Ancient India was Pakistan

You only read that you want, Alexander wasn't the greek that more advanced in India, you have too the grekobactrian invasions of the III-II century BC; more important, you have the historian-embassor Megasthenes a greek that live in Pataliputra and his book "Indica", a crucial source about the history of India:

http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/history/primarydocs/Foreign_Views/GreekRoman/Megasthenes-Indika.htm

 
And then you have the "Periplus of the Erithrean Sea" of the I century AC about the trade routes between India and Rome

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/periplus.html

And we can count the great roman authors like Strabo or Ptolemy.


Well, sufficient?

Edited by Ikki - 17-Sep-2006 at 05:14

Originally posted by Ikki You only read that you want, Alexander wasn't the greek that more advanced in India, you have too the grekobactrian invasions of the III-II century BC; more important, you have the historian-embassor Megasthenes a greek that live in Pataliputra and his book "Indica", a crucial source about the history of India: http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/history/primarydocs/Foreign_Views/GreekRoman/Megasthenes-Indika.htm   And then you have the "Periplus of the Erithrean Sea" of the I century AC about the trade routes between India and Rome http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/periplus.html And we can count the great roman authors like Strabo or Ptolemy. Well, sufficient?

Edited by TeldeInduz - 17-Sep-2006 at 13:18

Originally posted by Anujkhamar As i've said constantly in this thread, I have no idea where this indus end of the world thing is coming from, when they clearly knew of the Ganges (to them the end of the world, flows into the nile). The Ganges is not in Pakistan, its in India.

Right, but if they give modern pakistan 90% of the area of "India" in their maps and give the rest of india 10% of the area of the entire subcontinent does that not mean anything? Sure they knew of the existence of the Ganges but evidently their maps did not really show much beyond the indus. At least the map that was posted here.

Originally posted by TeldeInduz [/quote]

maqsad said

India, which is in shape quadrilateral, has its eastern as well as its western side bounded by the great sea, but on the northern side it is divided by Mount Hemodos from that part of Skythia which is inhabited by those Skythians who are called the Sakai, while the fourth or western side is bounded by the river called the Indus, which is perhaps the largest of all rivers in the world after the Nile. Now does this not match the "quadrilateral" map that was shown earlier? Or are there any maps that are more accurate that represent modern India in its true form? Right, but if they give modern pakistan 90% of the area of "India" in their maps and give the rest of india 10% of the area of the entire subcontinent does that not mean anything? Sure they knew of the existence of the Ganges but evidently their maps did not really show much beyond the indus. At least the map that was posted here.

If you read becarefully, you will see that they say too "romboydal", and that they put the limits of India far from the Indus, in the seas far to the south and the east.

maqsad, the book of Megasthenes prove clearly what was India for the greeks... of the hellenistic time. The maps of the first page can prove two things: that is based on obsolete information for the greeks of centuries after Alexander, or the author was missinformated. Anybody discuss that the greeks at the time of Herodotus only know about India her western part, present Pakistan, but is a futile eforce try to prove that they knew anymore, at the moment that the knowledge of India expanded hugely after the Alexander expansion. Here you can see a renaissance map based on the information of Ptolemy (150 AC):

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/images/PtolemyMapLarge.jpg

You can see both Indus and Ganges and in the middle "India..."



Edited by Ikki - 17-Sep-2006 at 18:39

Originally posted by Ikki Originally posted by TeldeInduz   The point the article makes is that according to the Ancient Greeks, the usage of "India" was to the Indus Valley aka Pakistan. The Ancient Greek period lasted from 776 BC-323 BC. What most of the authors referred to above are talking about refer to the Hellenistic Period that came after Alexander. I havent read the article but I'm not sure if Strabo even refers to India as modern day India. You are confusing ancient greeks with classical greeks, both hellenistic and classic are ancient greek. If the intention of the article was that the greeks of the classical times only know western India that is, present Pakistan, don't discover the sun: is well known that but this time they only know India because the persians, who knew India with a certain accuracy in her western part. But if we want to be fair, we must understand that after a first moment the greeks knew the entire subcontinent.

Keep waiting  

The heading of this thread itself is wrong.

maqsad said

1. The indus river was the headquarters of the ancient pakistanis(indus valley civilization) from 3000 BC to probably 1000 BC but Im too lazy to check exactly. The modern provinces panjab, kashmir and sindh are the areas in that extended valley. The Indus river was not known as Indus at this point in their language.

Agree

2. It was the ancient pakis themselves who named themselves Sindhus around 1500 BC. This naming was based on the Indus river. Do you agree with that or do you assert that some greek or persian explorer came to ancient pakistan and bookmarked that area as "sindhu" or "indus" and later on the inhabitants themselves decided to adopt that name?

Agree.

Yes there is a lot of confusion with many persians and afghans today claiming they colonized and created the "hindu" culture that arose around 500 BC in ancient pakistan but thats not really relevent right now. Also the macedonians did not occupy pakistan(indus river lands) until 540s BC.

I suppose, you had a "lapsus": 340 BC.

3. The macedonians occupied ancient pakistan until about the 300s BC and they named it India because that region itself had been calling itself the land of the Indus before alexander came. In fact if you read his diary he even sailed down the Indus river fighting with various city states.

