Talk:History of India/Archive 5

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Use of the term partition incorrectly

The article should state that during British colonial rule, the provinces of Bangal and Panjab where partitioned. Later the countries of india and Pakistan gained independence from Britain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.119.44.152 (talk) 06:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

mughal map

The map has been clearly placed to satisfy communal agenda.The political entity in question was a north indian polity.although it advanced beyond the Krishna river it NEVER imposed effective rule and in the process got destroyed by its rival the Maratha power.What is funny though the administrator Spaceman Spiff is consistently blocking any attempt to remove it.It seems that wiki has become the personal property of a few individuals with specific disruptive agendas.The administrator in question is blatantly using threat and accusing this editor of vandalism.I appeal to fellow editors and Wiki foundation to nail this administrator and set the records straight.After all come here for npov and that must be upheld under all circumstances. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skylark2007 (talk • contribs) 08:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Joppen's map like that of all other colonial era historians was based on hearsay,shoddy inquiries,a drive to establish the inferiority of the natives and above all incomplete knowledge of indian politics.Joppen and others like Shephard ,Mc Allister,Forbes,Munro etc. have given very incomplete and erroneous pictures of india.It took far better men both British and Indian to bring the facts to light -a process that continues to the day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.63.217.206 (talk) 09:40, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

vijaynagar?gajapati?rajput confederacy?central indian kingdoms?ahom?

no mention is made of the indigeneous powers during the rule of the delhi sultanate in northern and eastern india. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skylark2007 (talk • contribs) 20:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe authors have special inclination towards South Indian Kingdoms and Sultanate of Delhi. A war of Hindu and Mughal Culture in medieval India. Many other things are left because a particular wikipedian has no interest beyond certain kingdoms or may be his own culture. So feel free to add stuff which can make a balance and avoid bias. --Swaminworld (talk) 22:03, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Mughal

Can anyone fix the spelling of Humayun in the Mughal section. Also Hem Chandra Vikramaditya is in red link it should be "Hindu Samrat (Emperor) Hem Chandra Vikramaditya.

 Done Thanks for pointing out the errors. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 10:31, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Samrat and King means the same. In the sentence given it repeats itself. It is better if it said "Hindu Samrat (Emperor) Hem Chandra Vikramaditya. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.91.151.97 (talk) 11:42, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Also the Guptas conquered much of southern India upto Tamil Nadu as well as in the form of alliance/tribute with Vakatakas so saying the Guptas ruled only central and northern India (mentioned in the beginning) is not completly correct. Much of India seems more accurate. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.91.18.102 (talk) 14:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Guptas didn't ruled Tamil nadu as the 13th Rock edict of Asoka says Chola's and Pandya's are there neighboring countries.Not part of there rule. Haribabu.P 12:01, 5 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Servophbabu (talk • contribs)

Swastika image caption

The wording of the caption under the swastika image sounds incorrect. I believe "The swastika is a major Hindu iconography" should be changed to "The swastika is a major icon in Hindu iconography" OR "The swastika is a major Hindu icon."

the population is 1,181,854,000. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.78.40.192 (talk) 18:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

2nd world war

This article does not mention the second world war . Considerable action did take place on the India-China theator , but it is not mentioned here. Is it not mentionable here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.242.165.16 (talk) 08:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

you mean the Burmese theatre? --Sodabottle (talk) 08:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Akbar was related to Tamanna Bagchi at the time of his rule just because of court matters and not because of her being a representator to his kingdom.

History of Pakistan

Mdmday has been transforming the article into a "history of regions that are currently in Republic of India". I am not sure thats a good idea. We cannot pick and choose what happened in present day pakistan. For example we have the indus valley civilisation included. If we are excluding everything that happened in present day pakistani territory, how do we deal with that? Any thoughts?--Sodabottle (talk) 15:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Pakistan has a double history Page, as per u this page shoould include India, Pakistan and Bdesh pre 1947 but Pakistan already has a well written article including all its History(excluding India). This page should either include only India(or even Bangladesh) or that History of Pakistan page should be chopped to "History of Islamic Republic of Pakistan".Mdmday (talk) 15:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It is kind of hard to separate out Pakistan and India prior to 1947 because their regions overlapped (Punjab being the prime example). Generally, historians refer to the pre-1947 entity that today consists of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (and sometimes parts of Nepal as well) as India, and we should do the same. The hatnote at the top of the article makes it clear what entity the contents refer to. --RegentsPark (talk) 15:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec)If only we could have a clear demarcation, that would be ideal, but we have considerable overlap of indian history into territories that are not currently in ROI. Then how do we deal with the Indus Valley civilisation, which spanned both countries?. If we are cutting out the persian invasions saying they reached only pakistan, then we shoudln't mention IVC at all. The obvious solution is to include the whole history of the subcontinent in the history of India. Again this is not just per me. The article was written as the "history of indian subcontinent".--Sodabottle (talk) 15:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason to change the hatnote, we had a pretty good discussion about it a year ago and in essence it covers the content of the article. —SpacemanSpiff 15:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Its not hard, it can be done, only the eastern part of modern day Pakistan has an overlapping history with India. My second option is that History of Pakistan should be chopped to "History of Islamic Republic of Pakistan", then we wont have a double page for a same topic.Mdmday (talk) 15:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

And also why do we have special entioned link on top for "History Of South India", history of South India is already mentioned in this page, it doesn't require a special link, it causes confusion.Mdmday (talk) 15:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Coz IVC had its parts in modern Indian territory too.Mdmday (talk) 15:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Mdmday, this archived discussion might be useful. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 15:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any issues if it includes India, Pak and B'desh but the fact of the matter is that Pakistan already has a well written comprehensive page including all "its" history. We should either include just India and Bangladesh in this one or we should redirect the page, "History of Pakistan" to a new page like "History of Islamic Republic of Pakistan.Mdmday (talk) 16:09, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The point isn't really about whether there exists another comprehensive page containing the history of the area that is present-day Pakistan. The point of the policy of WP:SS is to ensure that the larger articles provide a comprehensive overview of the topic, which the sub-articles then go into in detail. In that sense, History of Bangladesh, History of Pakistan, History of the Republic of India, History of South India etc. are sub-articles of this one. As far as the renaming of the History of Pakistan article is concerned, it is unrelated to this page and any discussion on the matter should be carried out at that article's talk page. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 16:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Query re new Kushan Empire section

I have just written a brief section on the Kushan Empire, as this important period of Indian history seems to have been left out. I would like to refer to the section in the Chinese Hou Hanshu giving an outline of the Kushan territories of northern India in the 2nd century, referring to the translation and notes in my own book, Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, First to Second Centuries CE. BookSurge. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1, but thought I should ask here first if other editors think this is justified - or whether it might be seen as too much like self-promotion? If so, would someone please finish the job of referencing this section for me? Many thanks. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 07:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Shantanuoberoi, 26 April 2011

Most of indiologist ( Non Indian writers of Indian history/Europeans) have suggested Vedic period 1500 BC to 500 BC. Which is false statement. Main reason for their suggestion and assertion for same has been that it was decide by arch bishop of England in late middel 17th -18th century that mankind & Universe was created in 4004 BC as Per bible, so to bi-little Vedas period was percutaneously fixed by likes of Dr.Weber and Maxuller at 1500 BC to 500 BC and for same reason all the principal ancient sages of India like of Rishi Bhardwaj and Valmiki, etc were rendered as myth then real people as they existed close to 5000 BC to 3000 BC. From this key point arises is Vedas were written in close to 7000 BC to 5000 BC and that to before Bronze & Iron age. Please note :- If in Rig Vedas their is detailed description "Atom" and its energy and at same time detailing of Flying Crafts which have just come to exit in 100 years as per development of modern sciences. so saying/suggesting Vedic culture after Harappan culture is completely untrue. Vedic Period or should be call vedic thinking and has been their for last 7000 BC plus/Minus. Note :- Harappan culture language has be decoded and as per understanding "Santhal tribes" of india are from same civilization. They too use Arya is their addressing fellow men and women. SO arya never did invade India they were always part of this land. ( This part i will take up in my next communication with proof.)

Would request --> ( Reference --> Satyaarth prakash by Swami Dayanand Sarasvati and if more reference required, suggest way to attach and send documentary proof.) "The Vedic period is characterized by Indo-Aryan culture associated with the texts of Vedas, sacred to Hindus, which were orally composed in Vedic Sanskrit. The Vedas are some of the oldest extant texts, next to those of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Vedic period lasted from about 7000 BC to 500 BCE, laying the foundations of Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society."

To replace --> "The Vedic period is characterized by Indo-Aryan culture associated with the texts of Vedas, sacred to Hindus, which were orally composed in Vedic Sanskrit. The Vedas are some of the oldest extant texts, next to those of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Vedic period lasted from about 1500 to 500 BCE, laying the foundations of Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society." Shantanuoberoi (talk) 08:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC) Shantanuoberoi (talk) 08:47, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Not done: In Wikipedia, what the article states is what the experts are saying. The majority of experts are saying 1500BC to 500BC, so the article will reflect that. Also see WP:NOR. Thanks, Stickee (talk) 13:58, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Discovery

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article1568651.ece

This is a recent article on the recent discovery of Acheulian stone tools discovered near Chennai. I thought it might be useful for this page, especially in reference to early human activity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.139.102 (talk) 10:38, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Sunnyrays, 26 July 2011

Pl remove this line

"This period succeeded the prehistoric Late Harappan, during which immigrations of Indo-Aryan-speaking tribes overlaid the existing civilizations of local people whom they called Dasyus". 

Because there is no evidence that suggests Aryans succeeded Harappan and overlaid the existing civilizations and called them Dasyus. There is no evidence that suggests that Aryans were immigrants to India. On the other hand, new archeological evidence contradicts this theory. JimShaffer (1984) who sums up the archaeological evidence summarizes:Current archaeological data do not support the existence of an IndoAryan or European invasion into South Asia at any time in the pre- or proto-historic periods. Instead, it is possible to document archaeologically a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural development from pre-historic to historic periods. The early Vedic literature describes not a human invasion into the area, but a fundamental restructuring of indigenous society that saw the rise of hereditary social elites . . .

Reference: James Schaffer of Case Western University as part of his new article, 'Migration, Philology and South Asian Archaeology', soon to appear in Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and History, edited by Bronkhorst and Deshpande, University of Michigan Press.

Sunnyrays (talk) 20:25, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Sunnyrays, I believe you should now be autoconfirmed and able to edit the article yourself so I am closing this request so that you can do so. Jnorton7558 (talk) 09:44, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Chanjider Singh Sidhu

chanjinder singh sidhu th village of rorgarh Patiala the Chani isa jattA DA munda ,this is Best player of Hocky .Chani FAther is a writer of Punjabi song And potry. this very beautiful song "TERE AKH DA KARA" Singer-RAVIDER GREWAL. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.164.46.254 (talk) 06:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Date edit for Second Carnatic War

I'm new to contributing to Wikipedia, so I hope I'm doing this correctly. I noticed that the date for the end of the Second Carnatic War is incorrect.

The Second Carnatic War finally came to an end in 1854 with the Treaty of Pondicherry. The 1854 should be changed to 1754.

Thanks. --Brentmayberry (talk) 17:57, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

File:Gandhi Jinnah 1944.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Gandhi Jinnah 1944.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Media without a source as of 18 November 2011 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 19:35, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect Handling Of History

You are not supposed to treat the land or native people's overall history as the history of the legal body of a country. Only the history of that government body is to be treated as that governing body's history. I read two paragraphs and got a slap in the face that this is clearly not being written by actual historians, or even actual amateurs... That sentence saying a time of the land being multiple countries with a collectively great economy... Gloating this is a great thing of Indian history. It doesn't count. Delete it! That was not India! That was not one nation! You are not allowed to slap India onto other, now extinct country's achievements! You are especially not allowed to combine multiple of such together to make it sound even more impressive. That is propaganda. Someone, please, correct this page, and make it apply by official rules in how to handle history. Other countries are not allowed to do that, why would India be exempt from such historian rules? For example, if you look at Polish history, they very clearly seperate between the nation of Poland, and history of the land now called Poland from before Poland was founded. That is how it is supposed to be done. And, Indian natives will already know the earlier stuff is also part of their heritage, so they can still pride in it without getting confused and thinking the way India is today is how it always was. That is a very incorrect way to teach history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.22.240.208 (talk) 01:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Information about Tamil Dynasties

Hi there is no much details about the Tamil Dynasties Chera, Chola, Pandya and Pallava. 13th rock (BC 250) Edict of Asoka says Chera, Chola and Pandya were there neighboring countries. The rules were till the end of CE 1300. But information is very low. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Servophbabu (talk • contribs) 12:09, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

File:Marathas 1758.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Marathas 1758.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests April 2012 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:Marathas 1758.jpg) This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 01:08, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Clean up the dates.

