Historian Reacts - THE HISTORY OF INDIA in 12 Minutes - Part 1

all right guys I'm stepping out of my historical comfort zone today this is one of those opportunities for me personally to learn uh I don't know much about this topic at all uh but I I recognize this is a huge hole in my historical knowledge that I need to start filling a little bit I will never be an expert in this area nor do I intend to be but I wanna I wanna learn a little bit about the history of India it's the second most populous country on Earth it is the most populous democracy on Earth it's one of the most ancient civilizations in the world deep roots of history and I I confess like a lot of westerners don't know a lot about it um you know we aren't taught a ton in the United States and I'll be honest I don't know much you know when I think of India I think of a lot of people crowded cities I think of Gandhi I think of the caste system um Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a part of our culture there's a whole Bollywood thing but honestly that is not an accurate picture of what India is and so I want to learn more so I'm going to put a link in the description this is the channel knowledgeia I wasn't sure where to go for a history of India I was browsing around I was looking for a video that had a lot of views that seemed to come from a a decent sized channel so I could kind of trust the material a little bit but I'm going to rely on a lot of you who do know this topic well to help fill in the gaps to help catch any mistakes that might exist because we want to be accurate in our information and as always please provide some kind of a source anytime you post anything with a link YouTube's gonna automatically filter that out so it's not going to immediately post but I do go in and check those and I will approve those comments it's just a way of keeping from like the porn links and stuff that end up getting posted so so please do that if you provide information to refute something that said or to provide more information please either let us know where to find it or post a link and I'll approve it when I can uh so let's dive into the history of India uh I'll try to add what I can try to see some parallels in other parts of history but I'm here to learn we're here to learn together so join me as we do that the history of India is filled with Incredible stories of thriving civilizations religions and cultures dating all the way back to the paleothic age India's civilization is one of the oldest that we know and has played a part on the world stage for centuries and even still today while it is impossible to truly capture all of India's history in one video it still serves as a worthy topic to delve into perseverance of cave paintings and stone tools have revealed that the first signs of human activity in India can be traced back to somewhere between four hundred thousand and two hundred thousand BC details concerning the civilizations inhabiting the region back that long ago do not exist but we do know that one of the first sophisticated societies to walk the lands of India was the Harappan people so um just by way of kind of an overview here we talk about this time period as being prehistoric because it's before there's written history it's before people started writing stuff down so unfortunately anything before about 6 000 years ago is what we would really kind of consider pre-history it's only about about that time about 6 000 years ago that we start writing down history so regardless of how you how old you feel the Earth is and what your beliefs are and things like that we can all agree that we start to get right uh written history about that time so I don't know exactly where that'll tie into Indian history but I'm sure we'll get there who likely existed throughout the first few thousand years BC positioned along the Indus River the Harappan people had their own writing system Advanced social and economic system and impressive Urban cities and architecture so this guy's like the the opposite of Cody from alternate history Hub where he like where Cody like um I think that's his name Cody isn't it um he like has a soft tee on everything so instead of saying Britain he says Britain Britain this guy's the opposite he's like Brit you know like he gives a really hard tea so just a kind of a random observation yeah Indus Valley uh civilization is uh kind of what I think of when I think of the earliest parts of India but I really don't know anything about it I just know that it existed so I'm excited to learn about this it is unknown why this civilization collapsed around 1 500 BC but some attribute their demise to the common floods and other natural disasters in the region or potentially Invaders from Western and Central Asia the next known civilization to leave a mark on Indian history books was The Vedic Aryans these people were initially migrants who spoke an early form of Sanskrit and were determined to stay true to their own tribal identity the name they've been given the Vedic people comes from four sacred texts or Vedas that have presented researchers with a glimpse into the civilization's lives and beliefs so here's where we start to get real written history and this this stuff's so great and one of the things just completely off topic well not completely off topic but um one of the things that's important for us to do when we're considering historic texts is how old is the earliest copy that we have and how close to when the original was written is that copy you know a lot of things that we have like Homer for example the written copies that we have of Homer are long long distance from when they were originally written and so you know everything had to be copied by hand and so a lot of the copies that we have of things are like many many generations of copies later and when you copy something you make mistakes there are transcription errors there are little additions or subtractions that get made by the copyist and so the closer we get to the original in terms of the copies the more accurate we can trust it to be because there haven't been those generations of copyists who have gotten their