the subcontinent, and the interplay over the next millenia between them and the native Dravidian race.

I am open to the idea that originally one civilization was displaced by another dominant one.

Are you open to the idea that the recent waves of invasion in contrast had very little cross seding in comparison and that you belong to the same stock?

Are you open to the idea that culturally and geographically and militarily the population of the present political entity called Pakistan has been traditionally the gateway to foreign invaders throughout history?

The first to fall.

The first to adopt a new and different faith?

IVC > Ancient Vedic > Hindu > Buddhist > back to Hindu > Islam.

Are you open to the idea that based on your historic propensity for the same, were a new dominant faith to be born in this world today, and spread inorganicaly via invasion, the chances of you falling to the same before us would be so much stronger?

These are all thoughts that need to be discussed when we talk about the continuity of civilizations.

Beause what is man without his faith?

Let's approach the issue from your angle: blood, soil and faith.

Take the first two. Except for a small patch of NW India, the rest of the Republic of India can kiss goodbye to any such link with IVC or the likes of Panini.

So we are left with faith. Fine, we accept that modern India has more of a living link with Panini, the Vedas and, to a miniscule extent, with the IVC. What you are really proclaiming, then, is that the rest of the subcontinent converted to the faith originating from now-Pakistan+NW India. Remember that the IVC itself was never part of a larger regional empire. Even the later empires spanned small periods of time and, regardless of the political conquest, the cultural transmission in question went from 'Pakistan' to the rest of subcontinent. You can use euphemisms like incorporated, assimilated, and held-hands-around-the-campfire-singing-kumbaya, but the reality of the conversion is not only indisputable -- it forms the core of your claim!

Moreover, given that the actual history is lost in antiquity and the narrative is written by the 'winning' culture, the real story will never be known. Was it conversion? coersion? a mix of the two? does it matter after all these millenia?

All we can say is that we are more than happy to be the land which gave all you converts (gasp!) this particular path to enlightenment. Some of us may have chosen another path later on, but we still acknowledge the validity of the ancient path.

You are welcome!

 

[Rafi]

Let's approach the issue from your angle: blood, soil and faith.

Take the first two. Except for a small patch of NW India, the rest of the Republic of India can kiss goodbye to any such link with IVC or the likes of Panini.

So we are left with faith. Fine, we accept that modern India has more of a living link with Panini, the Vedas and, to a miniscule extent, with the IVC. What you are really proclaiming, then, is that the rest of the subcontinent converted to the faith originating from now-Pakistan+NW India. Remember that the IVC itself was never part of a larger regional empire. Even the later empires spanned small periods of time and, regardless of the political conquest, the cultural transmission in question went from 'Pakistan' to the rest of subcontinent. You can use euphemisms like incorporated, assimilated, and held-hands-around-the-campfire-singing-kumbaya, but the reality of the conversion is not only indisputable -- it forms the core of your claim!

Moreover, given that the actual history is lost in antiquity and the narrative is written by the 'winning' culture, the real story will never be known. Was it conversion? coersion? a mix of the two? does it matter after all these millenia?

All we can say is that we are more than happy to be the land which gave all you converts (gasp!) this particular path to enlightenment. Some of us may have chosen another path later on, but we still acknowledge the validity of the ancient path.

You are welcome!

Brilliant rebuttal, D - I totally concur - and also extremely proud that our region (ancient Pakistan) had such an effect on the world, You cannot walk around Harrapa and Mohenjadaro and not feel humble at the awesome intelligence of the ancients.

The fact that they practiced beef consumption, buried their dead, had no temples or kept weapons - and the egalitarian nature of their dwellings - passes a valuable lesson to us thousands of years latter. The planned nature of the cities with modern amenities like running water, and rubbish collection.

And to think that their blood flows through our veins is even more awe-inspiring.

 

[Rig Vedic]

What you are really proclaiming, then, is that the rest of the subcontinent converted to the faith originating from now-Pakistan+NW India.

That is not a valid statement. It was not as if a faith was being spread - it was an organic developmental process in which all regions made their own valuable contributions.

If you go really far back to the almost pre-historic era, then it was the Ganga-Yamuna-Saraswati region where the oldest chapters of the Rig Veda were written.

 

[Developereo]

Brilliant rebuttal, D - I totally concur - and also extremely proud that our region (ancient Pakistan) had such an effect on the world, You cannot walk around Harrapa and Mohenjadaro and not feel humble at the awesome intelligence of the ancients.