I see this page has the silly BCE/CE dating, someone needs to clean it up and knock the E off the end of BCE and change the CE to AD. there is no Common Era or Before Common Era, since they still date it from the birth of Christ. Even the hindu and Muslim and Bhuddist and Athiest communist countries use BC and AD. Quit with the aopologist Liberal ivory tower academia silliness and use what everyone else uses. BC and AD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiwi303 (talk • contribs) 14:21, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

the indo-arayans

did not came from the caspian basin. they originated in vindija cave in pannonian basin. they formed the vincha culture and were later called wends, vindi, venethi or slavs nowadays. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.126.227.141 (talk) 21:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 September 2012

This request is for correction of a spelling or typographical error. This error is found in the Wikipedia article entitled "History of India" under the subtopic "Historiography". This error appears on line 4 under the subtopic "Historiography" and is the word "highlishted" . This word should be "highlighted". There is no such word in the English language as "highlishted"; "highlighted" is the word that belongs here,, and the word that makes sense in the sentence. To find the subtopic "Historiography" one must scroll to the very end of the "History of India" article, as this subtopic appears just before the "See also" subtopic, which is just before the "references" citings.

Sulkat77577 (talk) 18:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done Thanks. Dru of Id (talk) 21:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Hindustan

Hindustan should be in the main box, anyone want to help edit that?

Twillisjr (talk) 14:11, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 13 January 2013

"The events described in the Ramayana are from a later period of history than the events of the Mahabharata." This line is not true. It is actually the other way round. Mahabharata describes events from a much later period of history than the events of Ramayana. The Ramayana tells us about the Treta Yuga (Treta period) which is earlier than Dawapar Yuga, which is discussed in Mahabharata. 115.241.209.217 (talk) 19:15, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 22:18, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

origin of Brahmi: new paper

i am pleased to announce the publication of my fifth research paper in a peer-reviewed journal

this deals with the origin of Brahmi . this is a logical and self-explanatory paper and is written using a multi-disciplinary approach. it is written in such a way that anybody can cross-verify the conclusions.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/127306265/Sujay-Post-Harappan-Literacy-Final-Final-Final

sujay rao mandavilli

182.72.239.115 (talk) 11:16, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The demise of the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus myths

I am publishing my sixth research paper directly online as it is an extension of my previous papers. Kindly read pages 4 to 18 as it contains a detailed discussion of the term ‘Aryan’. This paper explains why the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus theories are not tenable.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/136268397/The-demise-of-the-Dravidian-Vedic-and-Paramunda-Indus-myths

Methods to reconstruct the languages of the Harappans were presented in the present and previous papers.

The older papers were written taking the 19th century school of Indology as a base and working backwards. These may appear to be outdated now (at the end of our very long journey). However, the fundamentals are still correct

Part one

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27103044/Sujay-NPAP-Part-One

Part Two very,very important!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27105677/Sujay-Npap-Part-Two

the first 5 papers were published in peer-reviewed journals

Sujay Rao Mandavilli sujayrao2012@gmail.com 182.72.239.115 (talk) 17:57, 16 April 2013 (UTC) 182.72.239.115 (talk) 17:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 9 May 2013

Under the head company rule in India

In the para starting with In 1749,... the word throne is misspelled as thone 183.82.147.28 (talk) 08:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Done -Nathan Johnson (talk) 15:20, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Please remove the first line.

Please remove the first line which mentions about bangladsh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.30.8.129 (talk) 18:24, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Ancient History

SpacemanSpiff, let me know how to add the the text that i had added here[1] then, because if you look at the pages like History of China, france, and others, they usually sites about these findings as well. Bladesmulti (talk) 06:48, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

The scope of this article is much less than the time frame (focusing on human era history) for the fossil findings you present, IMO that belongs in the an Indian Plate related article, I don't know which article exactly, but there should be one...—SpacemanSpiff 06:56, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree, but what if we give it a try like those page, i mentioned in previous comment. The new sections can be made like "Pre history", as this article is major attraction. Bladesmulti (talk) 07:11, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

The scope of this page was arrived at after a lot of discussion and the "pre homo sapien" history is quite a heavy topic, so unless a rather large summary of it is obtained, I don't think the scope here should be increased to include that -- this isn't the key element of that period, rather one in a large set of events that have been understood. The various sections here are meant to be comprehensive summaries of the respective articles. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 13:25, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Erroneous information

I have corrected a sentence which I feel is grotesquely inaccurate! There is ABSOLUTELY no proof that any of the supposed "princely states" accepted suzerainty of the British empire. It is a myth, that has somehow ended up on an "encyclopedia". Realfacts123 (talk) 15:42, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

We must define Hinduism. The Aryan version pop

The problem starts with the account of the very beginning of India's history. The `Indus valley civilization', dating from the third millen­nium BCE, flourished well before the timing of the earliest Hindu liter­ature, the Vedas, which are typically dated in the middle of the second millennium BCE. The Indus civilization, or the Harappa civilization as it is sometimes called (in honour of its most famous site), covered much of the north-west of the undivided subcontinent (including what are today Punjab, Haryana, Sindh, Baluchistan, western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat) - a much larger area than Mesopo­tamia and Egypt, which flourished at about the same time. It had many special achievements, including remarkable town planning, organized storage (of grain in particular), and extraordinary drainage systems (unequalled, if I am any judge, in the subcontinent in the following four thousand years). (p65)

There is obvious material here for national or civilizational pride of Indians. But this poses an immediate problem for the Hindutva view of India's history, since an ancient civilization-that is clearly pre-­Sanskritic and pre-Hindu deeply weakens the possibility of seeing Indian history in pre-eminently and constitutively Hindu terms. (p66)

Furthermore, there is a second challenge associated with India's ancient past, which relates to the arrival of the Indo-Europeans (some­times called Aryans) from the West, most likely in the second millen­nium BCE, riding horses (unknown in the Indus valley civilization), and speaking a variant of early Sanskrit (the Vedic Sanskrit, as it is now called). The Hindutva view of history, which traces the origin of Indian civilization to the Vedas has, therefore, the double `difficulty' of (1) having to accept that the foundational basis of Hindu culture came originally from outside India, and (2) being unable to place Hinduism at the beginning of Indian cultural history and its urban heritage. (p66)

Thus, in the Hindutva theory, much hangs on the genesis of the Vedas. In particular: who composed them (it would be best for Hindutva theory if they were native Indians, settled in India for thou­sands of years, rather than Indo-Europeans coming from abroad)? Were they composed later than the Indus valley civilization (it would be best if they were not later, in sharp contrast with the accepted knowledge)?...There were, therefore, attempts by the Hindutva champions to rewrite Indian history in such a way that these disparate difficulties are simultaneously removed through the simple device of `making' the Sanskrit-speaking com­posers of the Vedas also the very same people who created the Indus valley civilization! (p67)

The Indus valley civilization was accordingly renamed `the Indus-Saraswati civilization', in honour of a non-observable river called the Sarasvati which is referred to in the Vedas. The intellectual origins of Hindu philosophy as well as of the concocted Vedic science and Vedic mathematics are thus put solidly into the third millennium BCE, if not earlier. Indian school children were then made to read about this highly theoretical `Indus-Saraswati civilization' in their new history textbooks, making Hindu culture - and Hindu science - more ancient, more urban, more indigenous, and comfortably omnipresent throughout India's civilizational history. (p67)

The problem with this account is, of course, its obvious falsity, going against all the available evidence based on archaeology and lit­erature. To meet that difficulty, `new' archaeological evidence had to be marshalled. This was done - or claimed to be done - in a much­ publicized book by Natwar Jha and N. S. Rajaram called The Deciphered Indus Script, published in 2000. The authors claim that they have deciphered the as-yet-undeciphered script used in the Indus valley, which they attribute to the mid-fourth millennium BCE - stretching the `history' unilaterally back by a further thousand years or so. They also claim that the tablets found there refer to Rigveda's Sarasvati river (in the indirect form of `Ila surrounds the blessed land'). Further, they produced a picture of a terracotta seal with a horse on it, which was meant to be further proof of the Vedic - and Aryan - identity of the Indus civilization. The Vedas are full of refer­ences to horses, whereas the Indus remains have plenty of bulls but - so it was hitherto thought - no horses. (p67-68)

The alleged discovery and decipherment led to a vigorous debate about the claims, and the upshot was the demonstration that there was, in fact, no decipherment whatever, and that the horse seal is the result of a simple fraud based on a computerized distortion of a broken seal of a unicorn bull, which was known earlier. The alleged horse seal was a distinct product of the late twentieth century, the credit for the creation of which has to go to the Hindutva activists. The definitive demonstration of the fraud came from Michael Witzel, Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University, in a joint essay with Steve Farmer. The demonstration did not, however, end references in offi­cial school textbooks (produced by the NCERT during the BJP-led rule, ending only in May 2004) to `terracotta figurines' of horses in the `Indus-Saraswati civilization'. (p68)

It is difficult to understand fully why a movement that began with pride in Hindu values, in which the pursuit of truth plays such a big part, should produce activists who would try to have their way not only through falsity but through carefully crafted fraud. (p68)

In trying to invent Indian history to suit the prejudices of Hindutva, the movement took on a profoundly contrary task. The task is particu­larly hard to achieve given what is known about India's long history. The unadorned truth does not favour the Hindutva view, and the adorned falsity does not survive critical scrutiny. (p69) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.156.108.50 (talk) 11:44, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

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Dwaraka

Over 21000 years old evidence of Lord Shri Krishn's Dwarka/Dwarika Nagri have been found which proves that Sanatan Vedic Dharm is the oldest civilization in the world. It all started and developed in the holy land of Aryavrat/Bharat (misnomer: India) since eons together. The researchers and scientists busted the Myth of Aryan Invasion. Dwaraka's majesty and beauty have been described by many poets and writers, saints and sages of ancient India. It is referred to as Golden City in Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Skanda Purana, Vishnu Purana, Harivansha and Mahabharata. It was the capital of Lord Krishna's Kingdom. Dwaraka was a well-planned city with a modern and technologically advanced harbour suitably designed to deal with the marine traffic of large ships entering the port. One of the verses in the Bhagavada says: 'The yellow glitter of the golden fort of the Dwaraka City in the sea throwing yellow light all round looked as if the flames of Vadavagni came out tearing asunder the sea'. Then came the deluge and Dwaraka 'A City of Gold' vanished under water. Around 1500 BC, the whole Western course of India disappeared along with Lord Krishna's Capital City of Dwaraka. This is how it was described by Vedavyasa in the Mahabharata: 'The sea, which had been beating against the shore, suddenly broke the boundary that was imposed on it by nature. The sea rushed into the City of Dwaraka. It coursed through the streets of the beautiful city. The sea covered up everything in the city. I saw the beautiful buildings becoming submerged one by one. In a matter of a few moments it was all over. The sea had now become as placid as a lake. There was no trace of the city. Dwaraka became just a name; just a memory'. The ruins of ancient Dwaraka city have been found under the sea following recent oceanographic studies conducted near the modern temple-city of Dwaraka.

The first Archaeological excavations at Dwaraka were done by the Deccan College, Pune and the Department of Archaeology, Government of Gujarat in 1963 under the direction of an Archaeologist of Ancient India H.D. Sankalia. It revealed the existence of many artifacts, hundreds of centuries old. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), conducted a second round of excavations under the direction of Dr S R Rao, a world renowned Underwater Archaeologist. Dr S R Rao is to the discovery of the ancient town of Dwaraka, what Isaac Newton is to the Law of Gravitation or Albert Einstein to the Theory of Relativity. Between 1983 and 1990, the well-fortified township of Dwaraka was discovered, extending more than half mile from the shore. The township was built in six sectors along the banks of a river. The foundation of boulders on which the City's walls were erected proves that the land was reclaimed from the sea. What is amazing is that the general layout of the City of Dwaraka described in the ancient texts agrees with that of the submerged city discovered by the Marine Archaeological Unit. (MAU) of The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which carried out its work under the guidance and supervision of Dr S R Rao. The discovery of Dwaraka by Dr S R Rao confirms that the descriptions found in the text of the Mahabharata and other important Sanskrit texts regarding Dwaraka are true. It also means that the Mahabharata is not a myth but an important source of information for studying the ancient history of India. T R Gopalakrishnan has succinctly summarised the importance of the excavations and discovery of Dr S R Rao: 'The strongest Archaeological support comes from the structures discovered under the sea- bed off the coast of Dwaraka in Gujarat by the pioneering team led by Dr S R Rao, one of India's most respected Archaeologists. An Emeritus Scientist at the Marine Archaeology Unit of the National Institute of Oceanography, Dr Rao has excavated a large number of Harappa sites including the Port City of Lothal in Gujarat.The submergence into the sea of the city of Dwaraka, vividly picturised in the great epic of Mahabaratha, is indeed true! A chance discovery made by a team of scientists, in the Gulf of Cambay region, establishes that the Mahabaratha story is not a myth. The rich city with fertile landscape and great rivers had indeed submerged into the seas several thousand years ago. Prof.Gartia after conducting extensive investigations concluded that Gujarat region had experienced at least three large killer earthquakes about 1500, 3000 and 5000 years BP respectively. Geomorphological evidences also show beyond doubt that the North-Western part of the Indian landmass was seismically active during the last 10,000 years. These killer quakes are likely to have caused the shifting of the rivers and sea level fluctuation including the sinking of the legendary city of Dwaraka, capital of the Lord-King Krishna. The discovery about the availability of fresh water from the now submerged major rivers along with other marine-archaeological evidences, corroborates the Mahabaratha reference that Dwaraka, the ancient city of Sri Krishna, lies under the great ocean! The city was built by Vishwakarma on the order of Lord Krishna. Land was reclaimed from the sea near the western shores of Saurashtra. A city was planned and built here. Dwarka was a planned city, on the banks of Gomati River. This city was also known as Dvaramati, Dvaravati and Kushsthali. It had six well-organized sectors, residential and commercial zones, wide roads, plazas, palaces and many public utilities.A hall called "Sudharma Sabha" was built to hold public meetings. The city also boasted having the possession of a good sea harbour. The city had 700,000 palaces made of gold, silver and other precious stones. Each one of Lord Krishna's wive had her own palace. Besides this, the city had beautiful gardens filled with flowers of all seasons and beautiful lakes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.136.199.196 (talk) 08:28, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

and the princely states all acceded to one of the new states?

