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History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c39.s2: (B) The Vedic Age, Iron Age and Second Urbanisation

History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c39.s2

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English

Contents

(B) The Vedic Age, Iron Age and Second Urbanisation

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Chattopadhyaya insinuated that ‘one reason for the objection against the theory of Aryan invasion... seems to be frankly chauvinistic, (Chattopadhyaya, 1986, pp. 360-371). The present author countered the charge by quoting the internationally reputed scholars (Biswas and Biswas, 1989, Biswas 1990. The possible objections to the newly emerging paradigm (Dyson’s beautiful summary outlined in detail in the previous section (A) of this article) were also successfully met (Biswas, 1990, pp. 37-45).

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One of the possible objections has been that the Rgvedic civilization was rural and could not have anything common with the urban, Harappan tradition. This objection merely illustrates ‘the absence of a rigorous analysis of the Rgvedic literature’ as mentioned by Dyson (1982) and quoted earlier. The Rgvedic god Indra, ‘the destroyer of cities’, merely symbolized the tillers and pastoral people taking up arms and using horses against the oppression perpetrated by the urban rulers and plunderers coming to the Sarasvati valley from the west and the south. Hundreds of cities were no doubt destroyed by the Rgvedic warriors (archaeological excavation revealed the burning of the Harappan site Surkotada) (Shaffer; see also Lukacs, pp. 77-90), but the victor Divodāsa himself became the ruler of a few such cities (RV. 4.26.3) specially of those made of aśma (stone) (RV. 4.30.20). The Rgvedic people knew palaces ‘with many pillars’ (RV. 5.62.6) and ‘many doors’ (RV. 7.88.5). They adored efficient city administrators (RV. 1.173.19). Kalibangan, the third important urban centre of the Harappan civilization, flourished on the confluence of the Sarasvatī and Dṛṣadvati, and has been widely claimed as a Rgvedic site.

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In the semi-urban surroundings, the Rgvedic agriculturists, carpenters, wheelwrights, weavers (of wool), leather workers, blacksmiths, medical men, poets and rich men (traders) lived together; the blacksmiths used to approach the rich people (hiraṇyavantam) and offered to make for them metallic artifacts and ornaments (RV. 9.112.2, 10.53.9 etc.)

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The Rgveda described in part the chalcolithic culture in the foothill of the Sivalik mountains extending along the valleys of the Sarasvatī river system. It notes the Pre-Harappan transition from the neolithic to the chalcolithic period : aśmanmayi vasi (10.101.10) or stone-made implement to vasim ayasim (8.29.3) or metallic axes. In the very first hymn (1.1.1) the text eulogizes fire as ratnadhātamam or cradle of gems meaning gold, silver or copper. We have noted in the Rgveda the following words/items related to minerals and metals (Biswas, Chakravarty and Biswas, pp. 49-66):

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Jewel, grinding or sharpening stone, metalsmith or black- smith, bellows blowing air, melting gold or metal, sharpening metal. Gold, golden necklace, head ornament, ear-ring (*hiraṇya-karṇa*, 1.122.14), coin, silver, anklet, ring, breast-plate, bangle, copper (*ayasmaya tamba*, 5.30.15). Metallic leg, razor, bucket, cymbal, javelin or lance, lute, needle, scissor, sword, knife, sickle, ploughshare, shield, metal stick used for roasting meat, cooking vessel etc. The references to the blacksmiths, bellows, melting of metals and many artifacts of gold, silver and ayas (probably copper and bronze), and also of traders, river navigation, urban games like dice-playing, multi-storey buildings etc. clearly signify that the authors of the Rgveda were quite familiar with the urban life of the Harappan standard, notwithstanding their preferences for rural simplicity and religious fervour.

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In his legitimate attempt to glorify the Harappan civilization, Chattopadhyaya has unnecessarily sought to underrate the scientific contributions of the Rgvedic civilization. He writes:

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“The concept of *rta* - containing the idea of the laws of nature - could never have occurred to the Rgvedic poets as ordained by any omnipotent Divine Creator for the simple reason that the mono-theistic theology was totally unknown to them” (Chattopadhyaya, 1986, p. 392).

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This is indeed strange! Chattopadhyaya has missed Rgveda’s clear message on the unity of Godhead and monotheism (1.89.10, 1.164.46, 3.55.1-22, 8.58.2, 10.82.3 etc.) and its clear statements that ‘one *rta* exists everywhere’ (4.40.5) and ‘one Indra appears differently through illusion’ (6.47.18)? He made another sweeping generalisation when he wrote:

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“Only one among the many philosophical trends in India, namely Vedanta was keen on denying logic and rationalism in order to make room for an abject faith in the scriptures” (Chattopadhyaya, 1986, p. 47).

