Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.9

c6.9

In the latter half of the 1st millennium B.C., however, history and archaeology at last become fully effective partners in this matter of timing, without the intervention of physical science. A datum-line is provided by the partially historic life of the Buddha, who, for our purpose, represents that miraculous upsurge of reflective and creative thought which swept across the world from Greece to China about 500 B.C. Sharing in this upsurge, Achaemenid Persia, with its systematized imperialism and its rich artistry, reached out to the Indus region about 518 B.C.* At this time, too, in the Ganges valley native kingdoms were already laying the foundations of the great literate Indian empire that was to emerge two centuries later. To them, Persia transmitted, directly or indirectly, not merely a pattern of empire but also important new skills and utilities: above all the use of iron and of coinage. It can be no mere coincidence that in northern India (as indeed in distant Britain) 500 B.C. or a little earlier marks the nominal beginning of the Iron Age, always with the proviso that cultural backwaters are a familiar feature of the Indian landscape. Nor is it likely to be chance that then or shortly afterwards the first Indian coinage appears in the Ganges valley as a new aid and incentive to organized commerce. And home-enterprise was in no way lacking. Following the arrival of iron—perhaps, indeed, literally reflecting the aspect of the new and fashionable metal—the Ganges craftsmen invented a distinctive and remarkable ceramic which is a godsend to the archaeologist: the so-called 'Northern Black Polished' or 'N.B.P.' Ware, of steel-like quality, which will constantly recur in later chapters. This pottery spread outwards from the Ganges Basin to the North-West Frontier, Bengal and the Deccan; its nuclear date seems to be 5th-2nd centuries B.C. (see p. 30). It followed an equally distinctive ‘Painted Grey’ or ‘P.G.’ Ware, often of comparable quality but less securely dated within the earlier half of the 1st millennium; 8th-5th centuries B.C. is a provisional bracket (p. 26). Of these and other crafts and industries more will be said; here they are mentioned as examples of an accumulation of data to which an approximate timetable can be attached.