The fact is that all the princely states were brought under the new nation of India using military intimidation. The writer of this nonsense should know the meaning of English words. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.221.250.52 (talk) 06:32, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Singh's research and classic period dating

Here's the page link[2], Singh seems to be recognizing the archaeological results, on page 21, he's saying that the historicity of these events have been debated, and some scholars have described them with different layers. Shall we rephrase the current text? Bladesmulti (talk) 10:54, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Classical period, in its early stage begins with the Satavahana dynasty. It can be dated to 230 BCE, thus 200 BCE is confirmed. ca. is written when the dating is still unconfirmed but there are some claims about the given date. Bladesmulti (talk) 10:57, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Periodisation

Gathus has got a problem with periodisations of Indian history. His personal objection sare not enough reason, I think, to remove info about such periodisations form the article; they are being used in most, if not all, books on Indian history. An overview shows the similarities and differences. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:54, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

[[:Periodisation of Indian History|This table inserted] is erroneous. We talked about it on my talk page. Sources are taken from those authors who are neither Historians nor experts on India History nor written on the periodization of Indian Histoy.All eminent Historians on Indian history like R. Thapar, R.C.Majumder, Eaton etcnever gave such periodization. Such pharses like “Ascetic reformism”, “Late-Classical Hinduism”, “Islamic rule and "Sects of Hinduism", “Modern Hinduism” as periods of Indian History are bogus. Show me one such example given by ANY historian on Indian history in ANY historical work/research/book as the name of those as historial periods. You are trying to pass some phrases of Hinduism as The History of India. NO historian has done such periodization of Indian History. It is totally a fanciful creation.Please read the book of Romila thapar I have given in the main page as link.(Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations.) Do not write fictions.

The other table is detailed. Hence it was entered. Name it what you want-Time table of south Asia or Indian Sub-Continent. It does not matter. But, do not replace it with a bogus one. Ghatus (talk) 07:48, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I see your point, though comments like "fictions", "bogus" and your edit-summary "some fanciful and sourceless table" are inappropriate. It gives me the impression that I can't really take you serious as a Wiki-editor. I'm glad, though, that you appreciate the table on Indian history. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:24, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I did not intend to hurt you. I said nothing personal against you. I just criticized the table, not you. I am a university student and History is my subject. I do not know your age. I just use the language I use with my fellow friends. My only target was the Table, which was really void of any sense of History.The other table is workable, though not perfect.Ghatus (talk) 12:57, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

1500 BCE

Mahabharata can not be written before 1000 BCE. It was actually written between 500 BCE and 500 AD. All eminent historians more or less agreed on this. No need to give currency to Myths produced by enthusiasts or interested groups. It beats the common logic of Historiography. Let him come with a reliable source.Ghatus (talk) 13:33, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

@Ghatus: I have dug up the sources and added them in the "Sources" section. I suggest you go through them. I am not saying anything either way. But I would prefer to see a substantive discussion instead of an edit war. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 13:38, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

@Ghatus: Notice that you have removed content sourced from an OUP book. That is not on. My first instinct was to revert your revert. The only reason I didn't was that I recognized your name from earlier edits. Wouldn't it be better to discuss these issues instead of edit warring? Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 13:56, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

@Kautilya3:

1. A GoI secretary, not any Historian wrote that Oxford University Press book. Eminent historians like Romila Thapar, RC Majumder , JN Sarkar etc never gave such a date of 1500 BCE when the war might take place (if true) around 900 BCE.

2.It is an individual's( who is neither a historian nor an expert on old texts) opinion trying to be placed as general opinion. Regards, Ghatus (talk) 14:13, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the explanation. However, Wikipedia is not a committee of historians. We are just a bunch of amateurs reproducing material from "reliable sources". And, for us, an OUP-published book is "reliable". It would be best to place the various viewpoints side by side and let the reader judge for him/herself, rather than simply deleting it. If historians have explicitly contradicted the archeoastronomical calculations, we can mention them too. Please, also, let us know your opinion of the Gupta-Ramchandran article which is in a "Social Science Press" book. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 14:30, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

History of Indian Subcontinent

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

As per this discussion I am starting this RFC to ask for the rename of this article to History of Indian Subcontinent or redefine the scope of this article as discussed ahead. The article itself states that it covers the history of the subcontinent and the lede even starts that way. Background for the unaware: Indian subcontinent has historically been known as just India but now the primary topic for the word "India" is the Republic of India which already has its history article at History of the Republic of India. See also that the word "India" redirects to Republic of India which means there's consensus for that being the primary topic and that standard should be followed so as not to create confusion (an editor got blocked due to this confusion by trying to make a split at another article discussed later although they were also using their IP and account together as sock to get their work to stick). Renaming this article will not only disambiguate and clarify things further for new editors and more importantly for readers, it will also be more neutral towards the current day Indian Subcontinent (a name by which it is still known as) and towards other countries in this region like Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. Once renamed, the current title can either redirect to this article or be split into a new article if needed to specifically talk about the historical region that encompasses the modern India as compared to the formation and independence of India which can be discussed at History of the Republic of India. A similar split is being made at History of Pakistan to focus on the region historically and for creating History of Islamic Republic of Pakistan to cover the history of country's formation and the 60 years till present.. and this is totally per WP:MOS as the article has grown twice the allowed size and still covering WP:DUE content just in summaries and is agreed upon by editors from all points of view here. This will also make navigation a lot easier (a template can be created if needed to further enhance navigation) and will also be following the same type of categorization and naming for clarity as covered in scholarly works and textbooks. If this article is mainly covering the history of modern India then moving the details related to the Indian subcontinent and its history to Indian subcontinent and redefining the scope of this article.

• Support splitting by renaming to History of the Indian Subcontinent (or in the same effect move everything related to the subcontinent to Indian subcontinent and redefine the scope of this article specifically to only the region encompassing India and redirect History of Indian Subcontinent to Indian subcontinent) as per my rationale, below suggestion of Bladesmulti, the prior discussion and as nom. --lTopGunl (talk) 07:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

By History of India#Medieval and Late Puranic Period - Late-Classical Age .28500.E2.80.931500 CE.29, article has included almost only about the present day India. Making a new History of Indian subcontinent could be better suggestion. Bladesmulti (talk) 07:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

A one paragraph summary of present day is due in this article like at the end of the article... the one you are talking about can simply be moved with attribution to a new History of India article focusing on only the regional history or to History of the Republic of India if it focuses on the country. --lTopGunl (talk) 08:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually Indian subcontinent has so less content, and almost overlaps South Asia and after many tries they didn't have a consensus for a merge, so I can also support History of Indian Subcontinent redirected to Indian Subcontinent and let it grow before it needs to split. So you are right, I can support your suggest as well (in effect it would be the same thing ie. to remove the history of the whole subcontinent from this article and take it to Indian Subcontinent. I've changed my 'support comment' a bit to agree to your suggestion. --lTopGunl (talk) 08:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Both, South Asia and Indian subcontinent are indeed small articles. Bladesmulti (talk) 08:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but some editors wont let us merge so it might be a great idea to use Indian subcontinent for history by moving all related content there and keeping South Asia for content that has context (mostly current events I guess). --lTopGunl (talk) 08:25, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Note if the scope of this article is redefined as per Bladesmulti (and I support that option as an equal alternative to this), then the hatnote of this article will also have to be changed to reflect that this is about the history of the region of India not the whole subcontinent and the subcontinent's history can be found at Indian subcontinent and other regional histories can be found at History of Pakistan and History of Bangladesh etc. Much of the content from this article and the lede will have to be moved. --lTopGunl (talk) 08:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Comment TopGun, from the beginning of the RfC it feels this was meant to be a move request. Probably you can update and rephrase the RfC question at the top for clarity (A smaller one). Thank you. --AmritasyaPutra^T 15:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If this was a plain move request, I would have done that.. but as you can see from Bladesmulti's comment, there are other solutions to this as well and the move is not the only option available. RFC seemed better.. I've added a phrase to the start to address your suggestion. --lTopGunl (talk) 15:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: For better or for worse, academic histories of India include both the present Republic of India as well as the past pre-independence India and Pakistan and, therefore, the title "History of the Indian subcontinent" doesn't align well with what reliable sources would say. Lacking sources that explicitly separate out the history of pre and post independence India into a Republic of India and an Indian subcontinent part, I'd say this is a non starter. --regentspark (comment) 22:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd say there would be just as many sources for the term Indian Subcontinent. But if you are right, shouldn't India be the primary topic for "Indian Subcontinent"? Once we've identified a primary topic, we've to consider all articles or it starts getting confusing for those who've not studied the topic all their life like us. Secondly, "History of Pakistan" includes per-independence history similarly, what I am saying is for the country history articles focus on formation (per-independence) and modern (post) history and History articles go for the region while History of Indian subcontinent or Indian subcontinent covers combined history of India, Pak, Bang etc.. it might also help unify some ancient history content and not have POV forks in each country article. --lTopGunl (talk) 08:36, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

TG, Indian subcontinent is a geographical term with independent existence. Sort of like the Indian ocean which, hopefully, we won't rename Indian subcontinent ocean :). Though Pakistan is a distinct entity with an overlapping history with the Republic of India, historians almost uniformly discuss their shared histories under the umbrella of history of India. I don't see any way of getting around that.--regentspark (comment) 14:21, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

This argument was raised in the discussion for merge of Indian subcontinent and South Asia and it was decided that they were both historical terms for the region (often still and independently being used).. the geographical term is Indian plate. I know the history of the two countries are common, and* that is not the point here, the issue is of primary topic. India is the primary topic for the modern nation, which creates ambiguity. As both terms are equally used, a replacement wont be any kind of POV or ulterior motive that some POV editors have of removing everything India from Pakistani articles which is not really even Pakistan's POV (esp that both current and the proposed option still use the term "Indian"). --lTopGunl (talk) 15:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding me TopGun. Academic sources discuss the history of all of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh under "history of India". The Sikh empire, largely in what is modern day Pakistan; the Indus Valley Civilization which is almost entirely in modern day Pakistan, Alexander's trip to India which never crossed the border of modern day India, are all studied as a part of the "history of India". Like I said, how do we get around that? History of the Indian Subcontinent is practically inventing a new area of study, and that's something we should not be doing. --regentspark (comment) 19:27, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

It didn't have anything to do with technical geography such as Indian plate which relate to the earth's structure... a part of Pakistan and most of India are structurally distinct. I did get your stance about the history part.. where a part of my argument lies; by that logic, the India should redirect to the subcontinent article or to a blanket article in a similar way if the sources term India to be the whole region (I know the difference in context, but what should be the primary topic...). In similar way there might be an argument that sources only since 60 years can possibly identify the modern country as the primary topic where as 100s of years before that identify the complete region as the primary topic... does that also change the redirect for India? Or does it get its own page as a term like Hindustan? (not that I am in favour of changing it in that way, I'd rather have a page India (term) or Hindustan discuss that, but hope it makes my point). I do believe the primary topic is now the modern day country rather than the whole region and wikipedia should reflect it uniformly. A descriptive title is not inventing anything (it's norm in wikipedia to use descriptive titles for topics based on editor consensus or many articles would be deleted since that exact title isn't being used else where). I want this to ease the navigation and don't just want to go for a rename or something so if The history of Indian subcontinent lists all country history articles to be focusing on the actual history (as by your logic they do have scholarly coverage by each name), the country articles can focus on the over all history with focus on the region.. it would also reduce overly large article sizes.. but I fear it may result in POV forks so we may have to create some kind of check or a combined talkpage under WP:IAR to handle the issues that would arise from implementing this suggestion as discussed below. Anyway, the current state of the article may slightly represent a few sources with tunnel vision on this context but it lacks insight on all the other issues I mentioned. --lTopGunl (talk) 06:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Today, when people speak of India, it refers to modern day state of India. Historically, it was used to refer to Hindustan, Dravida, Bengal, Ceylon (often) and sometimes other surrounding regions. Tibet and Burma was sometimes associated with India.

