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Arya is a title used by pastoral nomads who
migrated into Punjab in the later centuries of
the second century BCE
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Their migration occurred amidst a broad
prehistoric dispersion of peoples using languages
in the family called Indo-Aryan or Indo-European,
which includes Greek and Latin as well as Sanskrit
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In the Punjab, pastoral peoples using Vedic
Sanskrit in their rituals mingled with local
agro-pastoral cultures, producing new cultural
forms
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In first millennium -- the iron age -- Sanskrit
texts indicate adaptation of Brahmanic rituals,
ideas and authority down the Ganga River basin
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A Chronological Framework for Ancient History

• I. Prehistory BCE
• pre-2500 stone age, microlithic tool cultures,
  Merhgarh, agro-pastoral community formation
• 2500-1500 Harappa and Indus Valley urban culture,
  urbanism, urban decline, cultural dispersion
  around Indus basin  
• II. Early Antiquity to 600 BCE
• 1200-400s early Vedas, late Vedas and Brahmanas.
  Agro-pastoral communities, lineage leadership,
  ritual authority 
• 1000 onward iron mining, smelting and
  tool-making
• 900s period of wars recounted in Mahabharata
• 700s formation of janapadas and sixteen
  mahajanapadas
• 200sBCE-1200s Sri Lanka Lambakannas

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III. The Ancient Transformation

• a. Early States, circa 600 to 327 BCE
• 600s-500s rise of states Kuru, Panchala, Kosala,
  Magadha (republics)
• 500s Persian king Darius occupies Sind and
  Gandhara life of Mahavira
• 327 Alexander the Great enters Punjab
• 400s Life of Buddha composition of Ramayana and
  Mahabharata
• b. The Original Empire, 300s - 185 BCE
• late 300s Chandragupta founds Maurya empire
  composition of Pannini's grammar, possible first
  version of Arthasastra
• 268-233 Ashoka Maurya
• 185 Last Mauryas. Founding of Sunga dynasty in
  Pataliputra.
• c. Imperial Competition 250 BCE - 250 CE
• 250BCE-250 Northwest Indo-Greeks, Northern
  Sakas, Indo-Parthians, Kushanas
• 55BCE-500s South Satavahana and Vakataka
  dynasties in Prastisthana and Vidarbha
• 70-409CE West Sakas in Malwa Ujjaini-Rajasthan-Gu
  jarat
• 100BCE-100 early Siva and Vishnu worship
  Buddhist stupas prominent in northwest,
  southeast, Sri Lanka early Sangam literature
  composition of Manu's Dharmasastra, Bhagavad Gita
• d. Dynastic Territories circa 200 BCE - 600 CE
• 320-840s Ganga Basin Guptas and Pusyaputis
• 400s-500s Northwest Southern Hunas.
• 100BCE-400 Southern Peninsula Cheras, Cholas,
  and Pandyas
• 200s-500s Maharashtra Vakatakas, Kalacuris, and
  Rashtrakutas

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Lineage-based monarchies and republics
scattered across the Ganga Basin
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Ancient Greek military mobility introduced new
imperial models of power into Punjab and opened
new routes of trade East-West
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Ancient imperial heartlands emerged among eastern
Gangetic kingdoms, strategically placed on trade
routes (E-W N-S), among rice lands (Bihar),
near iron mines (Jharkhand).
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Mauryan Empire
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Ashokan sites display imperial symbolism of
transcendent authority and spread Buddhism
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THE BUDDHIST STUPA Sanchi
NAEEM AHMED "The Stupa is truly the image, or
rather the epiphany, of the Buddha, of his Law
that rules the universe, and is moreover a
psycho-cosmogram. The form, suggested by the
apparent aspect of the vault of the sky, implies
in its turn the total presence and intangibility
of the Buddha, who in this way is seen not as a
human teacher but as the essence of the
Universe."
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Chandra Gupta I (reigned AD 320-c. 330),

• Founder of the imperial Gupta dynasty.
• Grandson of Sri Gupta, the first of the Gupta
  line,
• Became a local chief in the kingdom of Magadha.
• Increased his power and territory by marrying,
  about 308, PrincessKumaradevi of the Licchavi
  tribe, controlling north Bihar, perhaps Nepal.
• At that time, India polities consisted of
  independent states, monarchical and
  nonmonarchical, and it is likely that Guptas and
  Licchavis ruled over adjoining principalities.
• The marriage enhanced the power and prestige of
  the new kingdom.
• Special gold coins depicted King and Queen on one
  side and Licchavis on the other.
• The chronology of the Gupta era, dating from AD
  320 is believed to be based on the date either of
  his coronation or of his marriage.
• By the conclusion of his reign, his kingdom
  probably extended west to the present city of
  Allahabad and included Ayodhya and south Bihar.
• These regions were assigned to him by Puranas
  (ancient chronicles of early Sanskrit literature)
  composed in later centuries.
• His inscriptions proclain his glory with the
  imperial title maharajadhiraja--"king of
  kings"--and his son Samudra Gupta used that
  imperial ambition to launch wars of conquest that
  produced the Gupta Empire.

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Buddhism under the Guptas

• Under the Gupta dynasty (c. AD 320-c. 600),
  Buddhism in India was being affected by spreading
  Gupta patronage for Brahmanic religion and by the
  rising tide of bhakti (a devotional ritualism
  centered on temples to Puranic deities), which
  emphasized a devotees love for a personal god).
• During this period, some Hindus practiced
  devotion to Buddha, whom they regarded as an
  avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu.
• During the Gupta period some Buddhist monasteries
  joined together to form mahaviharas that
  functioned as universities.
• The most famous of these at Nalanda had a
  curriculum that went far beyond the bounds of
  traditional Buddhism.
• Nalanda soon became the leading centre for the
  study of Mahayana, which was rapidly becoming the
  dominant Buddhist tradition in India.
• Though Buddhist institutions seemed to be faring
  well under the Guptas, various Chinese pilgrims
  visiting India between AD 400 and 700 described a
  decline in the Buddhist community and the
  beginning of the reabsorption of Indian Buddhism
  by Hinduism. Among these pilgrims were Fa-hsien,
  Sung Yün, Hui-sheng, Hsüan-tsang, and I-ching.

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