The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.2

v1.c33.2

It is the misfortune of Indian History that its earliest and most obscure pages derive little light from contemporary antiquities. Before the rise of the Maurya Empire a well-developed and flourishing civilisation had existed in India for at least a thousand years; yet, of the structural monuments erected during those ages not one example has survived save the Cyclopean walls of Rājagṛiha; and of man's lesser handiwork, few objects except the primitive implements, pottery, and tombs of the stone and early metal ages. Moreover, such as they are, the value of these antiquities is still further diminished by the fact that there are none among them to which a precise date can be ascribed, while in the case of the majority, even apart from the remains of palaeolithic man, it is impossible to affirm within half a millennium when they were produced. This strange scarcity of materials in a country so vast and thickly populated as India is due in a great measure to the custom which then generally, though not universally, prevailed of building in wood, as well as to the destructive agency of the Indian climate which rapidly obliterates everything of a perishable nature; but it is due, also, to the neglect, until the last few years, of scientific exploration on the ancient town sites of India, which alone are likely to yield the stratigraphical evidence indispensable for determining the chronology of these early ages.