Now, if someone utters the phrase History of India most people would think about history of today's state India. But, if you tell History of Indian sub-continent it is very clear that, you are talking about history of South Asian regions including today's India, Bangladesh Pakistan, Nepal etc. Article title should better not be vague. – nafSadh did say 04:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, that makes it crystal clear with or without context. Esp. take the example of some one referring to the wikipedia article offline "look it up in 'history of India'". Hatnotes can only go so far and so does context... for an analogy, it's like I understand Urdu in any form but I can only read Arabic with full punctuation or I wont get a word right. --lTopGunl (talk) 15:43, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose The focus of the article is clearly modern-day India.

• • History of Bangladesh, History of Bhutan, History of Nepal, History of Pakistan, History of Sri Lanka exist. "This article is about the history of the Indian subcontinent with India in focus".
  • This is no discussions about Bhutanese, Nepalese or Sri Lankan kingdoms, which never ruled in modern-day India. A history of the complete Indian subcontinent should have had discussions these dynasties. This is clearly NOT a history of the Indian subcontinent then. This article should remain focussed on India, else this already longer article is going get longer.
  • There is discussion about Rashtrakutas, Cholas, Chalukyas etc. has nothing to do with the histories of Pakistan or Bangladesh. Redtigerxyz ^Talk 16:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

"With India in focus"... ? Which means it needs to be globalized as per WP:DUE and WP:NPOV. If it is only the history of India as Bladesmulti suggests, then we may have an argument of moving the content instead of renaming. This also covers much of the history of Pakistan which is not a part of the history of the regions of modern India and above that, the lede starts as "The history of the Indian subcontinent begins with evidence of human activity ..." That seems to be a claim of globalization but focusing on India and makes it a WP:COATRACK and has to be fixed in one way or another. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:34, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

The top hat asserts this article is about History of Indian Sub-continent and clearly states that there is another article for modern day state. Now, we do not need two articles to discuss History of the modern state India Either this article should not exist or discuss about the sub continent. Now, yet it fails to discuss Bhutan and other regions; mostly because some editors do not want to sync between content and subject. – nafSadh did say 17:57, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

IMO, I've made my proposal quite flexible with 2-3 solutions possible by incorporating others' suggestions... it would only help clarify to any such editors that this should include history of all regions of the subcontinent, keep the sync and prevent POV forks. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:03, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose While I believe I understand the rationale of the proposal, I hold that language is not always rational and we shouldn't view it that way. "India," to me, represents a historical/cultural unit whereas "Indian subcontinent" represents a geographical unit. I am not alone in this dichotomy. A search for "History of Indian subcontinent" on Google books brings absolutely nothing, whereas "History of India" brings up loads of books. We shouldn't kill a good living page for the sake of logic. That said, I would welcome all our friends from outside India to happily participate in contributing to the page as well as borrowing from it. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 17:43, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Do you want to keep this article under the scope of the whole region or as Redtigerxyz said as focused on modern India? The lede should also start with "history of India" and should not include other regions for the latter, for the first, it needs amends and I would stand by my rationale of renaming or redistributing content. Also note some article titles are descriptive in nature rather than using a subject title. This might be one of them... I don't mind if Indian subcontinent is a better merge candidate if it has more mentions as a title term... it's a small article anyway and needs content. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:56, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I am comfortable with the coverage and focus as it is at present. The historial India is the same as what we now call Indian Subcontinent. A page dealing with it does not necessarily make a commitment to deal with every present-day country in equal measure. It just depends on the significance of the events that need to be covered. This is no different from covering say, Bengal. Not every event in the History of Bengal would be covered in the History of India page, even though Bengal is very much a part of India. Kautilya3 (talk) 18:33, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose The name and scope of this article should be determined by scholars who work/write in the area and as RegentsPark and Kautilya3 have mentioned above, pre-partition history of the Indian subcontinent is invariably discussed under the rubric of "History of India" in standard reference works on the topic. See:
  • Stanley Wolpert's A new history of India (Oxford University Press)
  • Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf's A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
  • Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund's A history of India (Routledge)
  • Burton Stein's A history of India (Wiley-Blackwell)
  • Romila Thapar and Percival Spear's A history of India, Vol I and II (Penguin publishers);
  • Upinder Singh's A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (Pearson Education);

I have provided the publishers' names and wikilinked the authors to establish that this is not just a cherry-picked list of nationalistic/popular writers, but covers the gamut of academic publishers and notable historians working in the area. So while I am open to refining the scope of the article (if it is needed to reflect the above sources better), moving the article or the bulk of its content to History of the Indian subcontinent is a non-starter for me too. The latter page need not be a simple redirect to the History of India though; it could perhaps serve as a disambiguation page guiding the reader to the various articles in the area and this option can be discussed separately. Abecedare (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

We can't have a disambiguation as per WP:DABCONCEPT. The two subjects need to have the same name (and hence the ambiguity) to have a disambiguation... such as Mercury (planet) and Mercury (metal). So if A + B = C, then C can't be a dab, but if A = C and B = C but A & B are not the same then a dab is due. For refining the scope of this article, the sources do focus on India rather than the whole subcontinent as the sources for specific civilizations go for the titles of those civilizations. As I said before, refining the scope is equally good but instead of dab maybe we can use the History of the Indian Subcontinent page having a summary of all these pages. Again in that case, this article needs to reflect that and exclude topics covered in the equivalent articles so as not to serve as a fork. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:50, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

We can have a DAB, as India may refer to Indian Subcontinent and Modern day state of India, hence History of India (subcontinent) and History of India (republic). – nafSadh did say 07:47, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, in that context (for the term India only), definitely. My point was that it can not include the topics it comprises rather the topics that are the same name. So as per your point, the title "History of India" will become a dab because now there are two candidates, the republic and the subcontinent, both of which are referred to as this in sources (This also takes RegentsPark's stance into consideration). If this is what you mean, I can support that too.. infact I would support forming consensus for anything that fixes the current situation in anyway. --lTopGunl (talk) 09:36, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support. It does sound more rational to split them. Dan Koehl (talk) 09:18, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment (leaning towards oppose). I actually find the current solution to the dichotomy (titling the page "History of India", but utilizing the phrase "The History of the Indian subcontinent" to open the lead) to be quite elegant. Reviewing the article and this discussion, I'm finding my position aligning most with Kautilya3's; we are talking about a number of distinct historical, geographical, and contemporary sociopolitical concepts when we discuss the history of "India" and we should try to balance the many varied perspectives and uses of this term amongst our sources here; as such, even as I view the current title as the most accurate and appropriate one, I also favour a somewhat inclusive approach as to what content should be found here, so long as it concerns any entity that sources have regularly referred to as India. Snow talk 02:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Bogus. Not worth discussing. Even a mediocre student of History can tell you that there is nothing called “History of Indian Sub-continent” in the studies of History or Historiography. “History of India” is an all-encompassing idea/subject/genre. History can not be re-written just because of the parochial sub-nationalistic identity politics of 1940s. It will be more appropriate if the article begins with "The History of India..."Ghatus (talk) 17:10, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. The current title follows the mainstream of scholarship and usual usage of reference books. It should not be changed, in my opinion. Rjensen (talk) 17:14, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The history of South Asia, aka Indian subcontinent and history of a India,

The history of a subcontinent and the history of a country are separate topic. History of South Asia, and history of India should not be lumped into one page. This creates confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weighty (talk • contribs) 01:07, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

The article clearly states-"This article is about the history of the Indian subcontinent with India in focus prior to the partition of India in 1947. For the modern Republic of India (post 1947), see History of the Republic of India. For Pakistan and Bangladesh in focus, see History of Pakistan and History of Bangladesh.". There is no confusion.Ghatus (talk) 09:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

As per the above discussion, the scope of this article as India was not changed. Reverting undiscussed change of title in Aug 2014 to original bold "History of India".--Redtigerxyz ^Talk 09:48, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Travel to India

@Bongan:, this contribution [3] is well-written and interesting but it is too detailed for a History of India article. It needs to be condensed. Kautilya3 (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Travel to India (17:35, 4 February 2015) Good work Useless content edited out by @Ghatus:

but user also remove the main & imp. article reference link. I am just re-added the reference link Travel to India (21:07, 13 February 2015) just follow the protocol WP:INTEGRITY. The last article reference show only last one line. Thank you. Bongan (talk) 12:51, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the explanation. I will put it back. (Remember to use indentation with colon symbols for your replies/messages.) Kautilya3 (talk) 14:36, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Periodisation

I've changed the periodisation from Flood's to Michaels' periodisation. refined the periodisation which was already in the article. Neither is It may not be perfect, as Tapar makes clear (which I've added as an explanantion), but Michaels' periodisation is more detailed accurate, though. As a compromise to Tapar's nuances, I've allowed for some overlap, with the Islamic period starting c.1100, while the first Islamic conquests took place already in the 8th century; and the beginning of western colonialism in a seperate section, which overlaps in time with the Mughal empire. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:59, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

1) Sind is near the frontier of South Asia in modern day pakistan, not in India or in North India. The first islamic dynasty in North India was delhi sultanate established in 1206/1211.

2) Who is Michaels? Any historian? I have told you many a time to stop confusing the History of Hinduism with History of India.

3) Know the difference between Mughal Dynasty and Mughal Rule/ Empire. Marathas destroyed mughal rule by 1720s, though the dynasty remained in Delhi with de jure power over delhi city only upto 1857.

4)British expansion started after 1780s. Before that, they were tiny regional power in India.

Regards.:-) Ghatus (talk) 13:03, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Dear both, I find this obsession with periodisation to be counter-productive. They are just labels. The only problem with these labels is that they have given rise to ideologies. No matter what Thapar says, Mill's periodisation is the obvious one that occurs to anybody looking at Indian history. It is not going to go away any time soon. So, let us just state the two periodisations and move on. Kautilya3 (talk) 14:56, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

And, I might add that the secularist air-brushing that Ghatus wants to do are also counter-productive. We have agreed that "India" on this page is the Indian subcontinent. So, you can't disown Sindh. Islam certainly did arrive there. The next stage was the Ghaznavid empire, which was thought of by Ghazni himself as the "Eastern Caliphate." These were undoubtedly "Islamic" enterprises. So you can't wish them away. The more interesting question that professional historians might want to answer is whether the Hindus of the time recognized them as Islamic enterprises, or whether they thought of them as just neighbourly rivals who happened to follow a different religion. Kautilya3 (talk) 15:10, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

"Mindless changes" is not a convincing argument, is it?

• Sind: this information already was in the article, under the heading of "The Islamic period (c. 1200-1850 CE)". It belongs to Indian history; if it is to be excluded, the Indus Valley civilisation is also the be excluded.
• "(1) want to see the book (written by any historian,) that dates classical period in such way ." diff - Axel Michaels is the one who uses this periodisation: Michaels, Axel (2004), Hinduism. Past and present, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press The info is properly referenced; you could check the source, instead of simply removing it. Axel Michaels is Professor of Classical Indology and Religious Studies at Heidelberg University; his book "Hinduism" is published by Princeton University Press. What's more, his periodisation, including the threefold division of the classical age, already was in the article, so what's your point here?
• Mughal Dynasty/Mughal rule: not a reason to do a mass-revert.
• Idem.
• Hoysala Kingdom (12th-14th century) and Pandyan Dynasty (13th-14th century) were under the wrong heading, under "Classical Period." No historian will extend the Classical period to the 14th century, I guess.
• "Independence and partition (1947-present)" were under "Colonial Era". Find me any person who would agree with this classification.
• You also removed Thapar, a source which was brought in by you, as far as I remember. The focus at dynasties is at the heart of Thapar's criticism of periodisations. This also touches at this Wiki-article in general, since most of its info is arranged under the heading of "X-Empire" and "Y-Dynasty".

Ghatus, please have a closer look at the arguments, and take a carefull look at the article, instead of calling my edits "mindless". Reverting it en mass, meanwhile also removing sourced info, and re-inserting wrong info, is not the best way to work together here at Wikipedia. If you think there are better periodisations, tell us which ones. NB: I've not reverted your other edits, except for one (I've already forgtten which one...). I believe your nuances about Mughal Dynasty and Mughal Rule/Empire rigth away. @Ms Sarah Welch: Would you have an opinion here on periodisation? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:17, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you JJ for inviting me. The periodisations make sense. The current content in "Early Islamic conquests" section is poorly supported and has some OR. Someone should read the following texts, which discuss the 8th century to 12th century period, then revise it appropriately:

1. Andre Wink (2004), Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN 90-04-09249-8

2. Elliot and Dowson, The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians - The Muhammadan Period, Volume 1 & 2, Trubner (these are translations of Persian/Arabic texts)

3. Vincent A. Smith, The early history of India, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press

4. Barbara Metcalf, Islam in South Asia in Practice, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691044200

It is history of India. The best current understanding is that the 8th-12th century period was a complicated period of Islamic raids for khums, religious violence in Gujarat/parts of modern India, changing rulers in northwest 8th-12th CE India, and Al-Biruni-style Hindu-Islam cooperative scholarship where numerous Sanskrit texts were translated and circulated in Islamic ruled territories. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:40, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, and for your extended list of literature. Quite some work left to do... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 21:35, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: , @Kautilya3:

1) Sindh is not a part of North India. It is on the western side of Indian Sub-continent/ South Asia. By the way, why 8th century? Start from 7th. Some parts of modern Pakistan was conquered by Muslims in mid 7th century also before 711/712.Wining one or two small parts on the western border of south asia and you are calling it the starting of a religious rule in north India. Ludicrous. A rule starts when an old system is replaced by another. Hence, British rule started in Bengal in the mid 18th century, not in 1600s. One power can win a town or small area, but calling it a rule on "some" parts of "north India"? Again, see the map-where is west and where is north.

