FOUNDATIONS part I

India is a country of sweeping differences and complexity. From the climate to the food, from the people to the forms of religion they practice, from the peaks of the Himalayan mountains in the north to the depths of the Jungles in the south, from the sacred rivers that wash away sins, to the red-light districts where sins are committed India is a land of expansive diversity.

In order to truly understand India as it is today we must trek back five thousand years to what India was before it was India. Believe it or not the events that took place during the time of the Indus Valley Civilization continue to shape Indian culture today.

The Indus River Valley Civilization is one of the world's oldest, flourished during the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. and extended into northwestern India from present day Pakistan. It was home to the Dravidian people who inhabited the region for 1500 years. The cities of Harappa (to the left) and Mohenjo-Daro (below to the left) were the greatest achievements of the Indus Valley civilization.

This civilization was virtually unknown until the 1920's when archeologists unearthed the foundations of these cities and discovered that they were astonishingly well planned cities for their time. The ruins you see in these pictures are around 4000 years old.

The civilization in the Indus Valley has become well known for its impressive size, and its organized and regular layout. The cities even had drainage and sewer systems for private houses and public baths centuries before the Greeks and Romans had them designed into their cities. We do not know much about the people who inhabited these cities, they did not leave much behind for us to study. All was going well in the Indus River Valley until a migration of people called the Indo-Aryans began to make their way into the area.

(The above is a bath that was part of the Indus River Valley civilization.

They are the earliest to have a sewer system built in to their city layout.)

Foundations part 2: how the foundations of the caste system were laid and how events from the third millennium bc still affect Indian culture today...