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I“India is not…China is older”Joshi
: Indian civilisation is perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilisation of the world. Indiahas a long history and has been recognised by others as a land of great wealth and even greaterwisdom.
“The Hindu” response
: India is not the most ancient civilisation. Civilisation is generally definedas having city cultures and that would make Egypt, Mesopotamia and China older. Nor is it theonly continuous culture since China has a continuous culture that is older.
The facts
: Harappan civilization or Saraswathi-Sindhu civilization did not emerge in vacuum, butwas the result of long drawn socio-economic processesthat included cultural dimensions. French archeologistJean-François Jarrige had traced the antecedents ofHarappan culture to the site in Mergarh north ofMohenjo-Daro and has established an unbroken culturalcontinuity from that early date to Harappan civilization.
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Similarly Harappan roots have been discovered fromwithin the geographical area of modern India as well. Inan International seminar on Indus Civilisation, director ofArchaeological Survey of India BR Mani revealed thatthere were pockets where urbanisation would havestarted before the well-developed urban civilisation ofthe Harappans.
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Even as we trace the evolution of Harappan civilization which pushes the adventof Indian civilization further back in timeline, historians have accepted the fact that Indian societytoday has many of its cultural roots in Harappan civilization. Even Iravatham Mahadevan ascholar who holds on to the Aryan-Dravidian binary, has stated that he “would not be surprised tofind that the greater part of modern Hinduism has a Harappan lineage.”
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Of course Egypt andMesopotamian civilizations do have hoary past but their descendents have abandoned theseancient cultures for new jealous sky gods.
Hence when Joshi says that Indian civilization is“perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilization” he is definitely and technicallyright.
“The Hindu” has shown its Chinese loyalty by calling China as having a continuous culture howcan China today can be called the most ancient and continuous culture when the Red Guards ofthe Communist China during the Cultural Revolution vandalized Buddhist statues labeling thempart of the four olds to be destroyed: old customs, old habits, old culture and old thinking. Thedefinite break with cultural continuity came for China when young Red Guards in 1966 smashedthe Buddhist images at the Biyun Monastery, the Wofo Monastery, the Summer Palace and theother shrines, temples and parks around Beijing and replaced them with portraits of MaoZedong.
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To call the present China a cultural continuity is a joke - absurd, sick and cruel.
1
Jarrige,J.F. and M.Santoni,
The Antecedents of Civilization in the Indus Valley
, Scientific American, 243.8 (1980),pp.102-10
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Grain of rice points to pre-Harappan culture
, Time of India, 5-Jan-2006
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http://www.harappa.com/script/mahadevantext.html
4
John Kieschnick,
The impact of Buddhism on Chinese material culture
, Princeton University Press, 2003 p.70
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