2) The "historians" who provide such pharses like “Ascetic reformism”, “Late-Classical Hinduism”, “Islamic rule and "Sects of Hinduism", “Modern Hinduism” as periods of Indian History are anything but Historians. LoL!!! You are again trying to pass some phrases of Hinduism as The History of India.

3)"The Islamic period (c. 1200-1850 CE)" Another funny thing. What were the Vijaynagar, Rajputs, Marathas and Sikhs doing in this period. BTW, the British took India from Marathas and Sikhs in the 19th Century, not from the "Muslim" Mughals. Where are you getting dates from? 1850??? Period??? Tell me when in early 16th century when Vijaynagar was larger in size than the Delhi sultanate and Rajputs were constantly victorious, how can it be called that India is under Muslim period? Does Maratha and Sikh rule also include under the Muslim Period? Stop communal propaganda.

4) Have you started calling British rule as Christian rule like Hindu rule , Muslim rule etc? Why not?

Regards, Ghatus (talk) 04:07, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your personal thoughts, and now start behaving yourself. You're edit-warring. My edits are based on a reliable source, which you completely ignored. You're also ignoring the comments of other editors. You're also not responding to the arguments above.

So far, you've made only 598 edits to Wikipedia, and received multiple warnings for edit-warring. You've also received recedmtly the Discretionary Sanctions notifications, so you should be aware that you have take double care in your edit-behavior at India-related pages. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

NB: it would be helpfull if you make separate edits for Romila Thapar, for Michaels' periodisation, and for the names of the headers, so we can properly discuss as separate topics. Thanks. And honestly, I really don't understand why you removed Thapar's comments on periodisation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:14, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan:, Unfortunately, as per WP:BRD, Ghatus has priority here. He has a right to revert a bold edit, and you need to discuss. Much as I dislike his wholesale reverts, as per policy, he still gets the first call. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 11:33, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: , @Kautilya3:, 1) First islamic conquest in south asia was the conquest of Makran in 640s. Read History books, not blogs. I am not only a student of History and Historiography but a history addict also.

2)Islamic Period of India stretched from 1200 to 1850 is both factually wrong and communally colored. You can not wash away the roles and contributions of Rajputs, Vijaynagar, Marathas, Sikhs etc to make History as you like.

3) India claims IVC because it was stretched upto UP and Maharashtra also.

4) The table is based more on Hinduism and less on Indian History, except Smart's.

Thank You.Ghatus (talk) 12:34, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Kautilya3, that's not how BRD works. It's not a "rule" to lock a preferred version. If you disagree, you try to reach an acceptable compromise. But you do not simply revert everything, because you don't like parts of it. The periodisation is stuff to discuss; Thapar's nuances are good additions, and I've still not seen a reason to remove it. On the contrary, it's exactly the point Ghatus wants to make. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:17, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, my understanding of BRD is that the person doing the bold edit needs to do the work, not the one who wants the status quo. So, he doesn't need to separate out which edits he wants to keep and which to revert. But he is required to improve the edit rather than simply revert, whenever possible. He may not be doing so. In any case, since we are discussing things here, it would be good to wait until we reach agreement. Kautilya3 (talk) 14:52, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Ghatus' analysis of the periodisation seems more correct. Reason is that he is highlighting some of the most important events of not only ancient times but also the middle period. Bladesmulti (talk) 15:43, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

What is Ghatus's periodisation? I have no idea. At least this edit [4] looks like totally OR. Is there a reliable source that equates the Delhi Sultanate with Vijayanagara? Can we say that they dominated "South India" when they didn't even hold all of Karnataka and Telangana, let alone the other regions south of the Vindhyas (the official definition of "south India")? And this edit even puts Vijayanagara ahead of Hoysala! Talk of POV pushing! Kautilya3 (talk) 18:10, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, our own article says, In the South, the Bahmani Sultanate was the chief rival of the Vijaynagara and gave Vijayanagara tough days many a times. So much for domination! Kautilya3 (talk) 18:14, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Table with periodisations

Ghatus, could you please provide a clear reason to remove this table, other than your personal preferences? The table shows that various periodisations are being used, and illustrates Thapar's point. Please provide the relevant sources (author, titles) which reject these periodisations. And even if you're correct, that most historians are not using such periodisations any more (which is doubtfull, given the sources I provided), then it's still sourced info, which is relevant to this topic. If the table is incomplete, it can be improved. But simply removing it is not how Wikipedia works. Also note the comments of VictoriaGrayson and Ms Sarah Welch, who don't reject these periodisations. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

NB: I'm starting now to incorporate more info onto the table, starting with Bentley. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:17, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

And maybe I should create a new table, based on historiographic studies. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:25, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Done Template:Periodisation of Hinduism‎. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:36, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Added Mills to Template:Periodisation of Indian History. Now, who's to be removed? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

And merged the details. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Answers

Rejection

Getting to know the past better

by Romila Thapar

"...Indian historians in the late 19th and early 20th century, conforming much more closely to the nationalist view of history, challenged some of these theories. They did not, however, question the periodization. This was to come later. They accepted the periodization of Hindu, Muslim and British, a periodization that we have now rejected. They did question the notion of Oriental Despotism but did not replace it with an alternative theory of governance, administration and rulership. Social history merely repeated the claims made in the normative and prescriptive texts.

...They accepted the periodization of Hindu, Muslim and British, a periodization that we have now rejected. They did question the notion of Oriental Despotism but did not replace it with an alternative theory of governance, administration and rulership."

Source:Keynote address at the inauguration of the Karachi International Book Fair on December 7, 2005 [5]

See the Books of noted modern historians like R. Eaton, Irfan Habib, D.N.Jha, Bipan Chandra etc. They presented Indian History in chronology , not in periodization. But why? Now see.

Ghatus (talk) 10:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Chronology vs Periodization

Chronology is the narrative of history as it happened. No personal intervention is made from the author. But, periodization is the compartmentalization of history according to personal/ideological opinion(Oriental or occidental or rightist or Marxist etc.).

Ghatus (talk) 10:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, clear. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Islamic Period(1200-1850)

1) It is nothing but an extension of Mill's periodization based on religion. Even, a little Google( for armatures only) search will establish the fact that Mill's periodization is rejected by almost all modern Historians.

2) Islamic Period of India stretched from 1200 to 1850 is both factually wrong and communally colored. You can not wash away the roles and contributions of Rajputs(13th to 17th-west india), Vijaynagar(14th to 16th-South India), Marathas(17th to 19th-large parts of India), Sikhs(18th and 19th-North west India) etc to make History as you like.In early 16th century when Vijaynagar was larger in size than the Delhi sultanate and Rajputs were constantly victorious, how can it be called that India is under Muslim period? Does Maratha and Sikh rule also include under the Muslim Period? BTW, the British took India from Marathas and Sikhs in the 19th Century, not from the "Muslim" Mughals.(Copy & Paste).

Ghatus (talk) 10:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

ad 1: "a little Google( for armatures only) search" - please refrain from such comments. As long as you don't provide titles of sources, Google search is more informative.

ad2: you've got a very good point here, but it does not change the fact that "Muslim period" seems to be a common designation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:11, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

NB: it seems to me that it's better to use the "Indian chronology", instead of a periodiastion, so you've made your point here. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't know much about others but the Maratha empire encompassed entire subcontinent at its peak and the Mughals had been thoroughly vanquished in the most extreme interpretation of the word. Then British took over. 1850 would be an extreme stretch by the most gullible student too, it creeps into the period of British rule. Vijayanagar 'empire' wasn't called an empire for nothing. I agree perodisation is dubious, we can have chronology and there may be more than one important noteworthy event for same time-span owing to the huge area covered. --AmritasyaPutra^T 08:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Vijayanagara Empire

I think i have to agree here with Ghatus; the Vijayanagara Empire seems to have been more substantial than 'a regional power'. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:55, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

No doubt it was more substantial than a regional power. But I doubt if it can be equated with the Delhi Sultanate. Delhi still exists whereas Vijayanagara is a ruined world heritage site. That itself should give us pause. The more immediate problem with Ghatus's edit is that it was out of order. He doesn't seem to care about these niceties. Kautilya3 (talk) 20:50, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Which 'site' is Vijayanagara? The state of a land right now does not always help make a verdict on what it was hundreds of years before. Consider Roman, Greek, Iranian empire. Help him with your niceties perhaps. --AmritasyaPutra^T 02:37, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I have reverted.. as Ghatus, Joshua and I hold the edit to be valid. If you think otherwise we can discuss. --AmritasyaPutra^T 08:48, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

As you wish. All you hot shot historians want to talk about Vijayanagar before Hoysala, even though it was an offshoot of Hoysala. This is a loony town as far as I am concerned. Kautilya3 (talk) 10:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

You act like I-know-it-all-you-all-are-idiots and now say this? --AmritasyaPutra^T 10:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

If you know better then you should answer my objection instead of opportunistic reverting. I have been saying this for 3 days now! Kautilya3 (talk) 10:59, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

And you aren't listening to 3 editors! Which 'site' is Vijayanagara -- it was the second largest city of the world at its time and the capital city of the empire not the empire. --AmritasyaPutra^T 11:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

1)Vijayanagara can not be bracketed with "petty" regional powers like Hoysala and others. Hence, its moved upward. Otherwise, it will be distortion of History.

2)The capital of Vijayanagar was sacked in 1565, long after the Establishment of the Mughals and when Vijayanagara was week. But, it does not take away the domination of Vijaynagara in the South India at the height of their power for more than 150 years. Many powerful capitals have been totally vanquished in history when they were at the nadir. But, that does not take away their past glory.

3) Do you know that Old Delhi area is actually an amalgamation of 6/7 past capitals. What's your point? Where is the great Greco-Roman civilization now? Did they not exist.

4) I will have no problem if Hoysala and the other Kingdom there are edited out from that section because both of them were petty Kingdoms like the kingdoms of Malwa, Kashmir, Bengal, Assam and feudal lords of Modern day Kerala etc. No need to mention every small power. Ghatus (talk) 12:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Indian National Army

Add Indian National Army Section Thank you.Bongan (talk) 07:59, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Just a one liner or mention.Ghatus (talk) 09:08, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Sanskritization

@Amitrochates: You removed a paragraph + header diff:

"Since Vedic times, "people from many strata of society throughout the subcontinent tended to adapt their religious and social life to Brahmanic norms", a process sometimes called Sanskritization. It is reflected in the tendency to identify local deities with the gods of the Sanskrit texts."

References

This is what the source says:

"From the time of the Vedas (c. 1500 bce), people from many strata of society throughout the subcontinent tended to adapt their religious and social life to Brahmanic norms. This development resulted from the desire of lower-class groups to rise on the social ladder by adopting the ways and beliefs of the higher castes. Further, many local deities were identified with the gods and goddesses of the Puranas."

The author is Arthur Llewellyn Basham. He died in 1986, so the text can't be very recent, but its latest update was at 10-28-2014. Michael Witzel, in Early Sanskritization. Origins and Development of the Kuru State, also mentions 'early Sanskritiztion' in the Kuru-state:

"Now, under the Kuru kings, acculturation was followed by well-planned Sanskritization representing major changes in social format." (p.10)

As you know, the Kuru kingdom arose quite early, in Vedic times. So, Sanskritization seems to have set in quite early indeed. By the way, Geofrrey Samuel, in The origins of Yoga and Tantra, gives a nice overview of the influence of the Kuru-kingdom on Indian/Hindu culture. Nevertheless, if you think the dating is to early, it might be good tho find another source which improves the info. Removing the whole paragraph, plus the header and the link, seems unnecessary to me. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:00, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposal for periodisation

Burton Stein (2010), A History of India (John Wiley and Sons), and Peter Robb (2011), A History of India (second edition)(Palgrave Macmillan), both use Early/Ancient, Medieaval, Modern. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

So, another periodisation (c.q. list of chapters for this Wiki-article) may be as follows:

• Early/Ancient India:

• Pre-history
• Indus Valley Civilisation (until c. 1750 BCE);
• Vedic period (c. 1750-500 BCE)
• "Second Urbanisation" (c. 500-200 BCE)
• Early empires (c. 200 BCE-300 CE)
• "Golden Age" (Gupta Empire) (c. 320-650 CE)

• Medieaval period:

• Early medieaval period (regional states and early Islamic conquests) (c. 650-1100 CE)
• Islamic conquests and Dehli Sultanate (c. 1100-1500 CE)

• Modern period:

• Early Modern period: Mughal empire, Maratha empire, beginning of western colonialism (c.1500-1850);
• Modern period: British Raj (1857-1947)
• Modern period: (from 1947)

Better? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Ghatus and Kautilya3: Could you please respond here? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:18, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I am fine with it but, as you know, I am relaxed about all these labels. More important for me is the fact that India is a large country and so the same phenomena might have happened at different places in different times. For example, the "Islamic conquest" happened in the NorthWest, the North, the East and the South at different times. So, the mathematical precision that you are shooting for is not possible. It is also quite incongruous to call the Mughal period "modern" as they had brutal succession wars for each succession, not particularly "modern." I would prefer to start the modern period with the advent of the British rule, e.g., 1750. Kautilya3 (talk) 15:16, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: You have it right.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 16:02, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

1) Please provide me the link of the two books where such periodizations are made. I have not seen them before.