The fact that they practiced beef consumption, buried their dead, had no temples or kept weapons - and the egalitarian nature of their dwellings - passes a valuable lesson to us thousands of years latter. The planned nature of the cities with modern amenities like running water, and rubbish collection.

And to think that their blood flows through our veins is even more awe-inspiring.

Let me reiterate that I am not claiming exclusive rights for Pakistan. Parts of the ancient civilization existed in NW India and some famous centers of learning were situated in modern India also.

 

[vsdoc]

Let's approach the issue from your angle: blood, soil and faith.

Take the first two. Except for a small patch of NW India, the rest of the Republic of India can kiss goodbye to any such link with IVC or the likes of Panini.

You confuse discrete temporal geographical limits of an age to be inclusive of blood. Nay, to extrapolate the same to the undiluted, uncorrupted continuity through time of blood - limited today to the same geographical discrete limits of that particular age thousands of years ago.

How can you do that?

When all the evidence points to the fact that the IVC was displaced southwards by the race migrating in from the west?

You as Pakistanis today can only lay claim to occupation of the land that was once a major part of the IVC. NOT the blood. Not by far. For all intents and purposes, till evidence to the contrary clearly roves otherwise, it is those from our South who are by blood the true descendants of the IVC.

Ditto for Panini. You as Pakistanis can at best lay claim to the fact that you now occupy today the land that in ancient times was ONE of the centers fom where Vedic literature originated from - the Gangetic basin being the other.

You can also lay claim to being the western fringe of the Indic arm of the Aryan migration westwards - with a portion of your current POLITICAL blood being the collision front of two ancient civilizations.

So we are left with faith. Fine, we accept that modern India has more of a living link with Panini, the Vedas and, to a miniscule extent, with the IVC. What you are really proclaiming, then, is that the rest of the subcontinent converted to the faith originating from now-Pakistan+NW India. Remember that the IVC itself was never part of a larger regional empire. Even the later empires spanned small periods of time and, regardless of the political conquest, the cultural transmission in question went from 'Pakistan' to the rest of subcontinent. You can use euphemisms like incorporated, assimilated, and held-hands-around-the-campfire-singing-kumbaya, but the reality of the conversion is not only indisputable -- it forms the core of your claim!

Moreover, given that the actual history is lost in antiquity and the narrative is written by the 'winning' culture, the real story will never be known. Was it conversion? coersion? a mix of the two? does it matter after all these millenia?

All we can say is that we are more than happy to be the land which gave all you converts (gasp!) this particular path to enlightenment. Some of us may have chosen another path later on, but we still acknowledge the validity of the ancient path.

You are welcome!

The land was carved out as a breakaway political state from the larger civiliztional land mass.

Cherry picking and pointing back to the IVC for exclusivity does not work when you have 3000+ years of intervening common history painting common hued cultural and religious swathes across your land and further westward.

The only claim to Pakistan today is an area of Muslim majority in undivided India at the time of Independence in 1947. If you were to base this on IVC and forget 3+ millenia of Hindu civilization inbetween, then Rajasthan and Gujarat as well should have been part of Pakistan.

The fact that it was not was because Pakistan was always an artificially imagined "Muslim" Indian state. With no before. And the after is up to you guys now.

So can thank us for letting you go instead.

Because when you changed faith, you ceased to be part of the old civilization.

Given one to a few thousand years, if things remain the same with you, then you could probably evolve into the status of a new civilization in your own right.

Like the Iranians.

Like the Egyptians.

Like Italians and the Greeks.

But that would still not make you Indian.

That is the essence of continuity versus evolution.

 

[Rafi]

That is not a valid statement. It was not as if a faith was being spread - it was an organic developmental process in which all regions made their own valuable contributions.

If you go really far back to the almost pre-historic era, then it was the Ganga-Yamuna-Saraswati region where the oldest chapters of the Rig Veda were written.

How do you now, you are just extrapolating your modern prejudices on the ancients, who I will have to remind you again - had no temples, eat beef in copious amounts and buried their dead. What is for sure, is their blood flows in our veins.

 

[Developereo]

That is not a valid statement. It was not as if a faith was being spread - it was an organic developmental process in which all regions made their own valuable contributions.

If you go really far back to the almost pre-historic era, then it was the Ganga-Yamuna-Saraswati region where the oldest chapters of the Rig Veda were written.

Yes, I agree. My point was simply that this region made its share of contributions to the Vedic thought and those features were incorporated into the whole. Except for brief empires, the region was a foreign land with a foreign culture to the rest of the subcontinent. Therefore, these contributions were foreign ideas.