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Chattopadhyaya conveniently ignored the scientific (and even agnostic) spirit of the Nāsadīya Sūkta (*RV*. 10.129.1-7) which raised the issue of the created world and wondered whether any intellect is in possession of all the knowledge about the created world. The Vedic world-view started with the spirit of enquiry and search for the truth. Ofcourse theological fundamentalism and the evils of casteism and priestcraft crept into the Indian society, ‘but we should not forget that the entire phenomenon took place more than three millennia before the public humiliation of Galileo before the Inquisition. We have endorsed Chattopadhyaya’s basic thesis of a dialectical struggle between reason and anti- reason in the Indian thought-world with the rider that this struggle existed in all civilizations, and exists even to-day down to the psychological plane of an individual (Biswas and Biswas, 1989).

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The dark period of Indian pre-history viz. the second millennium B.C. may best be described as the period of mass migration and re-formation of the Indian Society. The Rgvedic strife did not represent any conquest by the alien; it was a civil war ultimately won by the peace-loving, oppressed agriculturists living in the north-eastern part of Haryana/Punjab and not by horse-riding barbaric outsiders.

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The defeated tribes left India through Afghanistan and Iran, and were later known as the Zoroastrians; this is proven by a sudden extinction of the Harappan sites in Baluchistan and Afghanistan around second millennium B.C. Within a few centuries, the Sarasvatī valley people moved eastward on account of drought and shift in the river bed due to tectonic movement. They were in search of perennial water or sadānīra.

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At first they moved along the Himalayan foothills avoiding the Gangetic valley covered with dense forest. Later they were able to clean the forests by using fire and iron implements, The Indus valley people moved towards Gujarat and Central, Western and Peninsular India.

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Archaeological excavations have established that chalcolithic cultures existed in the Central and Western India continuously from 2000 B.C. to 900 B.C. Three successive cultures - Kayatha, Malwa and Jorwe arrived on the scene with typical pottery styles. The traditions of pottery styles, copper and bronze castings, bead manufacture etc. might have been introduced by the migrating Harappans. On the other hand, the great visibility of the megalithic cultures in Peninsular India and the onset of iron age in Karnataka region around 1200 B.C., without much of a chalcolithic background, indicate predominant indigenous traditions devoid of any Harappan precedence.

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In the eastern India, Copper Hoards people had developed copper metal technology sometime before 1500 B.C. Using Singhbhum area ores the artisans could smelt high grade copper; they knew closed casting, alloying by arsenic and lead, annealing and cold work for hardening the tools (Agrawal, 1971, pp. 205, 242; Agrawal, 1982, pp. 213-214).

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Probably this technology was developed by itinerant smiths moving from Bengal-Bihar area to the Gangetic Doab in Uttar Pradesh, the artefacts becoming more sophisticated in the latter area. The anthropomorphic figures developed by them could be either ritual totem or missiles or simple scarecrows.

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The tradition of itinerant smiths was probably a common feature of most cultures in the ancient world. The metalsmiths at Harappa used to receive intermediate ingots from the smiths around the Hakra river who probably got the smelted copper from Ganeshwar- Jodhpura area in Rajasthan by the river route.

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The same river route enabled supply of copper-made fish hooks, mirrors, bangles etc. to Kalibangan where the last stage of fabrication might have been made. The Rgveda also records (9.112.2) an itinerant smith looking for a customer to sell his metal-tipped arrow.

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The chalcolithic culture people in the West Bengal sites of Pandu Rajar Dhibi, Mahishadal etc. used pre-PGW ochre washed potteries and had cultural contacts with chalcolithic Central India (Malwa and Navdatoli), South-East Asian countries such as Thailand and most importantly the PGW-developing people coming from the Sarasvati valley and representing the Vedic tradition (Dasgupta, 1967, p. 896).

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S.P. Gupta beautifully summarised the phenomenon of cultural contacts:-

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"The period of second millennium B.C. in India is not as 'dark' as was thought a couple of decades back. Broadly speaking, the western regions had the late phase of Harappan culture, the southern regions the neolithic-chalcolithic complex and the eastern region the hoards” (Gupta, 1963; 1965, p. 896).

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A fusion of the three traditions must have taken place during five centuries 1500-1000 B.C. while Indian sub-continent entered the Iron Age and the period of second urbanisation. Though of uncertain dates, the Indian epics described Rāma’s cultural contacts with the eastern and southern civilizations and Kṛṣṇa establishing some cultural hegemony across the sub-continent prior to submergence of the Dwarka township, an event which has been recently attested through marine archaeological recovery of the artefacts and their thermoluminescence dating.