2) Raids>Invasions>Conquests. Three different stages. But, you have confused them again. Between, 8th and 12th century, there took place some raids and invasions but no conquests. The first real conquest was in 1206.

3)Finally, is there any need for periodization of Indian History? Modern historians have rejected it long ago as in India different centuries, different ages and different civilizations co exist together at the same time. You just can not "fix Indian History".

4) BTW, It was I who inserted Thapar's book in the article months ago, not the other way round. Ghatus (talk) 17:14, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

1: Links added above. I just did a Google-search, and started at the top of the list; if other books are better, I believe; you may be the expert here. But it would be helpfull if you prefer some titles of the relevant sources, instead of pretending you're the one who knows best, without detailing on what sources your understanding is based;

2: Whatever; details (sorry). I'm asking about the general line now;

3: Stein is from 2010, Robb is from 2011, so I'd like to see some of your sources on this, when you state that periodisations were rejected long ago. Anyway, some sort of periodisation might be usefull; or some sort of agreement of the "chapters" we use in this article. We might as well not use the terms ancient-medieaval-modern, and just use the headers as mentioned above, or variations. If we use some sort of periodisation, it should be based on the relevant sources, not on our personal preferences; if we don't use some sort of periodisation, but "simply" follow the chronology, that choice should also be based on the relevant sources, I guess. Any way, we do have chapters, for which we do make some choices, don't we?

4: Ghee... See above, where I wrote "You also removed Thapar, a source which was brought in by you, as far as I remember."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:19, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

The Periodisation section of this article cites Axel Michaels, but doesn't mention page number. Anyone knows? I can't find "Hindu-Muslim civilization" etc. I see a table on pages 48-49, but that doesn't support what is in the periodisation section of this article and as section titles. The current periodisation section summarizes Mill and Thapar. That is incomplete. It should mesh in other scholars, and balance it with other significant viewpoints. Here are some to consider: P Stearns, W Green, M Narayanan, F Conlon, R Grew and J Bentley. Start with Bentley, though bit dated, it is a decent review.

In addition to JJ's links to Stein and Robb, for Ancient-Medieval-Modern periodisation scheme in scholarly literature, see Timothy Reuter (2010), Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521168632, pages 31-34 with sources in footnote 30

A comment on the list above: The medieval period could include Mughal period (1100-1700); but I have seen it as [1] 1000-1700, For example: H Kulke (1995), The state in India, 1000-1700, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195631272; [2] 800-1700, For example, S Chandra (2007), History of Medieval India: 800-1700, Orient Longman, ISBN 978-8125032267. The Early Modern category as listed above, OTOH, is supported by John Richards (1997), Early Modern India and World History, Journal of World History, Volume 8, Number 2, pages 197-209. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 06:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll look-up the page-numbers of Michaels; it's chpater 2, if I remember correct. "Hind-Muslim civilisation" is from Smart. Thanks for the sources! I'll go through them. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:01, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

p.31-46. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

In light of discovery of underwater Dwarka and underwater temples in Southern India, how relevant is this periodization?196.46.106.89 (talk) 13:23, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

How does it affect the periodization? Kautilya3 (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

"Islamic period"

Ghatus objects to the term "Islamic period", instead opting for "Islamic powers." He's got a point there, since, the south of India was never completely conquered by the Islamic rulers. Maybe we should use Smart's term: "Hindu-Islamic civilisation". It does more justice to the Hindu-part, and "civilisation" sounds much more friendly than "rule" or "powers."
Another alternative is "Islamic rulers". Which terms do other writers use? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:33, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, most sensible historians stay away from such linearised periodisations. John Keay, whose book I have on my book shelf, uses titles like:

• Natraj, the rule of the dance: 950-1180
• The triumph of the sultans: 1180-1320
• Other Indias: 1320-1525
• The making of the Mughal empire: 1500-1605
• Mughal pomp, Indian circumstance: 1605-1682
• From Taj to Raj: 1682-1750

I think "Hindu-Islamic civilization" is pretentiously wishful thinking. If there was such a civilization, we wouldn't be having all these problems in India right now. Kautilya3 (talk) 18:22, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Romila Thapar also uses chapter-headers which are much more nuanced than "ancient-medieaval-modern." Personally, I prefer that. But, since this is an encyclopedia, and we have to structure our articles somehow, and because we "follow" what "the scholars" say, some sort of agreement on an understandable, although somewhat simplified, periodisation might be helpfull (that sentence is a little bit too long, isn't it?). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:11, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, 90% of Indians believe there was an Islamic period, no matter what the scholars say and no matter what we say. That explains my disinterest in the subject. From my point of view, what was there earlier was ok and what you have now is also ok. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 19:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, 90% of Indians have had their entire historical education molded by historical paradigms shaped by British rulers since the 19th century. You might want to look at the inscriptions from the time of Mahmud of Ghazni onwards. Hindus then identified the invaders with their ethnicity (Turk) rather than their religion, which also included Persian mystics and Arab traders. Please be more sensible in your comments and arguments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.22.88.136 (talk) 08:07, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, British historians have definitely had some influence on our thinking. But, if we think of "history" as being made up of facts and interpretations, people will depend on the historians for facts, but they may or may not buy the historians' interpretations if it goes against their own common sense. "Turk" and "Hindu" are both ethnic names, and both are used to refer to religions. I agree that the Hindus of the time did not care to identify the invaders by their religions. Rather the invaders identified themselves by their religion. Hence, "Turk" became synonymous with Muslim. If you are trying to prove that there was no such thing called an "Islamic period", you have to prove that the invaders didn't rule in the name of Islam. I wish you good luck. Kautilya3 (talk) 13:45, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Where is/are the Flag(s)

Looking for some links to the modern flag. I hear it has a spinning wheel on it. Without searching on "Flag" I have not found it in several Articles on India or their main holidays. Need some links.Kristinwt (talk) 06:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

you need this Flag of india? --Haccom  ✉ Talk to me 06:29, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

History of North-East of India

In whole article, the history of North-East part of India is not mentioned. Shouldn't we include it? --Haccom  ✉ Talk to me 06:39, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: , @Kautilya3:,@Haccom:, @AmritasyaPutra:, @Bladesmulti:

1)I also think history of North -East India must be included. But, the problem will be reliable sources.

2)Again, the "British India" section too needs expansion. Major incidents like "Drain of wealth", "Establishment of Zamindari System", "Rise of a new cultural-social-political-educational system", "Oppressive British policies to stop anti-colonial movements", "Rise of Communal politics in India", "Gandhi's three mass-movements" etc have to be mentioned.Ghatus (talk) 03:28, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Guess you're right, but how? A large part of the article is now about the various empires. By the way, I just noticed that the onset of endogamy coincides with the Kushan empire, which was founded by Indo-Europeans (you know, those people with their three societal classes, just like the medieaval Europeans), who favored Buddhism. It's also the time of the formation of the socalled "Brahmanical synthesis." Indian history is complicated... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I rather thought the onset of caste system coincides with the Sunga Empire period. But the Kushans had something to do with it too because the Saka era is named after them. But we should leave it to the historians to sort it out. Kautilya3 (talk) 09:10, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

@Ghatus: well we can try. It's not like historians did not study that area.--Haccom  ✉ Talk to me 10:17, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

First Point- I think history of Assam and Manipur will be enough as both have recorded history. It will be just like mentions or one/two liners after a few sections occasionally.

Second Point- Though I am still not a supporter of Hindutva historiography just because of lack of proofs, but I find logic in one of their arguments when they say- "Invasions played a major role in the creation of castes." I have also curiously observed that many castes (Rajputs, Jatts, Gurjar, Ahir, Pathan etc.) have come off after some major invasions. The "Aryans" as well as the "Indigenous People" probably did not want to mix up with them or considered them impure.Ghatus (talk) 10:32, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, Joshua said specifically endogamy (not just caste system), which seems to have developed around 100 BC according to the genetic data. The dharma-shastras started prohibiting intermarriage sometime afterwards. I don't know if historians have answers for why or how this happened. Kautilya3 (talk) 11:40, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

History of caste

This article is a must-read: Moorjani, P.et al. (2013), Genetic evidence for recent population mixture in India. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 93(3), 422-438 pdf. It mentions 100 CE as the time when endogamy set in. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:39, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Ok, we are differing by 2 centuries, 100 BC to 100 AD. This was in fact the most confused period in Indian history, with Shungas, Satavahanas, and Sakas coming in quick succession. All of them were multi-religious. The Saka era, beginning in 78 AD, is attributed to both the Satavahanas and Sakas. What exactly happened in 78 AD? Kautilya3 (talk) 14:51, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I notice there is no special marker at 100 AD. That is when the UP Brahmins stopped admixture. But the Kashmiri Pandits stopped it in 1000 BC. So, all kinds of endogamic developments happened from 2000 BC to 100 AD. Kautilya3 (talk) 16:51, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Note also that vysyas, who probably originate from the panis of IVC, stopped admixture in 2000 BC. So, endogamy is a very old practice that predates the Indo-Aryans. For, all we know, the Indo-Aryans might have been a liberalising influence that eventually failed and ended up adopting the Indian custom. Kautilya3 (talk) 07:12, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

That's an interesting thought, since it was the openness of the social hierarchy of the Indo-Aryans which allowed them to be so succesfull in influencing northern Indian culture. Note also, as said before, that the Kushans supported Buddhism, yet apparently weren't able to "stop" the social stratification of endogamy. NB: Buddhism was supported by royalty and traders, c.q. vysyas. Where does that leave the Brahmins and the common people? Remember also that the Buddha agitated against Brahmins who saw the Brahmins as the highest social grouping, instead of the kings, Buddha's own social group. Maybe endogamic social stratification, c.q. "caste", is the "defining element" of Hinduism, nay, India, an irresisitible force in Indian culture. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:03, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

The caste system of today is made up of three ideas: jati, varna and purity, which need to be understood separtely. (1) I believe jati is an organic social idea that possibly predates the Indo-Aryans. It arises from communities surrounding hereditary professions and these professional communities building a certain amount of protectiveness of their trades and skills. Endogamy is the product of an attempt to keep the skills and trades within the community. We can't say how finely divided these communities were originally, but it stands to reason that vysyas/panis would have been one of the first to develop such protectiveness. Potters, smiths, carpenters, leather-workers (eventually shudras and dalits) might have also had reason to develop protectiveness, but not as strongly. Warriors would be less likely to develop protectiveness because the more fighting men you have, the more successful you would be in a battle. So, the warrior classes tend to want to expand. Priests would also develop protectiveness because they essentially live off the limited surpluses of the rest of the population, but when the society expanded, they would have had reason to expand as well. (2) The varna concept was most likely to do with education. Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas needed different levels of education and so they were classified as such. The Satyakama Jabala story tells us that jati was used as a factor in varna but not exclusively so. People were also adopted into varnas based on their quality. This is what I mean by "liberalism." Shudras were people that didn't care to have any brahmanical education at all. So, they were barred from listening to Vedas. Education levels naturally lead to hierarchy, and this is what I believe happened over time. (3) Purity was a concept that developed later, probably in the 100 BC - 100 AD time frame, whereby each jati judged the purity levels of other jatis. This led to caste rigidity as well as increased hierarchy. We only know the hierarchy as viewed by brahmins, because that is what we find written in books, but the sociologists that have studied the caste system say there are as many hierarchies as there are castes. Some have even recorded instances of dalit communities treating brahmins as impure! Essentially, each caste developed its own customs and procedures, and the people of other castes that didn't follow the same procedures were regarded as "impure." We shouldn't try to retrofit the present ideas of caste into all of the past. 82.37.192.154 (talk) 09:30, 4 April 2015 (UTC). Sorry that was me, logged out by the timer. Kautilya3 (talk) 11:38, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

