________________
Indian Ethnicity and Religious Heritage
in this land. Finds of Mohan-Jo-Daro, Harappa and other Indus valley sites testify to this. But the point is that this testimony comes mainly from archeological finds and not from any written chronological record.
The accounts of all cultures which are not recorded in writing are generally classified as "PreHistoric."
But this type of approach, so far as India is concerned, would be highly unrealistic, as the history of India's culture in its different facets in their earlier stages, is recorded not in writings but in the traditions of her people and their material expressions as found in their style of living and as culled out from philological, anthropological and archaeological finds. Even in the later historical period of Mahavir and Buddha when the country had achieved philosophical heights and entered the period of great social and religious revolution, the great ideas propounded by the Masters were conveyed from month to month and the knowledge thus acquired was called "shrut" (a). This type of literary tradition - a tradition which was all
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
