The Fifth Cradle

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

The Fifth Cradle

David K. Tormsen

The world as we know it sprang from the ancient cradles of civilization, the fountains of technology and culture that we owe so much of our own accomplishments to. The Yellow river was isolated, but gave rise to the unique civilization of China. The people of Egypt and Mesopotamia gave us the ancient pyramids and zigguruts which awe us even today. Harappa and Mojendo-Daro in the Indus Valley were mysterious and sophisticated cities, destroyed before their time by Central Asian invaders. But aside from all the accomplishments of these cradles and their descendants, the civilization that has best weathered the years and holds as much of a sway over our modern world as it did 5000 years ago, is the great civilization of the Ganges river basin.

The first cities appeared in the lower Ganges region at around 2750 B.C.E., notably the great early city of Mahisdal. However, farming communities had been present since the 8th millenium B.C.E. As other cities appeared (Rajghat, Indrapat and Shravatsi), the civilizations of the Ganges began to trade quite actively with the emerging Indus valley cultures, and through them to Mesopotamia and Egypt. These powerful citystates eventually formed into powerful kingdoms, and then into mighty empires.

The first empire of Madhyadesa (centred around Shravatsi) lasted between 2340-2190, when it was conquered by Kirata invaders from the Himalayas. It was reborn in 2112 under the great king Dasa, who moved the capital to Rajghat. The second dynasty lasted until 18th century, when it was finally displaced by the rise of Bharata, centred around the city of Indrapat and between 1934 and 1785 dominated over the nearby city of Harappa, and a large part of the Indus valley. They were, however, unable to conquer Mojendro-Daro, and a conflict began in the region between the two powers.

After 1785, Harappa was dominated by Mojendro-Daro, and there were frequent wars between the Indus and Ganges civilizations. These wars occupied their attention for two centuries, and during this time the development of the powerful Nashada kingdom at Mojendro-Daro's south, and of a revitalised Mahisdal in Bharata's east; went largely unnoticed, or perhaps were considered irrelevant when weighed against the more important situation of the intra-Valley wars. It was at the end of one of these wars, with Mojendro-daro exhausted and Bharata overextended in their reconquest of Harappa, that the Aryans arrived.

The Aryan invaders siezed Harappa from the Bharati, then pushed deep into the Indus, in a bloody campaign of five centuries which reduced the Indus valley from a mighty cradle of civilization to a shadow of it's former self. Though the powerful Bharati were able to keep the Aryans from capturing Indrapat, barely; trade with Mesopotamia and Egypt was cut off for centuries, only reopened with the expansion of the Nashada kingdom in the 12th century. However, Bharati was weakened considerably, and in 1109 collapsed to Aryan assault.

But Ganges civilization was not destroyed, far from it. The empire of Magadha had risen in the east, and was quick to oppose the Aryans. Adapting the Aryans own blitzreig tactics, the Magadhan armies pushed them out of the Ganges, capturing Indrapat and establishing the first truly trans-Ganges empire. As the centuries wore on, the Aryan Indus empire collapsed, caused by external attacks by the Magadhans, Nashadans and even Persians; as well as internal destabilization with constant revolt by the native populance.

As the Aryan empire collapsed, new kingdoms appeared around the traditional civilized areas. The south of the subcontinent became home to dozens of competing peoples, the most influential being the Vidarbha south of the Nashada lands and the Andra to the south of Magadha. But Ganges culture was travelling further than that. A culture descended from the Ganges civilization arose along the Irrawaddy in the 9th century, and other kingdoms appeared in the region soon after. These kingdoms were to later provide the first trade routes between the Ganges river valley and the Chou empire in China.

The Aryan empire finally collapsed in 890, and immediately created a situation which destabilized the region. The invaders from Central Asia and the Iranian plateau flowed in to fill the power vacuum, while the Nashada placed firm control over the Aryan trade ports and began their first naval expansion. Magadha was beginning to feel the pressure of an overextended empire, as they suffere from invasion from Himalayan tribes as well as the barbarians in the west, and their armies were declining in prowess.

The militaristic Andrans eventually spelled doom for Magadha, expanding rapidly and subsuming other nearby kingdoms, then capturing Mahisdal in 830 and razing it to the ground. It took them over a century to conquer the length and breadth of the region, but they were able to repell many invaders and conduct efficient campaign. They even refrained from extending too far into the Indus, still a quagmire though increasingly under the sway of the native Dravidians, to the detriment of the Iranian and Central Asian invaders.

Nashada had profited from the trade with the West, and like the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean began a naval expansion in the 9th-6th centuries. Nashada colonies appeared along the coastline of both the Persian gulf and the Red sea. Though Egypt was in a state of decline, trade and war with the Kush was profitable for both sides. Nashada ships explored down the coast of East Africa, setting up small colonies and introducing new foodstuffs from India and southeast Asia. Though longterm presence was minimal, Nashadan shipwrecks and artifacts have been found as far south as the Cape of Good Hope, and their technological and cultural influence is believed to have been a primary cause of the rise of the powerful Swahili trade kingdoms of later centuries.

The greatest settlement of the Nashadans was the city of New Somnath, a trade colony situated to monopolise on new trade routes with China on the northern coast of Australia, a continent that until then had been mostly ignored, in 690. Though initial it had very little influence on the interior, it was quickly able to dominate the petty kingdoms of Java and Sumatra, as well as the Irrawaddy culture, which was in a state of decline. But this first foothold on the great southern continent was to later shape the destiny of that land, with the rise of the powerful Nok Tha empire in later centuries.

Historians often compare the histories of the East and West, but that approach is oversimplistic. New Somnath was not Carthage, nor were the Andrans Assyrians. Southeast Asia was not the same as the Mediterranean. The truth is, all the cultures and peoples of the great belt of civilization interacted with each other, and changed and shaped their own destinies. It has been said that were it not for a Ganges civilization, East and West would have developed separately and very differently.

Without Ganges, would the civilizations of the Indus had been able to resist the Aryans? Without the Shravatsi alphabet introduced in the 5th century, would the Chinese have continued to use pictographic writing? How long would it take for the rich cultures of southeast Asia, Africa and Australia to devlop without the vitalizing contact with the civilization of Ganges and its subcontinental descendants? Perhaps, then, it would not be Indian civilization that would dominate the world, but another. Perhaps the philosophical people of Hellas, or the aggressive Italics. Perhaps even the wild and savage Britons and Germani. No one can know. But what we are sure of, is that the modern world as we now it would be very different without the Ganges.

And therefore, good people of this new world, I dedicate this grand new world to the memory of Ganges. The fifth cradle of civilization, which gave us our boost into the harsh and cold world, and now, into the furthest stars.