That sounds very much like the "gildes" in medieaval Europe! Thanks for your explanation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:24, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: Indeed, the "gildes" were called srenis in Sanskrit (literally, "class"). It appears that the Maurya empire established them. Sometimes entire villages were established by (or for) particular srenis. Historians believe that these srenis turned into jatis in course of time. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:40, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

References

Battle of Rajasthan

The AfD: WP:Articles for deletion/Battle of Rajasthan should be of interest to the editors of this article. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:28, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Periodization

Do we really need this table and the accompanying text? The article appears to exclusively use ACMM, Mills is outdated, and I don't see any benefit, other than confusing the reader, from the accompanying text. Differences in chronology etc are better suited for appendices or footnotes and we should just get rid of it. --regentspark (comment) 22:07, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Maurya section

@BudChrSch:, thanks for your interest in this article. Unfortunately, your expansion of the Maurya section [6] is problematic. Note that it has a "main article" tag. That it means that it is a WP:SUMMARY of a more detailed article. No new content should be added here unless it is covered in more detail in the main article. You should also preserve the "summary" nature of the treatment here without going into details and explanations. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 16:33, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you @Kautilya3: for choosing the talk page over the article for showing disagreement. I had attempted to keep the section as short as possible, given that it is meant to be only a summary. I guess I did not do very well. My intention was to achieve a more balanced narration, providing other possible reasons for the decline of the empire, etc. However, if there is a problem, please edit to improve the section.BudChrSch (talk) 17:12, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

As a general rule, we don't provide "explanations" in such summaries. People have to look in the main article for that. In a long article like this, we also worry a lot about WP:WEIGHT. No particular section should be overweight unless the situation demands it. The Maurya section was already overweight and I am afraid your additions made it even longer. I suggest that you carry over these additions to the main article and revert the changes here. But I will leave it in your hands, or others may join in to help. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 17:21, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

All right. I have reverted most of the changes I made to the that section.BudChrSch (talk) 18:36, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

@Ghatus: please consider whether the quotation added to the section by you by means of this edit is appropriate. I think we must keep the section as short as possible, presenting only the most important details, given that the article is on the history of India and not of the Mauryan Empire or on the life of Ashoka. BudChrSch (talk) 23:03, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

This is called counter narrative. Without counter narrative, any piece on History is considered propaganda. I wanted to add many other things, but did not add because it is on History of India , not on Maurya Empire. This counter narrative challenges the conventional/saintly view on Ashoka on some historical basis: If Ashoka was a changed person after Kalinga war,

1. Why did Ashoka did not free the enslaved prisoners of Kalinga and why did he make them slave laborer?
2. Why did Ashoka keep more than a million troops always stand by if he was a pacifist?
3. Did Ashoka stop fighting because he was a changed person or because his empire became so big that he needed not to conquer any further?
4. Why did Ashoka in any place never confess of being a Buddhist?

Ashoka was not a saint, but an astute Emperor. And, this message must go through this counter narrative quote.Ghatus (talk) 04:41, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, this kind of analysis doesn't belong in this page. Please take it to the Ashoka page. What is more important here is the fact that Ashoka has sent Buddhist missionaries all over the world, a fact which is not mentioned. - Kautilya3 (talk) 08:49, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

@Ghatus: IMHO, the section is fine even without a "counter-narrative" because it does not portray Ashoka as a "naive and extreme pacifist." Some historians apparently have made some allegations, such as that Ashoka's extreme obsession with non-violence led to the emasculation of his army, which ultimately led to the decline of the empire. That, if I understand correctly, is the context of that quotation. When inserted into the present version of this section, it doesn't seem to produce the effect you intended it to. Further, as pointed out by Kautilya3, such deep analysis of these matters is outside the scope of this article. And by the way, Ashoka has "confessed" to being a Buddhist. I would like to quote Romila Thapar herself here: "he states in one of his inscriptions that only after a period of two and a half years did he become a zealous devotee of Buddhism." BudChrSch (talk) 15:13, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

NO, the same Thapar said in the book you quoted that Ashoka curiously never engraved the confession of himself declaring to be a Buddhist. I can be "a zealous devotee of Buddhism", but that does not make me a "Buddhist". He favored buddhist and non-buddhist equally. He actually used buddhism as tool of political stability in his vast empire like an astute emperor. Like every successful emperor, rule was more important tham religion to him. His "dhamma" was a mixture of several religions. Actually, the title of Ashoka was "the beloved of the gods".(why gods???) There was no conception of "gods" in early Buddhism. He used horses for courses. Hence, he never confessed his personal religion. However, it is a different issue and it is not the place to discuss.Ghatus (talk) 03:31, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. This is no place and we are not the people for this. And frankly, It does not make much difference to our article whatever Askoka had in his mind. We are here to present facts backed by reliable sources. That's all our job is. As regards your argument that Ashoka was not a Buddhist, I believe all that Thapar says is: "yet, curiously, he refrained from engraving his confession of remorse at any location in Kalinga" (italics added by me). This is on the same page- p. 180.

Anyway, I still think that the quote inserted by you serves no purpose. It even fails to fit into the narrative, IMHO. The rest is upto you (and other editors, of course). BudChrSch (talk) 15:02, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the quote serves no purpose. If historians believe that there was an important 'counter narrative' that Ashoka was not the good guy we all think he was, then that can be stated clearly without resorting to quotes. If this counter narrative depends only on a few sources then it is best confined to the Ashoka article. If it depends on a single quote from Thapar, then it shouldn't be anywhere on Wikipedia. I'm removing it for now. --regentspark (comment) 22:28, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

References

Addition of history of modern india

This seems to be copied from History of the Republic of India. When doing so, it should be clearly mentioned - and be usefull. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:30, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Dear Joshua Jonathan, referring to my earlier talk with Spiff at User talk:SpacemanSpiff#why events like "Emergency ", India -pakistan war, not part of "history of India", History of India and History of Republic of India needs to be combined to make it inline with "history of Pakistan" and "history of Bangladesh" pages where historical events before, during and after independence are covered as well. In case of India history after independence is covered with entirely new page with a different name. or let us change others to make it inline.

Buddyonline77 (talk) 06:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

---

Copied from User talk:SpacemanSpiff#why events like "Emergency ", India -pakistan war, not part of "history of India"

Dear sir, I am not good at editing wikipedia and need your help in this. I have very simple questions for you since you reverted few of the changes i did.

1. Why history of India ends at "independence"? there are whole lot of history after that. 2. why don't we create a head for "History of republic India" on the page "History of India" so that we have a brief for people to surf.

thanks in advance — Preceding unsigned comment added by Buddyonline77 (talk • contribs) 04:47, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Buddyonline77:As is explained at the top of the article, post-1947 history is split into the articles covering the history of the three residual countries. I have also mentioned this in my edit summary. This page is not a history of the country India, but what was known as the region of India as is explained within the article. The link to the history of the various residual nations is already included and there's no value in regurgitating random bits within this article, especially as it doesn't pertain to the whole territory. —SpacemanSpiff 04:57, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

thanks for your comment Spiff, however there is a discrepancy in the way we are putting it. History of Pakistan and History of Bangladesh covers the all events including before, during and after independence; where as Indian history is split into two with two different names. We need to combine the two.

I believe there is already a page for British India that covers the "History of Indian region" as you mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Buddyonline77 (talk • contribs) 05:31, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Please see WP:OSE. As is mentioned in the article, this is a summary of the region known as India up until 1947, it's a clear point. It is not the history of the Republic. If you disagree with that point, the right place to open up a conversation is at Talk:History of India and see what other editors have to say. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 05:39, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

End of copied text

---

I've copied the text from Spiff's talkpage. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:28, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

He has a point. But, it depends upon the interpretation of the term "India"- a part or the whole. Again, two wrongs do not make one right.Ghatus (talk) 17:39, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

The hatnote is clear enough. This is a non-issue as far as I am concerned. Kautilya3 (talk) 18:37, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

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Intro to medieval and early modern periods

Although I like this intro in general, it lacks references and has a few questionable claims: "Like other societies in history, South Asia has been attacked by nomadic tribes throughout its long history. In evaluating the impact of Islam on the sub-continent, one must also note that the northwestern sub-continent was a frequent target of tribes from Central Asia who arrived from the North West. In that sense, the Muslim intrusions and later Muslim invasions were not dissimilar to those of the earlier invasions during the 1st millennium. What does however, make the Muslim intrusions and later Muslim invasions different is that unlike the preceding invaders who assimilated into the prevalent social system, the successful Muslim conquerors retained their Islamic identity and created new legal and administrative systems that challenged and usually in many cases superseded the existing systems of social conduct and ethics, even influencing the non-Muslim rivals and common masses to a large extent. They also introduced new cultural that in some ways were very different from the existing cultural codes. This led to the rise of a new Indian culture which was mixed in nature, though different from both the ancient Indian culture and later westernized modern Indian culture. At the same time it must be noted that overwhelming majority of Muslims in India are Indian natives converted to Islam. This factor also played an important role in the synthesis of cultures."

Major points:

• 1) The general point of difference with the previous Central Asian intruders is well made but the claim that the Muslim conquerors created new legal and administrative systems is unsourced. Also, this contradicts the sourced text in the history section of the India page, which says, "Although at first disruptive for the Indian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs." and then "The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local societies it came to rule, but rather balanced and pacified them through new administrative practices and diverse and inclusive ruling elites,[68] leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule." So I think this claim needs to be moderated and developed a bit more.
• 2) "even influencing the non-Muslim rivals and common masses to a large extent" - This is much more contestable. A large part of the impact of Islam on India was due to Sufi saints and other migrants from Central Asia, and maybe the right thing to say here is that the Muslim kingdoms created conditions for large scale of migration of Central and West Asian folks to India who interacted with the locals to produce a syncrectic culture ?

Minor points:

• 1) Not all intruders from Central Asia were 'nomads', folks like Babur had a distinguished ancestry (in terms of royal lineage). But again, the basic gist is understood, just needs more qualification.
• 2) The point about the vast majority of Indian Muslims being locals seems irrelevant to the general thrust of the text here. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 23:36, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Major points:

1. The exact phrase is "created new legal and administrative" system. Read any book on the Rajput legal system and administrative systems and the Sultanate legal and administrative systems. You yourself will find the difference.
2. Vijayanagara and Maratha armies were modeled on the "Muslim Armies" almost wholly. Thus Muslims even influenced their non-Muslim rivals also.

Minor points:

1. Babur claimed to a descendant of Genghis Khan who himself was a nomad. Mongols were central Asian nomads.
2. That reference is necessary to emphasis on the reason of synthesis. Ghatus (talk) 09:39, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

• But the wording used is "created new legal and administrative systems that challenged and usually in many cases superseded the existing systems of social conduct and ethics". With your clarification, I agree with the first part, although it does need a reference. Its the second part that needs work. I was taking this to mean laws and customs, which the text in the India article states were unchanged. So it is the "usually in many cases superseded the existing systems of social conduct and ethics" that is more in need of revision. This clearly contradicts the sourced text on the India article. Perhaps this line can be modified to say,

"Unlike previous nomadic conquerors, the new Central Asian warriors created new legal and administrative systems that differed markedly from extant system [cite]. However, they left the vast non-Muslim populations to their own laws and customs [cite]."

• Again if we are talking about armies and other state institutions it should be made clear. Something along the lines of, "Even rival Hindu kingdoms like the Vijaynagara, Marathas and the Ahoms (?) modeled many of their institutions on the Muslim kingdoms."

I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 13:39, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

New intro to medieval and early modern periods

I propose a new intro to this section, please provide comments: "Like other settled, agrarian societies in history, those in the Indian subcontinent have been attacked by nomadic tribes throughout its long history. In evaluating the impact of Islam on the sub-continent, one must note that the northwestern sub-continent was a frequent target of tribes raiding from Central Asia. In that sense, the Muslim intrusions and later Muslim invasions were not dissimilar to those of the earlier invasions during the 1st millennium. However, unlike previous nomadic conquerors, the new Central Asian warriors created new legal and administrative systems that differed markedly from extant system [cite?]. However, they left the vast non-Muslim populations to their own laws and customs [1,2]. The establishment of Muslim-led kingdoms in India and political upheavals in Central Asia created the conditions for a large scale migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north[3][4], which influences the culture of India even today." 1 - Asher, C. B.; Talbot, C (1 January 2008), India Before Europe (1st ed.), Pg 47 2 - Metcalf, B.; Metcalf, T. R. (9 October 2006), A Concise History of Modern India (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-68225-1, Pg 6 3 - Ludden, D. (13 June 2002), India and South Asia: A Short History, One World, ISBN 978-1-85168-237-9, Pg 67 4 - Asher & Talbot 2008, p. 53.

I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 12:46, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Lead Section - What went wrong

The lead begins with- "The history of India includes prehistoric archaeological evidence from Anatomically modern humans on Indian subcontinent, advances of civilisation to the Vedic period of the Indo-Aryan cultures, the founding of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, a number of ruling dynasties throughout various geographic areas of the subcontinent known as the middle kingdoms, Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent which were followed by European colonization of India and the East India Company and an independence movement that resulted in the Partition of India and the independent Republic of India in 1947."

