the story of India

Recently watched a PBS documentary. The Story of India- with Micheal Woods... wow..
I did not know that my country had such a rich and long history. I think this is the first and only documentary that I have seen about the real history of India. It starts from 30,000 years ago.. when the first migration of humans happened from the African coasts to the Indian coasts along the middle east. And the migrants journeyed their way into the land of present day Kerala... why because it was a rich land.. marshes and backwaters and fertile soil... the people who came there had the M130 gene.. and some peoples from a certain region in those parts still have that gene expressed... this is due to marriage between first cousins and so the lack of hybridization. It is amazing to see that... there were some scientists from the Madurai University, if I remember correctly, who conducted DNA analysis of these people to ascertain the presence of this gene..
the earliest form of communication was not language but sounds... like the sounds of a baby... but pronounced.. there is a sect of Brahmins who still practice the 'hymns' from those times... along with a prayer to the fire god... the most amazing thing is that though all these years have passed and the world has changed from twigs of neem plants as toothbrushes to touch-pads for computing these traditions have been handed down from father to son over these years...


The show then talks about the rise and spread of the Aryan race, as it is so called, from the lands of the Indus river. the Indus river is not only a myth because tectonic shifts have made it change its course to where it is now a dry bed.... the word "Arya" stands for learned or cultured... and it is derived from the Sanskrit language. The people were referred to as Aryans because they were the first people to form a 'civilized' society. At that time in the European, African and American continents people still lived as hunter-gatherers. the origins of the Aryan race can be taken back to the Hindu-Kush mountains and beyond though no firm starting point is proven beyond doubt...Adolf Hitler's Nazi party called themselves the Aryans- the pure ones or whatever and one of his generals, infamous Heinrich Himmler, carried with him a copy of the Bhagwadgita.. which teaches the warrior Arjuna the importance of Dharma or duty... that is it is his duty to follow through without thought to his actions... when Arjuna is required to kill his own brothers for they are not righteous.... HH says that the book acts as a support to him to justify his duty of killing of the 'inferiors'... I consider this to be misuse of the theory of Dharma...

The documentary then talks about the spread of religions through the world where it surprisingly says that Christianity spread from the middle east to India first before going on to Europe and then onwards to America... there are still millions of Christians who live in India and whose families date back to thousands of years... well atleast 2010 years.... it also talks in depth about Buddhism and Jainism... when Siddhartha the king became an ascetic and turned towards Nirvana or Moksh...not for 200 years after his death did the spread of Buddhism occur.. and it did not catch on too much in India because India is a country of millions of Gods.. which could be called deities....and Buddha said that affection towards God was kind of a clinging and thus greed which was not the path to Nirvana.... that was bound to not work in India even though the Buddha was an Indian....

Then it talks about Islam and the rule and plunder and progress of the Indian populace at the hands of the Mughals and the Afghans and the Turks in depth... the inclusion of Islamic politicians in Hindu king's courts and Hindu bureaucrats in the courts of Islamic Kings and Emperors.

It talks about the silk roads where silk made in the Orient was processed by thousands of skilled workers in India and which was then a commodity for the rich and famous.. then it talks about the spice roads... the spices were the ones that really brought out the European explorers to the Indian coasts...that discovery was also accidental for the explorers as they were amazed at how the food lasted so long even in the warm climate... and then they were enlightened about the process of pickling.

The documentary talks about the largest migration in human history which happened between India and Pakistan after the partition of India... such a large migration has never happened in history it says... it talks about the freedom struggle and the European explorers who came to India, learned the languages and translated epics into readable prose for the common man elsewhere... and the introduction of the "Zero"  in math to the introduction of the "pi" or 3.14 which is so commonly used in higher math and trigonometry... when Galileo predicted that the earth was round and not flat, the Indian astronomers were talking about the solar system and beyond...

All through the program the scene is very rural... the urban part of India is not shown but for the last few minutes/seconds... cause this is the story of India and it has to be the old story. What amazes me is that tradition and culture have been preserved over eons in our country and even though there are software developers developing mind boggling technologies they still go to the temple and proudly display the vermilion mark on their foreheads... bow down to their parents and touch their feet....

In the next few years when the technologic progress supersedes most other places the story of India will change... but not too much I think.