A most unsatisfactory reason for studying ancient India would be for the purpose of glorifying India and proclaiming the quite unproven achievements of ancient Indians. This unfortunate tendency, prevalent among some modern Indians, is a defensive reaction to Western progress during the last two centuries. It has also been encouraged by excessively lavish praises showered on India by some foreign intellectuals and philosophers
Another dubious reason for studying ancient India is for the purpose of drawing attention to the so-called decline of India after the arrival of Islam in the country and of comparing negatively the course of post-CE 1200 events in India with the achievements of the pre-CE 1200 period.
Third, for a large number of people in the West, it is a religion that seems to have mostly excited their interest in ancient India. This is the result of a great deal of study and popularisation of Hindu and Buddhist traditions by Western scholars. Unfortunately, this has also led to the growth of a number of stereotypes, of which the one repeated most often is that the Indians are a highly spiritual people with a fatalistic outlook. This imbalance in the thinking about India can be corrected by attending to other valuable legacies from ancient India.
Three particular legacies – in relation to intellect, art and morality – are worth considering. The intellectual heritage of ancient India is immense. The Indians composed learned texts long before the Europeans, they were the first great grammarians and their epics dealt with issues of eternal significance. They produced great mathematicians and astronomers, whose work eventually passed into mainstream studies.
Without the ancient Indians, we would not have had our number system, upon which all modern science and technologies are based. Some ancient Indians were also great dissenters, and quite disputatious
They were accustomed to debating issues in both a passionate and an icily logical style long before such experiments evolved within European civilization. Another major heritage of ancient India is artistic and aesthetic. The craftsman has a distinct place in Indian society.
From the very first civilization of India, the Harappan, archaeologists have retrieved beautiful and stylistic women’s jewelry and children’s toys, indicating its people’s sophisticated lifestyle.
The bronze and copper works of Indian craftsmen have always been in demand throughout the ages. Ancient Indian textile designs are still avidly sought after by international fashion houses and the temples of ancient India draw tourists in their millions.
Indian trade and trading skills show people as concerned as any other with material goods. The third great heritage from ancient India is that of a vision of a morally ordered society, busy at its work and generally at peace with itself
Of course, there was violence and disorder at many junctures of her history; but essentially ancient India evolved gradually – and, compared with many other countries, peacefully – over a long period of 8,200 years.
Internationally, India did not engage in rapacious warfare or humiliate foreign peoples, as so many ancient and modern nations did to their neighbors and peoples abroad. Indian warfare was always constrained by clear ethical guidelines.
From the earliest times, the Indians have borne the strong moral responsibility of promoting international amity and goodwill. In modern times, such distinguished Indians as Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950) have much emphasized this particularly affirmative and attractive feature of India and her peoples.
It is clear that there are many positive reasons why we should study ancient Indian history. At the same time, we need to be critical and comparative in our approach. In certain aspects of public life, ancient India lagged behind such civilizations as Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome, and its shortcomings should be recognized.
It does not behoove modern Indians to boast about ancient Indian technology when it is manifest that China was far more advanced in this area than any other nation. The Indians were also slower in developing intelligible scripts than the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians were.
The early Indians paid scant attention to the precise documentation and systematic recording of events in their country, whereas other ancient civilizations, particularly the Chinese and Romans, were scrupulous with their historiography.
The ancient Indians showed abysmal disregard for issues of inequality and poverty that have disfigured the face of India throughout its history. Many Indian texts lament the conditions of poverty and inequality, but in none do we find any effusion of outrage or passion. The caste system had much to do with this passivity, and it remains perhaps the greatest moral blot on the record of ancient India.
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