Before I go into details, we need to know two theories regarding Historiography - 1) New Historicist Approach 2) Cultural Materialist Approach. We can have the basic knowledge on from this - . Both the theories started as part of literary criticism, but now is widely accepted as also part of social science subjects. They are the most modernist ways to inter-prate history as they deal not with "de-mystification" (modernist approach till 1980s) only, but with "de familiarization" (post-modernist approach from 1980s).

To put it briefly, "New Historicist Approach" explains how every social or political or religious or literary movement is a product of the then or contemporary society and social evolution. "Cultural Materialist Approach" proves how various processes being employed by contemporary power structures, such as the church, the state or the academy, to disseminate their ideology by interpreting History from their PoV.

Now, coming to the points,

• History of the founding of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism : All the three religions were product of social evolution or social movements. For example, it was the revolt movement of the 6th century BC that produced Buddhism and Jainism. That revolt or reform movement must be the focus in the lead, not one or two of its byproducts. This is both wrong emphasis and wrong interpretation of History.

• The Middle Kingdoms of India : There was no such thing as "Middle Kingdoms" in Indian history. It is at best an after thought or is at worst a creation of the fertile imagination of some Wikipedia editors. (Ancient>Medieval>Modern)

• Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent which were followed by European colonization : This can be explained by "Cultural Materialist Approach" or “a politicized form of historiography.” Did that really happen? Even a first year History student knows the "destructions, constructions and the de-constructions" that followed Turkic conquest of North India in the early 13th century. My simple question, Mughals or Maratha & Siks - Who dominated India before EIC?

I am afraid that I have gone too deep into theories, but I hope that I have made them easy for all. The first part of the lead not only looks awkward (creating a summary of the summary of the article), but provides wrong and misleading informations.

If anyone wants to present the correct history, write then - Paleolithic > Mesolithic > Neolithic > IVC > ... etc. Why should we put opinionated and coloured History in the first place? We should maintain chronology and there is no need to create a summary of the summary (lead).

SORRY FOR THE DELAYED RESPONSE. I HAD SOME OTHERS THINGS TO DO. @Kautilya3: , @Joshua Jonathan: and others. Ghatus (talk) 07:01, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

The opening paragraph was added to respect the policy of WP:MOSBEGIN. We can of course edit it to be more accurate. But I think we have to focus on the historical "facts" of lasting consequence rather than theories or interpretations.

• I suggest that we change "founding of Hinduism,..." to "development of Hinduism,...". As we all know, Hinduism wasn't "founded." The "revolt of 6th century BC" is just a theory whereas the development of the religions is a fact.
• I didn't know that "middle kingdoms" was Wikipedia's own invention! We need to get rid of it, and get rid of it everywhere. Perhaps "classical and late classical periods of kingdoms"?
• I don't have too much of a problem with "Muslim conquests". It is after all a decisive fact of Indian history, whose consequences are still present. Perhaps it can be softened to "the arrival of Muslim dynasties".
• The Maratha/Sikh ascendancy was short-lived. I don't see the need to mention it. - Kautilya3 (talk) 10:03, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

• The "revolt of 6th century BC" is just a theory: No. It's accepted worldwide and happened worldwide. 1)For Worldwide, read this-. Read any book to check whether it's true or not. 2)For India, read this

RISE OF NEW RELIGIOUS IDEAS

The new religious ideas during this period emerged out of the prevailing social, economic and religious conditions. Let us examine some of the basic reasons which contributed to their emergence: i) The Vedic religious practices had become cumbersome, and in the context of the new society of the period had become in many cases meaningless ceremonies. Sacrifices and rituals increased and became more elaborate and expensive. With the breakup of communities, the participation in these practices also became restricted and as such irrelevant to many sections in the society. ii) Contemporary economic and political developments, on the other hand, helped the emergence of new social groups which acquired considerable economic power. You have seen that merchants living in cities or even rich agricultural householders possessed considerable wealth. Similarly, the Kshatriyas, whether in the monarchies or in the gana-samghas, came to wield much more political power than before. These social groups were opposed to the social positions defined for them by the Brahrnanas on the basis of their heredity. As Buddhism and Jainism did not give much importance to the notion of birth for social status, they attracted the Vaisyas to their folds. Similarly, the Kshatriyas i.e. the ruling class were also unhappy with Brahmanical domination. Briefly put, it was basically the discontent generated the dominant position of the Brahmanas in the society, which contributed to the social support behind the new religious ideas. It is worth remembering that both Buddha and Mahavira came from Kshatriya class but in their search for answers to the pressing problems of society they went beyond boundaries set by their birth. Further, when we try to find out how their ideas were received by their contemporaries, we notice that they had a range of people responding to them: Kings, big merchants, rich householders, Brahmans and even courtesans. They all represented the new society which was emerging in the sixth century B.C. and Buddha and Mahavira, and other thinkers of those times, in their own ways, responded to the problems of a new social order. The Vedic ritualistic practices had ceased to be of much relevance to this new social order. Buddha and Mahavira, were by no means, the first to criticise the existing religious beliefs. Many religious preachers before them, like Kapila, Makkali Gosala, Ajita Kesakambalin and Pakuda Kachchayana had already highlighted the evils of the Vedic religions. They also developed new ideas on life and God. New philosophies were also being preached. However, it was Buddha and Mahavira, who provided an alternative religious order. This was the background which helped the emergence and establishment of new religious orders in the sixth century B.C. Among these Buddhism and Jainism were most popular and well organized. We will now discuss the origin and development of Buddhism and Jainism separately…

• I didn't know that "middle kingdoms" was Wikipedia's own invention: Okey.

• It is after all a decisive fact of Indian history, whose "consequences are still present": 1) My problem is with the phrase "followed by". As, "Muslim" conquest was not "followed by" EIC. 2)BTW, were the "migration" of "Aryans", advent of the Greeks and EIC less consequential in Indian History? Modern Hinduism is based on "Aryanism" and modern India state is based on the British Parliamentary system. You clearly seem to be a victim of "contemporary power structures and narratives." That's way I talked about Cultural Materialism. Think over that. :-) Ghatus (talk) 11:33, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

As Kautilya3 stated, i added the sentence per WP:MOSBEGIN as a first pass attempt to reflect a summary of the article content and the major events that are still making their effects felt today. Honing the focus and phrasing to better reflect the article and the sources will be an ongoing process. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:57, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

References

Insufficient mention of Ahom Kingdom

This article has hardly any mention of the Ahom Kingdom, which ruled significant portions of today's North East India. Most importantly Ahoms are considered significant in India's history because they were able to rule themselves and maintain their independence for almost 600 years. Despite repeated attempts by the Mughals, Ahoms did not become a Mughal vassal and successfully resisted the Mughal might. Ahom Kingdom's insufficient mention on this page somehow indicates double standards and a one-sided approach. Hence I am adding it. Credible evidences about Ahom Kingdom mentioned hereby:

• Ref-1
• Ref-2
• Ref-3

Amit20081980 (talk) 12:31, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

References

Muslim conquests

[Copied from User talk:Ghatus]

Suppose Delhi had developed an Islamic community, which eventually grew powerful enough to take over the surrounding kingdoms. Then you would call it the "rise of Muslim powers." But that is not what happened. The Muslim rulers from the surrounding regions of India came to conquer. Should it be called a "Muslim conquest," i.e., was religion a factor? The answer is again yes, because the Turko-Persian literature of the time is full of Islamist ideology. - Kautilya3 (talk) 10:04, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

@Kautilya3:, Religion was the last thing they were concerned about. Modern historians call it "the Turkish conquest". All came as Turks or Mongols, but some of them (S.Lodi, Firoz Tughlaq, A'zeb) expanded their kingdom as Muslims. Ghatus (talk) 13:53, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

In Delhi Sultanate, there was the concept of "Jahandari and Dindari". And, Mongols were ruled by "Turah" or " Yasa" or "Yusun" or "Yasaq" (the laws formulated by Chingiz after his ascendancy ).Ghatus (talk) 14:16, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Ok, even if we leave the religion out of the picture (for the sake of argument), it was still a conquest. It wasn't simply "the rise of Muslim powers." - Kautilya3 (talk) 16:55, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it was indeed a "conquest" in 1206. But, it was not the only conquest to single out. More than a dozen of such conquests took place in the preceding 2000 years having profound impacts. Either mention them all or mention them not at all. Again, only 2 out of 7 Muslim dynasties that dominated North India came into being through conquest. Other five, which include dynasties like Khiljis, Tughlaqs, Suris etc, grabbed power by dint of Coups, not conquest. So, "Muslim rule or Muslim Powers" and "conquests" are not synonymous. Ghatus (talk) 05:21, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Archives

The archives are a mess. Pinging @SpacemanSpiff: @Joshua Jonathan: - one of you must might have broken the archiving when you changed MiszaBot parameters.--regentspark (comment) 17:06, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

That wasn't the issue. JJ's and my changes were sort of fine, but someone physically moved the talk page out of sequence to Archive 3 and there's been copy-paste moves to 1, 2, 4 and neither of us noticed that. So the history of this page is very very odd. I'll try fixing that once I figure out what's wrong, it's absurd to not be able to do a history search on the talk page because of that. —SpacemanSpiff 17:20, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Everything is hunky-dory now. This was the fix needed. Archive 5 is your friend. —SpacemanSpiff 18:03, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 15 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus that the proposed title is more commonly used in reliable sources. Jenks24 (talk) 13:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

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History of India → History of the Indian subcontinent – The present title is is not exactly NPOV. The article covers a broader historical region encompassing India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; a region more appropriately defined as the Indian subcontinent. The current title is easily confused with the History of the Republic of India. I'm afraid "History of India" may exclude readership interest on Bangladesh and Pakistan, which are integral regions to this article's subject. Akbar the Great (talk) 01:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - We had an RfC in December-January [7], which did not achieve consensus. There is no need for another RfM now. (Can somebody check why this doesn't appear in the archives?) - Kautilya3 (talk) 09:20, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Well the change would have been in the best interests of WikiProject South Asia. The academics obviously point to an entire civilization, which is best described as a subcontinent of various empires and kingdoms. The name India is also from a river which mostly runs in Pakistan.--Akbar the Great (talk) 16:50, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Already discussed. Please read it. You will get all your questions answered.Ghatus (talk) 16:56, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment The previous discussion (what the heck happened to the archives?) concluded that academic sources discuss all of the history of the region under 'history of India'. Failing new sources that show otherwise, I don't think this is going to go anywhere. --regentspark (comment) 17:00, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
• Comment Has everyone forgotten about Indology? The field refers to not just India, but the rest of South Asia. The Indian subcontinent is used in various sources 1 23 4. Over half the content of this article also covers the histories of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The region is highly intertwined. The Sikh Empire was based in Lahore. Buddha was born in Nepal. The Pala Empire originated in Bangladesh. If you agree that Indian history spans a much broader historical unit (which in the previous RM, many of you did), then obviously it is the Indian subcontinent.--Akbar the Great (talk) 19:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

  Predominantly (and I don't want to rehash all the earlier discussions so you should read them yourself), academic sources use 'History of India' and that's why we do too. We don't define things on Wikipedia. --regentspark (comment) 22:40, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

I won't say its predominant, both terms are used interchangeably. So much of the content and historical context here overlap with the histories of Bangladesh and Pakistan, it doesn't seem practical to duplicate the article in other pages. Please understand my rationale. A fair Wikipedia descriptive title isn't an invention.--Akbar the Great (talk) 00:15, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you about what is appropriate or accurate. What you need to realize is that we don't build rationales for titles but use whatever reliable source predominantly use. Roughly speaking, this is to avoid introducing our own biases into Wikipedia. There is little point in arguing that the history covers a larger region or that the Sikh empire was centered in Lahore. Using that sort of logic is WP:OR. Instead, we just go with what reliable sources use. If you search the archives, or even just look at google, sources that use "History of India" outnumber "History of the Indian Subcontinent" by an astronomical margin. So, that's what we say too. You just have to read WP:NPOV to see that NPOV doesn't mean a viewpoint that reflects your or my view about what is an accurate title. Rather, it is what reliable academic sources use as the title that matters and that is the true neutral viewpoint. Wikipedia is not a crowd-sourced site, it is a reliably sourced one. --regentspark (comment) 02:37, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Correct. It's also not a nationalist site. "History of India" is surely used a lot, but only among Indian historians and those focused on the nation state of India.--Akbar the Great (talk) 03:58, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose: The article deals mainly with that India which is sill India. So seeing no reason to call it "Indian subcontinent". Also, if moved we need to note that we have articles with format "History of [country]" and then we will have to recreate "History of India" which will be exactly this! §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 04:13, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Although a consensus on this not happening now, I'd just like to point out though, that History of India should be history of modern India. The History of the Indian subcontinent should cover the region's pre partition history, like the History of Europe. Unique regional histories could have included the History of Bengal and History of Punjab, like history of the Levant. The history of Pakistan and history of Bangladesh pages should have focused on modern times.--Akbar the Great (talk) 05:05, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.