The Iron Age and Second Urbanisation

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The present author has presented elsewhere (Biswas, 1991, ch. XII) elaborate and critical discussions on the onset of Iron Age in India. Discovery and use of iron started around 1200 B.C. indigenously in at least three nuclear zones - Karnataka in the south (e.g. Komaranhalli, 1200-1100 B.C.), U.P. Rajasthan area in the north (chalcolithic Ahar transmitting the tradition of furnace technology and first iron in the neighbouring Atranjikhera site in U.P. C-14 dated 1155 B.C.) and West Bengal-Bihar area in the north-east (partially reduced iron oxide in Pandu Rajar Dhibi, 1250 B.C. and carburized iron celt showing pearlite in Barudih site dated 1200 B.C.).

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The above data clearly suggest cultural contacts between the three nuclear zones and indigenous diffusion of iron technology from one zone to another. The remote possibility of Sialk VI iron-making tradition (which flourished only after 9th century B.C.) influencing the whole of India through the immigrant Aryans (Banerjee, 1965) may be safely ruled out. There are enough evidences of early experimentation, imperfect solid-state reduction, wastage of iron in the slag etc. in the sites of each of the three nuclear zones to justify the theory of indigenous origin.

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The metalsmiths of Komaranhalli and Tadakanahalli evolved lamination technique (alternate layers of non-carburised wrought iron and carburised iron) (Agrawala, Narain and Bhatia, 1990), centuries before the appearance of the earliest known (outside India) laminated object (Egyptian knife, 900 B.C.).

Social Factors in Pre-historic India

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As we approach the ‘historical period’ in ancient India, it may be profitable to dwell on the title of the paper: ‘Social Factors in the Development of Technology in India’. The earlier scholars, plagued with the paucity of data, erroneously presumed that the Harappan technology ‘suddenly’ developed, probably imported from Iran. While advocating the indigenous model, we do not ignore the factor of gradual diffusion of scientific knowledge and technical know-how through trade contact. As a matter of fact, we insist that technological development and urbanisation (a related phenomenon) have often been sparked by trade contacts with other cultures.

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Pre-Harappan and Mature Harappan India exported through trade routes, ivory, carnelian beads, conch-shell products, copper and bronze artifacts and even cultural components like the concepts of gods - Varuna and Mitra, and the linguistic loan-words (Altin Depe of Central Asia was a Harappan outpost). In return, tin, turquoise, lapis lazuli etc. used to be imported. Traders assisted in the two-way diffusion of culture and technology. Large scale racial intrusion or invasion (long before Alexander's era) must be regarded as a mythical concept unless positively proven.

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How the technologies were invented in Harappan India can only be surmised and never conclusively proven. The Harappan script has not been deciphered, and the ‘social factors’ can only be a matter of conjecture.

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Gordon Childe deliberated on the phenomenon of ‘urban revolution’ in the ancient world and the ‘ten criteria’ which accompany it (Childe, 1950; Possehl, 1979). He also mentioned that one trait of urban revolution was the creation of ‘exact and predictive sciences’ such as arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Childe could have included material technology (not science) as one of the traits of early urbanization. Though widely quoted, his ‘criteria’ or indices are ‘delineatary rather than explanatory’. His analysis evokes many subsidiary questions. Why the agricultural surplus does not always lead to the formation of cities, and how did some ancient cities (like Mathura) prosper without any agricultural surplus in the immediate neighbourhood? What induces the emergence of a ruling class to dominate over a city? What provides sufficient driving force for artisans to move from the rural to the urban environment?

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It appears that a critical measure of trade, cultural and even military contacts with neighbouring states provide vital stimuli to the growth of civilizations, cities and technology. This factor has been overlooked by many scholars including Childe. Ecological and military factors (civil war) must have damaged the Harappan civilization, but its collapse was ultimately due to the loss of short-range and long-range trade links.

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The phenomenon of the second urbanization in India (beginning in the early part of the first millennium B.C.) was not totally unrelated to the first urbanization, despite the contrary claims of the earlier scholars. The migrants from the Indus and the Sarasvati valleys took long time to acclimatise and rehabilitate themselves in the unfamiliar terrains of hills and forests inhabited by un-friendly people. But they carried with them traditions of pottery, beads of semi-precious stones, artifacts made of copper and its alloys and so on. At Bhagwanpura, we find Harappan pottery and Painted Grey Ware side by side and no broken skull (Lal, vide Possehl, 1982). The fact of continuity of Indian civilization, even through the ‘dark period’ of second millennium, cannot be wished away. The excavation at Atranjikhera in western Uttar Pradesh indicate (Gaur, 1983) a continuous transition from 1400 B.C. - at first the Aharian chalcolithic culture using BRW pottery, copper alloys and even brass, and gradually evolving PGW, glass and (the wonder metal) iron technology. The recovered ecological and political stability once again made the conditions ripe for the emergence of power structure, trade contact, new technology and urbanization.