All we know that.

Anyway......the whole point of these facts was that the name India is more suited to pakistan than to bharat/india because pakistan is where it was created and pakistan was what it referred to first.

I totally agree. The problem here is as follow: the initial article want said that in fact, is not fair that present India must be called India, because Pakist�n was India first. Well, because it want support this assertion put the enphasis in the fact that the greeks, persians too but specially the greeks (that is, westerness) knew India as the country of the Indus.

Two points.

1. The fact that present Pakist�n was called first India don't exclude to present India for the name, at the moment that since the III century BC the entire subcontinent was called India. This is exactly equal than the example of �frica: the first region so called was Tunisia, then the name expanded to the entire Moghreb and then cover the entire continent like in the present we know it. But, the fact that Tunisia was first �frica can't be a reason for sack this name to the entire continent.

At the same moment that anybody say "Pakist�n is more India than present India because was called India first", another guy can perfectly say "present India is more India, because follow a native tradition, and not a foreigner tradition". So i recommend don't begin with this game.

2. The "supporters" of the article are the greeks. But only the ancient greeks that knew India as the land of the Indus, not the ancient greeks that after the Alexander campaigns knew the entire subcontinent called it "India".


I don't know what we get repeating the fact that all the world know: that the first territory called India was the Indus valley.





To Teldeinduz:

dont think this is true. The Greeks did not know anything East of the modern state of Pakistan until after Herodotus and the "classical" period - The Classical Period ends after Alexander, and traditionally so does the Ancient Greek Period, but it's not a major point.

We know that, but contrary is important, at the moment that the greeks are the "supporters" of the argument "Pakist�n first". The classical period is not equal to ancient period, ancient Greece don't finished until the cristianization of the greeks.

The main point is that the Greeks did not know anything East of modern Pakistan until the Hellenic Period as the works of Strabo and Ptolemy point out. This was around 200 BC when Europe found out about the Ganges etc. For the most part, all the history of India, before this time in the records of Persians, Europeans would have been of Pakistan.

Yes, but with more accuracy, about western India, at the moment that present Pakistan was a portion of India.

Pataliputra isnt Patna as was thought, this was an area in Balochistan that is in current Pakistan.

Sirs please we must be serious, don't vast our time.

It's possible Gangaradai was a part of India though Gangaradai = Ganges, India = Indus would be the best way to name things.

The reasons why the greeks expanded the name "India" to the entire subcontinent isn't clear, probably that they viewed an only society and tradition (with diversity) in the entire territory. Read again the text of Megasthenes and the classical authors, they expanded the name India for all the territory, see for example Pliny, Natural History, Fragm. LVI, there he explain the main peoples of India, in Ganges, Indus or Kalinga.

I'm not sure what the bracketed bit means. Is this what Ptolemy wrote? There were regions it seems called Indica extra Gangem and Indica pars etc.

Sure, see here



They included the present province of Assam as "India extra Ganges"!!

I'm not sure if there's a big disagreement here.

Oh my friend a great change, now India isn't only the land around the Indus, but the land between Ganges and Indus, a portion out to the East, the extreme south and Ceylon.

This means that everything referred to by the Greeks as ancient India before around 300 BC was ancient Pakistan. Everything after 300 BC might have referred to India or Pakistan. That is, when talking about the Indus Valley, the Aryans, the Archemids, up to Alexander's Empire, the history of Ancient India in these records is the history of Pakistan and not modern day India.

Of course my friend, of course, but who want discover the sun? The process is as follow:

1. The Indians of the Indus valley called the river, the region "Shindus" etc

2. The persians knew India, conquered it and stablished there sathrapies.

3. The greeks of classical times know India, but only the region around the Indus valley because their sources was the persian information.

4. After the Alexander's expansion and between IV-II centuries BC the greeks contacted with more indians, then as members of the roman Empire they trade with all the coast of the subcontinent. They included to all the new peoples that they see in the subcontinent as India.


This must be our point of reference, the moment that the greeks have stablished the concept of India in her historical boundaries (II century AC) as we know it until today, not before. That is the end of the proccess, Indus=India, only the beginning.







Edited by Ikki - 18-Sep-2006 at 13:17

Teldeinduz what are you on with your "ancient Pakistanis".

Edited by Vedam - 18-Sep-2006 at 18:30

Originally posted by Vedam Teldeinduz what are you on with your "ancient Pakistanis". The millions of Indians who left during partition tell me are they actually Pakistanis, and if so why did they end up in INDIA - APPROX seven million, lets say now about 40 million. Belive me there are not millions of Pakistanis living in India. And what makes you think that the people who occupy Pakistan now are the same ones who resided there during ancient times. Dont people move around? Doesn't Pakistan have 8% Mujahirs from India. How about the Arabs and sheiks and Sayyids, Mughals are they also the "ancient Pakistanis" the Greeks and Romans knew. The "ancient Pakistanis" you make me laugh!  Remember you need to go by people not just who occupies the land at a particular point.

Don't worry. 2000 years from now you can call "Bharat" Pakistan. Happy now?