grubby hands on it these Vedas are often considered to be the oldest Hindu scripts The Vedic civilization is believed to have spread their culture across a large portion of India by roughly 1000 BC so they're they're starting to make some references to Hinduism and I believe that Hinduism the word itself is actually an x m I don't think it's one that's actually used by the Hindu people of India I could be wrong about that please correct me if that's the case but uh it's it's very interesting to see how like many cultures um the religious aspect and the secular aspect are going to be kind of hand in hand and Hinduism is going to be a a big part of the identity of the culture that is developing here as Hinduism itself develops it's one of the largest religions in the world I think probably next largest after Christianity and Islam um and I think the vast majority of people in India are Hindu so I'll be interested to see how that all ties into the history of India with them The Vedic Aryans brought their philosophical beliefs these ideas represent a theory that happiness and salvation come from a person's morals and ethics and one's path should be based upon their place in life but should always be righteous and good the vedicarians also shared their societal system as they extended their reach this system was made up originally of three tears Brahman or priest kashtriya or Warrior and vaishia or commoner not all that different on the surface than what we see in a lot of other cultures you know you see in a lot of Western cultures you know the idea of the priesthood being kind of its own class of people um you know and you have varying degrees of what this looks like but I'm guessing this is kind of the beginnings of the caste system but you have forms of this kind of thing happening in many cultures the Aryans continued to spread their tribal settlements across India throughout the following centuries as their own civilization grew and flourished in both culture and trade a series of 16 individual settlements or States spanned across Northern India including the Gandhara kosala Kuru and the magant the latter particularly flourished under the rule of chandragupt De morya during the 4th Century BC so we're all the way up to the 4th Century BC already um and you know it's just interesting to think about what's happening in the rest of the world right now well this is we're getting close to the time of Alexander the Great who's going to be pushing right up to the borders of this area and is gonna almost like make his way into India he tries to anyway so we're going to see that kind of of European culture starting to press up against now Indian and then of course to the east of here you've got China you've got southeast Asia you've got Japan and everything that's going on in those areas this is a time when the Roman Empire is starting to grow so just kind of fascinating to see how this all grows at the time that those other things are happening as it began to expand and its leader grew his own authority and before you say it I know there was no Roman Empire yet I'm just kind of using that term Rome Works to form the mauryan Empire which is believed to be the first Indian Imperial power okay the mauryan Empire established its capital in pataliputra near modern day Patna and constructed extraordinary temples libraries palaces and even a university wow the Empire's trade success was impressive and this is I mean this is early stuff having universities and temples I mean the infrastructure here this is Advance this is uh this is pretty cool stuff I'm curious to know a little bit about the rulers in this system I don't know if they'll talk about that but I want to look that up a little bit so first of all it's kind of cool to see the like when you see a name like Chandra Gupta I mean that's kind of the types of names you expect to hear even today it's it's really cool to see how early some of the names and some of the language is developing in in these countries that are modern to this day um so this they start consolidating land as Alexander the Great's power began to wane so that's happening at about this time but this only lasts for about looks like 140 years or so um but they have writings about leadership and government uh describing how States should organize its economy and maintain power closely resembled uh government of others uh there I mean this is advanced stuff this is really cool this is stuff I did not know was happening at this time pretty neat and it maintained a remarkable governmental system and strong Army by the time of the third emperor the grandson of chandragupta a stance of non-violence was taken after a bloody struggle against the kingdom of Kalinga due to the emperor's new Buddhist beliefs Siddhartha gatama the Buddha had been born in 560 BC and by the reign of Emperor Ashoka the religious system he had founded was becoming more and more prevalent throughout India potentially due to their unwillingness to participate in Conflict though the mauryan Empire eventually dissolved in the second century BC after the last line of the maurya was murdered by his commander-in-chief who would later found the shunga dynasty so non-violence is a fantastic ideal to Aspire to it's terrible for running an Empire when you are holding to a idea of non-violence and none of the other people around you are they will very quickly take advantage of you and that is unfortunately the reality um for anybody who goes down that path it's greatly admired you know to be able to to take a path of non-violence it's not the way to run an Empire though unfortunately and 185 BC despite the fact that brijeta's assassin pushimitra was rumored to have persecuted Buddhists it appeared that Buddhism faced no decline concurrent with his rise to power during Pusher mitra's Reign his kingdom maintained authority over a series of provinces as he stood his ground against other powers attempting to expand their territory towards his own so it's interesting to note that these Empires are mostly in the northern part of today of what is today India because we know that India goes all the way down into here so there's