The Role of the Iron Age

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The issue of the Iron Age influencing second urbanization in India has been widely debated. R.S. Sharma suggested that the discovery of iron resulted in speedy clearance of forest, more extensive cultivation through the use of iron ploughshare, accumulation of large agricultural surplus and formation of city-states. This model has been criticised on many counts.

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Iron was discovered as early as 1200 B.C., but its widespread use in the Gangetic valley did not start, according to Sharma himself, before the sixth century B.C. The artisans in the Rajasthan-Uttar Pradesh area took many centuries to standardise reduction-smelting, lamination and fabrication of iron artifacts, and they did not have sufficient good grade iron ore for mass production. Kosambi had pointed out that the spurt of iron technology in India had to wait till the Vedic cultural people crossed the Ganges in Bihar, moved south and gained proper access to the iron ore deposits (Kosambi, 1965).

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Prakash and Tripathi have meticulously noted (Prakash and Tripathi, 1986) that the early PGW-era iron tools were war implements like spear heads, arrow heads, dagger, knives, and building materials like rods, pins and nails. Only a few agricultural tools e.g. axes and sickles were made in iron. Spades and ploughshares came much later. Thakur asserted (Maity, Thakur and Narain, 1988) that iron implements such as axe, plain or socketed, hammer and ploughshare were conspicuous by their rarity, if not absence, even in the 500 B.C. NBP sites; this fact negates Sharma's hypothesis. Furthermore, A. Ghosh pointed out (1973, specially ch. III) that the clearance of forest, done in the epic/PGW era was more by the use of fire rather than iron implements. Cultivation used to be done more by hoes, sickles and wooden ploughshares tipped with iron rather than iron ploughshares and axe which became popular only around 4th/3rd century B.C.

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Agricultural surplus was no doubt generated during the early part of the first millennium B.C., supporting non-agricultural crafts. But this did not by itself promote urbanisation. Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya has included in his book (1991) two invited articles written by Ranabir Chakravarti (Chattopadhyaya, 1991, Appendix I, pp. 305-350) and N.R. Banerji (Ibid, pp. 371-396) which touch upon the above issues. Chakravarti and Banerji tend to support the criticisms against Sharma's model.

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We propose that the emergence of the new technologies and the Iron Age was one amongst many factors underlying second urbanization. Besides, this was a cyclic relationship, urbanization further promoting iron technology. Was there a deeper cause promoting both? Ghosh accorded priority to the social need/political demand for surplus rather than the capacity to produce the surplus as a result of technological innovations (Ghosh, 1973). His argument was in favour of the greater role of a ‘power structure’ without which a surplus could not appear the moment it is asked for (Chakravarti, 1991, pp. 305-350). The megalithic culture in the Peninsular India produced iron and agricultural surplus, and yet no urban tradition.

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Following the leads provided by Childe, Sharma and Ghosh, we may try to go deeper into this problem. What causes the emergence of a ‘power structure’ articulating ‘socio-political needs’? Basically it is a psychological drive-against complacency and for consolidation of existing resources and distribution mechanism by centralisation; it is also promoted by an expansionist urge to meet shortage of resources by trade or conquest, and even cultural expansionism viz. to propagate one brand of religion or culture. This urge could be articulated in the ancient world as physical/social/political ‘needs’ only when there was an opportunity, when there were trade contacts with the neighbouring states. This reality of psycho-physical situation promoted in the ancient world - and still promotes in the modern world - urbanization and breakthroughs in new science and technology simultaneously. Ultimately, urbanization and technology activate each other in a cyclic fashion, Chakravarti pointed out (Chakravarty, 1991, pp. 305-350) that urbanization also meant new ideas and a revolt against tradition and conservatism.

