Indian Literature Today unanimously recognized and acknowledged as one of the oldest in the world.

. Indian literature lays considerable stress upon oral and written forms, both of which were the primary patterns of successive transmittance. Hinduism was the most predominating religious faction that ever ruled in pre-Christian era, thus inducing lasting impressions upon the literary scenario Hindu literary traditions dominated a sizeable part of Indian culture Apart from the Vedas which are a sacred form of knowledge, there are other works such as the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, treatises such as VaastuShastra in architecture and town planning, and Arthashastra in political science. Sanskrit The word Sanskrit is formed from sam + krit where (sam) prefix means (samyak) entirely or wholly or perfectly, and krit means done. Sanskrit was first introduced by Brahma to the Sages of the celestial abodes and it is still the language of the celestial abode, so it is also called the DevVani (Language of God). The meaning of Sanskrit is refined, decorated or produced in perfect form. The language is also known for its clarity and beauty. It is also a language of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism It belongs to the Indic group of language family of Indo-European and its descendants which are Indo-Iranian & Indo Aryan. Sanskrit is one of the official languages of India and is popularly known as a classical language of the country. This is the only language that is used in holy functions and ceremonies of Hindus, as it has always been regarded as the sacred language of the religion. Sanskrit mantras, when recited in combination with the sound vibration, have a specific effect on the mind and the psyche of the individual. It is said that Brahma was the creator and introduced Sanskrit language to the Sages of celestial bodies. It was during 18th century when a similarity between Sanskrit, Latin and Greek was found The earliest form of Sanskrit language was Vedic Sanskrit that came approximately around 1500-200 B.C. One of the oldest languages known for over thousands of years The oldest known texts in Sanskrit are:Rigveda, Sama-veda, Yajur-veda, Atharva-veda Indian Civilization Harrapan Civilization The first people seem to have reached India from Africa around 40,000BC. At first they were hunters and gatherers, like other people around the world at this time. But by around 4000 BC, these people had begun farming and by 2500 BC settled in the Indus river valley, where they began to live in cities and use irrigation to water their fields Every year more and more people moved into the Indus river valley, where there was still plenty of water. When it got really crowded there, people began to build cities. lived in stone houses two and three stories high They used bronze tools. The Harappa people used an early form of writing based on hieroglyphs Mohenjo-daro Mohenjo-daro (English: Mound of the dead) was a city of the Indus Valley Civilization built around 2600 BC and is located in the Sindh Province of Pakistan. This ancient five thousand year old city is the largest of Indus Valley and is widely recognized as one of the most important early cities of South Asia and the Indus Valley Civilization. MohenjoDaro was one of the world s first cities and contemporaneous with ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. It is sometimes referred to as "An Ancient Indus Valley Metropolis". Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and their civilization, vanished without trace from history until discovered in the 1920s. It was extensively excavated in the 1920s, but no in-depth excavations have been carried out since the 1960s. Aryan Civilization About 1500 BC, India was invaded by Indo-European people. Between 2500 and 2000 BC, many Indo-Europeans migrated all over Eurasia. Some went to Europe and became the Romans and the Greeks, some settled in Turkey and became the Hittites. In India, the Indo-Europeans are usually called the Aryans. Indo-European people brought with them to India, Sanskrit.

Aryans brought their gods with them to India. These gods form the basis of the Rig Veda and other sagas which were first written down in Sanskrit. They also brought the domesticated horse. The Aryans first settled along the Indus River, in the same place where the Harappa people had lived. They settled down and mixed with the local Indian people. They lived there from about 1500 BC to about 800 BC. It seems to be at this time that the caste system got started in India. About 800 BC, the Aryans learned how to use iron for weapons and tools. they used their new weapons to conquer more of India, and moved to the south and east into the Ganges river valley. They settled there not long after 800 BC. The Aryan conquest of the Ganges is remembered in the Mahabharata, first told about this time. But still the Aryans did not control all of India. Southern India was ruled by a bunch of independent kings who did not have to do what the Aryans wanted. Stories of fights between the Aryans and the southerners are told in the Ramayana. In the 500's BC, part of north-western India (modern Pakistan) was conquered by the Persians under their kings Cyrus and Darius. The Persians were also Indo-Europeans, but they had left their homeland later and settled in modern Iran. The Persians never really controlled India very well - they made the Indians pay tribute in gold to Persia, but they didn't really tell them what to do. Meanwhile, the Aryans continued to rule north-eastern India. In the 400's BC, this was where Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, lived and started the faith of Buddhism.

Religion India has been an important part of three major world religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Buddhism began in India and spread to other places in Asia. Islam came into India from West Asia. The origins of Hinduism are less clear, but are certainly related to the arrival of the Indo-European Aryans from West Asia. We don't know very much about the earliest Indian religion, of the Harappa people, but certainly it was polytheistic. Based on the art of that time, some people think the later Hindu gods were already being worshipped. With the arrival of the Aryans about 1500 BC, the Indo-European gods entered India as well. This was the beginning of modern Hinduism. Hinduism was (and is) polytheistic - Hindus believe in many gods. Stories about these gods were written down in the Rig Veda and other epic poems. In this kind of Hinduism, people believed in reincarnation - that people could be reborn into other bodies after they died. But in the 600's BC, Indian people were interested in some other way to get a good rebirth than through sacrifice and the priests. This search is seen in the Upanishads, written about this time. And it is seen in the teachings of the Buddha in the 500's BC. According to Gautama Buddha, people can get free of the cycle of reincarnation by being good people, by learning not to care about the things of the body, and through meditation. Buddhism became very popular in India and quickly spread throughout East Asia. But even Buddhists still paid attention to the Hindu gods. About the same time, another religious leader, Mahavira, also encouraged people to try to get out of the cycle of reincarnation. His followers were called Jains. Jains thought that the best way to escape reincarnation was to be good to be kind to people and animals, and to tell the truth, and not to be greedy. By the 600's AD, even though Buddhism remained popular in East Asia, many people in India had begun to go back to Hinduism. They still remembered the Buddha, but he became just one of many Hindu gods to them. Jainism continued, but among a small group of people in India. In the 1100's AD, Indian people began to convert to Islam under a series of conquests by Muslim people from the north. Islam demanded that people give up worshipping any god but Allah, and so many people did give up their old Hindu gods at this time. But many people, especially in southern India, also stayed Hindus