obviously a very different system of government a very different group of people in the South and I'm curious to know how that eventually all will merge together after the Monarch's death though his dynasty seemed to have fallen in terms of importance the Dynasty is not known to have done anything notably relevant and their control was short-lived a variety of settlements and invading Powers controlled India at this time one being the kushana kingdom known for their significant trade involvement with Chinese Persian and Roman Empires along the Silk Road one kushana ruler kanishka in the First Century A.D also converted to Buddhism and helps to further the religion throughout the region and you can see how just like in the west with Christianity with Islam how religion fuels the spread of these Empires it fuels what alliances get made it fuels what Ambitions people have and 75 A.D the kashana kingdom marked a new era the Shaka era a bit of distance from the kushanas in the South a handful of other powers Rose fell and fought for Supremacy amongst each other the kingdoms of satavahana chera Chola and panja were some of the major authorities in the South during this time and through the classical age the Gupta Empire became the face of Northern India during the classical age and the majority of the region was United under their Authority during what is often described as Northern India's golden age the reign of the Gupta Empire is regarded as a time of Law and Order as well as cultural flourishing the rulers of the empire were no strangers to military Expedition but aims to expand their territory through peaceful means such as martial alliances no less than through military action so I'm curious to know because we know India's got such a high population today over a billion people I'm curious to know what the population is like during this time so I want to look that up so first of all this is interesting here um at the beginning of the fourth Century the world population is estimated at around 375 million people and 80 percent of that population is either in the Roman the Chinese Han or the Indian Gupta Empires if you lived in the world 1600 years ago 1700 years ago four out of five were in one of those three Empires I mean that just goes to show you how dominant that a part of the world is but I want to find a little more than that so the Gupta Empire um 350 to 450 is the time period we're talking uh they control an area of about 14 or 1.4 million square miles um but we don't get an idea of a population from that so I'm curious to see if we can find that anywhere else all right well I don't want to spend all day looking for it I couldn't really find anything easily but if you can provide some kind of a source for what kind of population we're looking at for the Gupta Empire at this time I would love to hear that so please post it below though the goop to Empire had extensive success over centuries they eventually reached a point of decline between the 5th and 6th centuries as invading Huns from Central Asia began to Annex and take over the formerly dominant Empire's land and anytime you have these other Empires coming in Invasions by other groups of people you're going to have a mixing of cultures you're going to have a mixing of um of Bloodlines genetics and so that's why today for example if you live in England you might have Scandinavian roots in your DNA you might have German DNA you might have French DNA you might have Celtic DNA you know because there are all these every time there's an Asian by one of these groups of people or new settlement they get kind of mixed in and you add to the culture and so the culture changes and the language changes and all of this no doubt is having an impact on forming what we know today is India as the religions of Buddhism and what later became Hinduism thrived local and trespassing authorities continued to fight for territory and dominion over the following centuries the next major shake-up of the Indian civilization came with the arrival of Islam Muslim Invaders began to send missions to India the century after the death of the Prophet Muhammad and so it's interesting because we know that they're also spreading to the West right I mean they're spreading across Africa they're moving into Southeastern Europe they're moving up the Iberian Peninsula so you know when we when we learn about European history we learn about those things but while that's all happening they're also spread heading to the east a series of Muslim Sultans began to lead Expeditions into India claiming places such as Sindh Moulton and somnath these incursions brought the defeat of native kingdoms and the destruction of Hindu temples along the way the rajputs stood as one of the most determined Defenders against Sultan Invaders but they were ultimately defeated in 1192 by Mohammed gory and his forces as Islam began to work its way into India other previously principal religions such as Buddhism began to decline by the start of the 13th century the era of the Delhi sultanate Dominion arose so again it's interesting it's always that kind of Northern Area that becomes the largest Empire the largest group under one rule first dynasty within the Delhi sultanate was founded by kutab UD din ibak the slave Dynasty controlled the sultanate until around 1290 when the kilji Dynasty took over first by the hand of jahal uddin khilji his family held the throne for less than a century as the two flag dynasty was next to seize power in 1320. the tuglak dynasty technically retained power until 1412 but matters were Complicated by them so I mean this is most of Modern India at this point and it's a good bit of Pakistan too um fascinating the incursion led by Timor in 1398 into Delhi as the tuglak dynasty weakened the Syed Dynasty replaced them starting in 1414. the syeds lasted for roughly 37 years but the last ruler's Reign was stained by rebellion and Discord as the dynasty Fell From Grace yet another dynastic Authority took the open Throne this time being the Lodi Dynasty the new Dynasty lasted until the death of the then current ruler Ibrahim Khan Lodi who was killed in battle at panipat by