The ENTIRE History of India (Ancient to Modern) | 4K Documentary

In the 16th century, the Europeans would

sail to the Indian subcontinent in a

race for riches, first seizing trade

routes, then the land itself.

By the 1800s, the British would control

most of the subcontinent, exploiting

India's wealth and ruling it as the

crown jewel of their empire.

But, there were already thriving peoples

here with civilizations and history

stretching back thousands of years.

These empires were among the most

powerful the world had ever seen. From

humanity's most magnificent cities and

monuments to some of the most peaceful

and enlightened cultures in human

history. The Indians were pioneers of

knowledge in advancing mathematics,

charting the movements of the planets,

and offering the world unique

philosophies.

India withstood the ancient era, the

Middle Ages, and now the modern period.

With a rising population of over 1

billion people and increased tension

from their neighbors, can they continue

on?

To understand this fascinating land, we

must start from the beginning.

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For many scholars, it begins with a

history of Adivasi.

The Adivasi are the ancient native

peoples of India who had lived on the

subcontinent for anywhere up to 30,000

years.

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These tribes inhabited India as nomads

and semi-nomad long before anyone else.

They left behind very little

archaeological evidence, and what

history they have survived orally in

their modern descendants.

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Then came the first major settled

civilization in India, the Indus River

Valley Civilization.

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The Indus Valley Civilization emerged in

the late 4th millennium BC along the

Indus River.

They were one of the first great urban

societies on the planet. But, despite

existing at the same time as other

civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and

China, comparatively little is known

about them.

The Indus Valley Civilization was an

urban culture that thrived along the

river for about 2,000 years, reaching

its height around 2600 BC and declining

after 1900 BC.

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At one point, it might have been home to

up to 5 million people living in

hundreds of cities and towns.

Excavations at major sites like Harappa

and Mohenjo-Daro, both of which are in

modern-day Pakistan, show a complex

urban culture with stone architecture,

planned cities, and complex

infrastructure.

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The Indus Valley Civilization relied on

monsoon agriculture to feed themselves,

and they also had a sewage system and

public baths that would not be matched

elsewhere in the world for over a

thousand years.

Evidence shows that the Indus Valley

Civilization was engaged in trade with

documents and seals used by merchants,

along with settlement walls to control

entry and exit to towns, suggesting a

developed merchant culture.

From their graves, we know that they

believed in some sort of afterlife, and

differences between the graves show some

kind of wealth-based social hierarchy.

However, we still cannot decipher the

writings from this civilization. As a

result, although we can now point to

hundreds of Indus Valley Civilization

sites, so much of their lives and

society are lost to us. Despite all

their achievements, we cannot even name

a single person who lived in this

civilization for its 2,000-year-long

history.

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What caused the fall of the Indus Valley

Civilization? Firstly, the Indus Valley

Civilization didn't fall at a single

decisive moment.

It appears to have gradually petered out

over centuries between about 1900 BC and

1300 BC.

The most likely explanation is climate.

After 1800 BC, the climate of the Indus

region became cooler and drier, which

affected the monsoons and made it harder

to practice the agriculture needed for

these large cities.

Earthquakes also caused the course of

the Indus River to shift westward over

time, which deprived cities of their

vital water source.

Their cities declined, but the Indus

Valley people themselves didn't

necessarily die with them. Most scholars

believe the Indus people migrated

southeast deeper into the subcontinent.

One theory holds that the Dravidian

language family, which is spoken mostly

in Southeast India and includes Telugu,

Tamil, and Kannada, originally came from

these Indus Valley migrants.

With the decline of the Indus Valley

Civilization, a third group of people

enter our story, and it's these people

that most Indians see as their ancient

predecessors, the Vedic peoples.

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The Vedic people appear to have hailed

from Central Asia and began migrating

into northwestern India in around 1500

BC.

They called themselves Arya and are

sometimes called the Indo-Aryans.

Initially, they were nomadic peoples,

but over time, they settled in India in

villages and small towns. By 1200 BC,

the Vedic peoples had crossed the Ganges

River and began penetrating deeper into

central and eastern India.

The Vedic people brought the

domestication of the horse to India.

First domesticated by Indo-European

peoples around 2200 BC, horses served as

pack animals to help in their migrations

and pulled chariots, which were

characteristic of Vedic warfare.

They also brought their own language in

Vedic Sanskrit. The Vedas are a

collection of dense, complicated, and

beloved religious texts that are still

in use today. There are four Vedas. The

oldest, longest, and most well-known is

the Rigveda. There's also the Yajurveda,

Samaveda, and the Atharvaveda.

The Vedas were the earliest sacred texts

of India, composed around 1500 BC,

forming the foundation of Indian

philosophy, ritual, and spiritual

thought.

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As for what that society looked like,

Vedic people began as semi-nomadic

tribal pastoralists and practiced that

lifestyle in India for the first few

centuries. Initially, they were

concentrated in the Punjab and northwest

India before gradually moving down and

settling in the regions fed by the

Ganges and Yamuna rivers. Tribes could

settle into semi-permanent villages,

while others spent all or most of their

time living nomadically.

These tribes engaged in trade,

diplomacy, raiding, and warfare with one

another, which aligned with their shared

warrior culture. Two of the most

important tribes were the Purus and

Bharatas.

The arrival of iron working to India

after 1200 BC enabled the Vedic peoples

to tame the thick forests and jungles

that dominated much of the continent and

encouraged them to make more permanent

settlements.

This led the Vedic people to gradually

abandon their nomadic lifestyle for more

permanent settlement in small

agricultural communities, although

nothing so large that it could be called

a city.

As Vedic society developed, its social

structure changed, too.

Initially, the primary social division

in Vedic India was between warriors and