Studies in the Origins of Buddhism c13.3

c13.3

The discovery of Indus Civilisation has revolutionised our perspective of Indian cultural origins somewhat in the same way as the discovery of Aegean Civilisation revolutionised the perspective of Greek history. We can no longer regard the course of Indian history as the career of a victorious Aryan civilisation contaminated increasingly by the force of indigenous barbarism. On the contrary, the Aryan invasion of India must be regarded as "the arrival of barbarians into a region already highly organised into an empire based on a long-established tradition of literate urban culture."¹ This is a veritable Copernican revolution!