The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c9.24

c9.24

The most remarkable demonstration of the validity of this zones and strata concept comes from recent archaeological studies. While a Pre-pottery Neolithic culture in the nuclear Near-east is at least as old as 7000-8000 B.C., at Jericho, a similar community with an identical technology on the borders of Baluchistan is dated to 3500 B.C.¹ Even if we accept the slightly later dates of Jarmo and Hassuna for the incipient agricultural communities (about 5000 B. C.), a similar technological stage shows a time lag of about 1500 years. It has been well demonstrated by Braidwood² (fig. 2) who has devised his 'Iso-chrons' to show a slow spread of technological advances from an epi-centre in the 'Fertile crescent'. Thus we are well justified in treating the Indus Basin as a peripheral region of the ancient cradle of civilization in Western Asia. Yet, the comparative isolation from the dynamic regions of the Middle East has set its own pattern of cultural development. Adopting the famous analysis by Collingwood³ of the relation between Britain and Europe, one can easily say that the rhythms of civilization have always been slower in India and its pulsations less violent, than in Western Asia. Though we do not have the quick and brilliant flowering of Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Assyrian or Achaemenid art, this seldom failed to find a reflection in India. Besides, each phase of cultural development in India, as a sort of compensation, tended to overlap with the next, to give an impression of continuity and relative permanence. This slowness of rhythm gives an impression that India "is a mere laggard" in the movement of the history of civilization, and a "refuse heap" on the edge of the Western Asian cradle of civilization.