The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ancient India:
Ancient India is the Indian subcontinent from prehistoric times to the start of Medieval India, which is typically dated (when the term is still used) to the end of the Gupta Empire around 500 CE.[1] Depending on context, the term Ancient India might cover the modern-day countries of Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, though these territories had large cultural differences.
^Different periods are designated as "classical Hinduism":
Smart calls the period between 1000 BCE and 100 CE "pre-classical". It is the formative period for the Upanishads and Brahmanism[subnote 1] Jainism and Buddhism. For Smart, the "classical period" lasts from 100 to 1000 CE, and coincides with the flowering of "classical Hinduism" and the flowering and deterioration of Mahayana-buddhism in India.[11]
For Michaels, the period between 500 BCE and 200 BCE is a time of "Ascetic reformism",[12] whereas the period between 200 BCE and 1100 CE is the time of "classical Hinduism", since there is "a turning point between the Vedic religion and Hindu religions".[13]
Muesse discerns a longer period of change, namely between 800 BCE and 200 BCE, which he calls the "Classical Period". According to Muesse, some of the fundamental concepts of Hinduism, namely karma, reincarnation and "personal enlightenment and transformation", which did not exist in the Vedic religion, developed in this time.[14]
Subnotes
^Smart distinguishes "Brahmanism" from the Vedic religion, connecting "Brahmanism" with the Upanishads.[10]
References
^Stein 2010, p. 38.
^Michaels 2004.
^Civilsdaily, (August 15, 2017). "Case study | Pottery – Evolution and significance".
^M Rafiq Mughal Lahore Museum Bulletin, off Print, vol.III, No.2, Jul-Dec. 1990 [1] Archived 26 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine
^Franklin Southworth, Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia (Routledge, 2005), p. 177
^Strickland, K. M., R. A. E. Coningham, et al., (2016). "Ancient Lumminigame: A Preliminary Report on Recent Archaeological Investigations at Lumbini's Village Mound", in Ancient Nepal, Number 190, April 2016, p. 10.
^Neogi, Sayantani, Charles A. I. French, Julie A. Durcan, Rabindra N. Singh, and Cameron A. Petrie, (2019). "Geoarchaeological insights into the location of Indus settlements on the plains of northwest India", in Quaternary Research, Volume 94, March 2020, p. 140.
^Lal, Deepak (2005). The Hindu Equilibrium: India C.1500 B.C. - 2000 A.D. Oxford University Press. p. xxxviii. ISBN 978-0-19-927579-3.
^Geological Survey of India (1883). Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India. p. 80.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Smart 2003, p. 52, 83-86.
^Smart 2003, p. 52.
^Michaels 2004, p. 36.
^Michaels 2004, p. 38.
^Muesse 2003, p. 14.
Sources
Flood, Gavin D. (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press
Khanna, Meenakshi (2007), Cultural History Of Medieval India, Berghahn Books
Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (2004), A History of India, Routledge
Michaels, Axel (2004), Hinduism. Past and present, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press
Misra, Amalendu (2004), Identity and Religion: Foundations of Anti-Islamism in India, SAGE
Muesse, Mark William (2003), Great World Religions: Hinduism
Muesse, Mark W. (2011), The Hindu Traditions: A Concise Introduction, Fortress Press
Smart, Ninian (2003), Godsdiensten van de wereld (The World's religions), Kampen: Uitgeverij Kok
Stein, Burton (2010), A History of India, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 9781444323511
Thapar, Romila (1978), Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations (PDF), Orient Blackswan
External links
Media related to Ancient India at Wikimedia Commons