Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 259

DECEMBER, 1933)
GEOGRAPHICAL FACTORS IN INDIAN ARCHÆOLOGY
237
Linguistic differences are as significant as linguistic affinities, for the border zones between the chief national languages are also controlled by geographical factors. Thus, the Gangetic plain falls into four main cultural areas (W. and E. Hindi, Bihār and Bengal), each with its own traditions and customs, each with its own groups of capitals, past and present; the Indus valley has three such areas (Sind, the Middle Indus, N. of Sukkur, and the Panjab proper, between the Jhelum and the Sutlej); Peninsular India has five (Maratha, Kanarese, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam), and on the flanks of the Central Indian uplands are Gujarat and Orissa.
This grouping is reflected roughly in the traditional, but inexact, classification of Brahmans, the Sārasvata, Kānyakubja, Maithila, Gauf and Utkala of Upper India, the Gurjara, Mahārāştra, Karnāta, Andhra and Drāvida of the Peninsula. It is reflected, too, in the Military History of India (Fig. 6.) As the "cockpit of Europe" is Flanders, where the cultural currents of northern and southern Europe converge, so too, the cockpits of India lie in or near where a 'thrust ' impinges on a transition zone between one cultural area and another, 6.9., on the Jhelum, where the thrusts 'from W. and N. Asia emerge through the Salt Range: north-west of Delhi, on the threshold of the Mid-land; and round Agra, where they meet the routes from western India and the Gangetic plain; on the western borders of Bihār, round the gateway to Bengal, on the routes from Gangetic to western India, and on those across the Deccan to Madras.
The distribution of Religions is equally instructive. Early Hinduism arose in the Midland. Bihār, the home of Buddhism and Jainism, lay beyond the “Aryan" pale. Both these religions challenged " Aryan" orthodoxy ; both permeated all India. Buddhism lasted till the twelfth century in Bengal and in the Deccan; today it lingers only in the hinterland of Orissa. Jainism survives in Rājpūtānā, in Gujarat and in the Kanarese districts of Bombay, in S. Kanara, and in a little group of villages on the border of N. and S. Arcot-areas away from the main stream of Indian movement and remote from the land of its birth.
Islâm came to India (a) by land through Persia and (6) by sea. The Indus valley can be got at both ways, and is overwhelmingly Muslim. In the transitional zone of the Panjāb the percentage of Muslims falls below 50, and Hindu influences become active; the resulting compromise is the religion of the Sikhs. Passing into the Ganges plain the percentage of Muslims steadily declines from about 35 in the Sikh country to less than 10 in Bihār; then on the threshold of Bengal it suddenly rises again, culminating in about 80 in the GangesBrahmaputra doäb (Fig. 15). Elsewhere in India the percentage is less than 10, except for a slight rise round certain centres of medieval Muhammadan rule (e.g., Ajmer, Mandū, Ahmadá. bād, Daulatābād, Gulbarga, etc.) and on the west coast, where it jumps to 22 in Broach and 32 in Malabar. In the Marāthā and Tamil country, in Mysore and E. Hyderabad it falls be. low 6, and almost peters out in the coastal plain between Midnapur and Guntur, and the 'no man's land 'that lies behind it, zero being reached in Ganjām.
The trade of Broach and Malabar has been of world importance since the days of Augustus, and the maritime influx of Western influence is borne out by the distribution of finds of Roman coins (Fig. 9), by the settlement of Parsis and Ismailiâs in Gujarāt and Bombay, by the Syrian Christians of Tranvancore and Cochin (with their Pahlavi inscribed crosses) and by the Jews of Cochin.
With this pattern the archælogical evidence conforms, as a glance at the sketch map in the Imperial Gazetteer atlas will show. Roughly India falls into four major cultural divisions, (A) the Indus basin, (B) the Ganges basin, (C) the Central Belt of hills and desert, and (D) the Peninsula,