INDIA AS A SET OF "CIVILIZATIONS" AND "CULTURES"
--SEVEN BASIC PERIODS

As a modern nation-state, India has had a short history of just fifty years, but, of course, that is only the latest page in a book (or, perhaps better, a set of volumes) that goes back over many thousands of years.  India is one of the oldest world-class collections of civilizations and cultures known to recorded history.  Indeed, India's origins go back even before the earliest documents and artifacts of recorded history.

It is almost as if India has no origin in time, or put somewhat differently, when India begins to appear in our historical records, it is already old, bringing with it the primordial longings and fears and preoccupations of our human species that seem to reach back to time immemorial.

However that may be, we must begin our passage to India somewhere, and it will be useful here to introduce one or two working definitions that will help us as we seek to understand India, namely, a working definition of the concept of "civilization" and a working definition of the concept of "culture."

Also it will be useful at this stage in our "Passage to India" to give a chronological overview of the major periods in the development of India as a world-class collection of civilizations and cultures.

DEFINITION OF "CIVILIZATION":

As a working definition of "civilization," the formulation by the Indian historian Ravinder Kumar is helpful.  A "civilization," according to Kumar, is "...a major segment of humanity characterized by distinctive traits which confer a certain social character and identity in terms of the production of wealth, social reality and basic moral and intellectual values."

DEFINITION OF "CULTURE":

As a working definition of "culture," the formulation by the anthropologist Melford Spiro is helpful.  A "culture," according to Spiro, is "...a cognitive system--sets of beliefs and practices both descriptive and normative about nature, people and society embedded in interlocking networks and configurations--beliefs and practices which are "traditional" (that is, handed down through social groups) and "collective" (that is, corporate rather than private)."

In these working definitions, the concept of civilization is much broader than the concept of culture.  The concept of civilization includes culture but is much more than just the cognitive system.  The concept of civilization includes not simply a major grouping of people but also their physical or ecological space, their material production and wealth, their social relations as well as their cognitive formulations.

Given India's long history, reaching back even to prehistorical times, it becomes immediately clear that when speaking about India, one simply cannot use the terms "civilization" and "culture" in the singular.  It becomes necessary, in other words, that the plural formation of the terms be used, that is, "civilization-s" and "culture-s".  India is not simply one civilization or one culture.  It is, rather, a set or collection of "civilizations" and "cultures."

SEVEN BASIC PERIODS (with overview maps):

Furthermore, when attempting to identify how many "civilization-s" and how many "culture-s" there are in India, it would appear that one has to mention at least seven, as follows:

I. The Indus Valley civilization (and related culture-s)
 (3000 B.C.E.  -  1500 B.C.E.)

II. The Indo-Brahmanical civilization (and related culture-s)
 (c. 1500 B.C.E.  -  600 B.C.E.)

III. The Indo-Shramanical civilization (and related culture-s)
 (c. 600 B.C.E.  -  300 C.E.)

IV. The Indic civilization (and related culture-s)
 (c. 300  -  1200)
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V. The Indo-Islamic civilization (and related culture-s)
 (c. 1200  -  1757)

VI. The Indo-British civilization (and related culture-s)
 (c. 1757  -  1947)

VII. India as an independent nation-state in the modern global system
(1947  -  present)