SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The thesis submitted forms only part of a comprehensive work on the early history of the Panjab material for which has been collected during the course of my study in England. It gives for the first time a detailed account of the Panjab, including the North-West Frontier Province, in its earliest period. In the first place it may be pointed out that references to the Panjab in ancient texts on the whole are scanty, but the country has proved to be comparatively rich in materials, as a result of recent excavations at Harappa in the District of Montgomery and other contemporary sites in the Indus Valley. These excavations, as will be seen, have yielded antiquities of high historical and cultural value and made the history of India the most glorious and renowned throughout the world. Hence history of ancient Panjab that has become specially interesting is an important desideratum of Indian studies. The only history proper available at present is one written long ago in 1891 by K.B. Mihammad Iatif, who, strangely enough, devoted some seventy five pages only to the early periods periods in his otherwise quite extensive and useful book, and as suoh can hardly be called complete and satisfactory, apart from its being now quite out of date. The part of history described in the following pages is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is General Introduction dealing with subjects as are essential for the understanding of history, such as ancient boundaries, nomenclature, physical geography, language and population. The next chapter, The Dawn of Panjab History, gives prehistory of the country which is almost archaeological, based as it is on the Indus Valley finds. The third chapter again divided into two parts deals fully with history of Aryans in the Panjab, the first part including the story previous to their entry into that country. This is followed by a chapter describing Aryan Culture evolved in the ancient Panjab or the Sapta Sindhu, as early Aryans used to call it. Here the contact of Aryans with the former people in the Sapta Sindhu, and the influence of the latter's institutions on the Aryan Civilization have been noticed, wherever possible. The last chapter of the thesis contains a legendary account, as found in late traditions, of Aryans, with special reference to those of the Panjab. Its main feature is an examination of the theory propounded by Pargiter on the origin of Aryans in the mid-Himalayan region and on beginnings of their history in the Gangetic rather than in the Indus Valley. As to the sources of this history, it may be said that they are practically the same as those of history of ancient India - primary texts in Sanskrit, Pali, etc., foreign records, inscriptions and archaeological material.