History of Flying Carpet - Origins

Before we start going to pre-history of India, it should be noted that modern boundaries of most countries were defined in 20th Century or later and there had been a greater variation in their existence, as we traverse back in time. India is no stranger to it and for completeness of the topic at hand, the history would be included for areas near modern India including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Srilanka..

Written records on History of early India is rather limited. There are records of past termed as "Itihaasa" ( history ) but they seemed to be a blend of actual history and mythology. It is very hard to corroborate the evidence with modern scientific tools. But, there are very good analyzing mechanisms which can help us understand.

Even though various sects of Hinduism do not agree on course of creation and aftermath, all of them do agree on the existence of "HrnyaGarbha" and consider it as a start of existence.

On digging deeper ( literally :) ), we learn that, India as we know today started as Neoproterozoic India as part of Gondawana in Mesozoic Era (~180 Million yrs ago). By Cenozoic Era (About 45 Million yrs ago), Indian Plate started moving towards Eurasian Plate and fit itself onto its approximate current location and this movement started the creation of Himalayan mountain range which is growing even now.

Some of the Dinosaur fossil found in India are found in the following areas,

Kota Formation - with fossils from Lower Jurassic period
Lameta Formation - with fossils from Upper Cretaceous period, Rajasaur being significant species found
Maleri Formation - with fossils from Upper Triassic period
Shivalik Fossil Park - with fossils from Pleistocene period

There has been a lesser finds of dinosaur fossils as the archeological society has been active only in last century as well as due to wider land use in plateau to support burdgeoning population.

Homo Erectus arrived in India during Pleistocene Epoch (~2 Million yrs ago) and some migrated to other parts of South Asia. But, these were not the final residents of the subcontinent.

Finally arrived the thinkers!, the Homo Sapiens in about 50,000 to 70,000 BCE. Here starts a colorful story of how a collage of thoughts was created.

As menioned in the previous post, the philosophical history of India starts about 4000 years ago in about 2500-1700 BCE. In the early days of India, it was crimnal to write down literature(but we do have some interesting exceptions). So, most of the knowledge was shared orally. When the old thoughts were written down finally in later years, there had been many influences of later day philosophies and what we have today is a current intrepretation of old thoughts..

This nature of re-defining assumptions based on current problems is very true to modern day theists as well. Sometimes, it just is little weird to find self-proclaimed godmen to explain their yogic techniques with quantum theory and electromagnetic wave theory, to appeal to growing literate mass.

In this series, I would like to include philosophies of all Faiths that had an Indian Flavor added to them on reaching subcontinent shores. i will add them chronologically as they got rooted in Indian hearts.

In the next blog, To understand older philosophies in India, we will travel out of the subcontinent and head towards middle east asia where the first known Hindu literature was drafted.

History of Flying Carpet - Prologue

I like to read History and Philosophy. Specifically, I like to learn history in general - Big Bang Theory, Evolution, Early history, Antiquity, Medieval Ages, Modern Era, World Wars, Cold war, to present day jasmine revolution..

In my quest to learn the anthropological and philosophical origin of India, my journey through available literature had been very fulfilling. I want to document a summary of my learning through a set of blog posts. I would like to present them as facts and exclude any opinions in them, for a historian should never blend facts with personal perspectives. Also, i find myself as a student, yearning to learn more about the world i live in and often perspectives/beliefs tend to segregate us. Lastly, Life is too short to quibble over opinions & beliefs.

Even though, I have named this series "History of Flying Carpet", as a parody on earlier occidental perception, quite a lot of our understanding on Oriental philosophies should be attributed to unbiased reports from western scholars. The use of Linguistic, Archeological and Scientific tools that these scholars have provided us, are immensely helpful in understanding the culture in all perspectives. For e.g- Archeological society of India was well-trained in the craft by British comrades who helped in ground breaking discoveries like Indus Valley Civilization, etc.

The present day learning in the western world has most of its origin from Greco-Roman principles which were well preserved by Moors of Iberian peninsula in Arabic texts after the end of Roman Empire, until Crusaders translated them back to Latin. The stability in the post-world war era has given us opportunity to stand up and look back on the orchestration of events that brought us to this point and help us choose our path ahead.

In the next post, i want to start my exploration of early philosophies of India. Ironically, even though these tenets are often attributed to Hinduism, they differ quite a lot from the current understanding on Hinduism. Evaluation of these offer better understanding on the evolution of Hinduism and transformation in India as a sub-continent, due to its influence.

Stay tuned for next post --- History of Flying Carpet - Origins :)