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We propose that the situations as enunciated in the previous paragraph must have ripened prior to the first and, a millennium later, the second urbanization in India. The Yajurveda referred to not only gold, silver, copper, bronze, tin and lead, but also the newly discovered iron, the black metal - *śyāma* or *kṛṣṇāyasa* (*Sukla Yajurveda* 18.13). *Bṛhadāraṇyak Upaniṣad* (3.9.18) mentioned a tong handling hot charcoal, and in *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* (*Śat.Br*), we find references of leather bellow blowing air into a furnace, blow-pipe used by the smelter and so on (1.1.2.7, 1.6.3.16). *Śat.Br* also described a large number of iron implements and the emergence of gold-based money economy: ‘with gold they do nothing, and yet it is an object of respect’ (5.5.5.16). Even lead was used as a medium of barter (*Śat. Br.* 12.7.2. 10-12). Heavy pieces of lead were used in the art of weaving. Barley and rice were traded for lead (*Śat. Br.* 12.7.2.10); sheep’s wool was also used as a medium of barter for obtaining grain and other commodities (*Śat. Br.* 12.7.2.10).

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The late Vedic literatures clearly describe the prominence of the non-agricultural professionals: smelter, smith, carpenter, cloth manufacturer, leather worker, potter and jeweller etc., who could thrive only on agricultural surplus and some kind of administrative protection and control.

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International trade seems to have started a millennium after the collapse of the Harappan civilization and before the ‘historical period’. Around 1015 B.C., King Solomon of Palestine received from Ophir - now identified as Sauvira in the Gulf of Cambay - gold, silver, ivory and peacocks. Homer reported trade with India. Thus the process of second urbanization in India had started right in the beginning of the first millennium B.C. through initial trade contacts and gradual territorial expansions.

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Around 1000 B.C., Hastinapura settlement brought in from outside agate and carnelian beads, and the first settlement of Taxila started at Haithal. *Chāndogya Upaniṣad* refers (5.11.5) to a *janapada* or township in which there is no liquor or adultery. It is quite evident that the late Vedic era (1000-600 B.C.) initiated the establishment of the famous (sixteen) *mahājanapadas* or states most possibly sometime during the 7th-6th century B.C. period.

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During the latter half of the sixth century B.C., the Persian king Cyrus had made an unsuccessful onslaught on India. During this time, Ujjain in India became a leading centre for the manufacture of iron war implements. The king Pradyota, contemporary to Gautama Buddha, ascended the throne of Ujjain around 528 B.C.

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He attacked Kauśāmbi and Taxila years before the Persian king Darius occupied Taxila in 518 B.C. For many decades thereafter, the Persians used to take Indian gold, precious stones, brass, iron-tipped arrows and even Indian soldiers to assist them in their fights against Greece. Pythagorus might have visited the Jain settlements in the Western India during this time. The second urbanization took place in India amidst a clearly emerging international backdrop.

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The social factors underlying the nascent urban technology included the new geographical-cum-geological scenario. The sophistication of iron technology in the Bihar sites like Rajagriha was essentially on account of the proximity of iron ore deposits in the Singhbum area (Kosambi, 1965), which also produced alluvial washings of gold (the name of the river ‘suvarṇarekhā’ is suggestive).

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Hegde has adduced conclusive proof for the geographical /geological basis regarding the development of the successive categories of potteries (1200-300 B.C.) in the Ganga-Yamuna basin (Hegde, 1987). Thick deposits of ferruginous, plastic, secondary clay in this area were laboriously elutriated to produce 10-100 µm clay particles, free from the larger and heavier particles (of feldspar, quartz, limestone etc.) and paste of this was used to produce the famous PGW or Painted Grey Ware. The black pigment on BSW (Black Slipped Ware) corresponded to magnetite (Fe3O4).

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Evidently the sun-dried ware was painted with a suspension of finely ground red ochre (Fe2O3 as such or hydrated) which was locally available, and then baked in reducing atmosphere, surrounded by cowdung cakes in gajapuṭa fire.

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Lastly, the Northern Black Polished Ware or NBPW also showed under an electron microscope opaque crystals of magnetite (produced similarly) in a background of amorphous glass-like matrix which assayed 11-13 p.c. Na2O and 2-4 p.c. CaO. For producing this glassy glaze, sājjimāṭṭi or reh, the alkaline, natural efflorescence, profusely found in the Ganga valley, chiefly in the mid-eastern and eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, was used (Hegde, 1987). This sājjimāṭṭi assays 20-40 p.c. Na2O, 50-70 p.c. silica and 5-10 p.c. lime. Availability and use of sājjimāṭṭi enabled the PGW people to produce not only the famous glassy glaze in NBPW but also the soda-lime glass (Hegde, 1987; Tripathi, 1976; Roy, 1986; Sen and Chaudhuri 1985). Very significantly Atranjikhēra and Hastinapura produced the earliest samples of glass in India. The Harappan people could produce faience but not glass.

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