the army of kabul's leader babur in 1526. being part of Afghanistan today death brought about the final end of the Delhi sultanate as a whole now free of competition from the Lodi Dynasty the board established the Mughal Dynasty which would end up becoming one of the greatest through throughout history the original turkic Mongol Imperial power ruled a vast majority of India for over two centuries and brought about significant cultural growth and Architectural achievements including the great Taj Mahal despite their immense success the Mughal Empire began its decline around the start of the 18th century as Revolt after Revolt began to shake the foundations of the widespread power so you're getting revolts against a powerful once-powerful Empire weakening it from the inside this is the perfect opportunity in any civilization for an outside power to take advantage and come in and I have a feeling I know who that outside power is alongside threats from the marathas and the British the British East India Company had actually already been in the region for some time but the situation with the British started to escalate not long after the mughals fell by 1857 India displayed increasing control by the East India Company and the locals were having none of it look at that just like that after centuries of local or somewhat local rule Here Comes an Empire from you know halfway across the world and um interesting little tidbit uh American history we learn about Lord Cornwallis who famously surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown which kind of brought him an effective end to the American Revolution uh he's buried in India he was sent to India I think he worked he was kind of the governor or something there and and died and is buried in the British Empire it began as a simple Revolt by Indian soldiers in Merit quickly blew up into a widespread rebellion and became known as the Indian Mutiny of 1857. this Rebellion later would be called the first war of Indian independence and even though the British were able to quell the Revolt after a matter of months it inevitably had lasting impacts in response to the Mutiny on November 1st 1858 Britain's queen Victoria declared that India would be ruled in the name of the British crown from that point on locals maintained their disapproval and anger at the British Supremacy over their land and now Queen Victoria is going to be called the Empress of India and that's a title that will pass down to her son who will be the Emperor of India Edward uh and then at least for a few more Generations I think it's only when um I want to say King George VI gives up that title um and nationalist sentiments and movements were far from extinguished the next major move towards independence came when Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress decided to withdraw all cooperation with the British government beginning the non-cooperation movement following the end of world war one it's a fascinating way to Rebel it's not an act of rebellion it's not armed and violent it's we're not going to help you anymore we're not cooperating it's a peaceful but effective tool because the British Empire can only do so much from that far away when they've got a bunch of other places that they've got to deal with as well they can such a massive population and a massive area they've got to have cooperation so the more you can get the Indian people to not cooperate the more effective that's going to become when this strategy did not bring the wanted results Gandhi adopted a new technique in the form of this Civil Disobedience movement in December of 1929 essentially the movement was made up of the Declaration of an Indian Independence Day that would be celebrated on January 16th and complete Disobedience of any orders by the British government again Gandhi's strategy failed and this time he was even arrested while many other Rebels were murdered still the British were eventually pushed into the round table conferences beginning in November of 1930 the second of which Gandhi attended the conferences marked another failure and Civil Disobedience reignited Gandhi's next attempt the quit India movement again made no drastic progress so again it's pretty interesting here that he's trying these non-violent means he's trying to find ways without open Rebellion to push for Independence and it's not working and when these things happen eventually you're going to have more extreme people who are going to say your way is not working we've got to try something different you always have a variety of people trying different things in the American Revolution um for the people that you have that are trying to find a olive branch a a peaceful solution you also have the Sam Adams of the world who are much more about violence and really kind of being active with it in the Civil Rights Movement here in the United States we have people like Martin Luther King Jr who are very much about peace and Civil Disobedience much you know much like Gandhi and then you have the Malcolm X's of the world who are much more about being active and being much more forceful in fighting for things World War II brought about new issues as India was forced into war by the British but at the conflict's conclusion a new labor party came into power in India and showed sympathy towards the fight for independence finally as August 14th turned to 15th in 1947 India became an independent nation okay so that's the end of that first uh part I don't know if there's a second part to this it says part one so there probably is I'll put the link in the description so you can check this out for yourself without my commentary I learned a lot already obviously we glossed over a ton of History because we're covering thousands of years in a 12 minute video so there's not a lot of details uh but we will definitely dive into more I'm just trying to get my feet wet I'm trying to wrap my mind around uh a little bit more of Indian history so I can start to get a sense of it uh so if you have suggestions ideas requests of specific videos that get more into the details of Indian history I would love to hear that this is an area I don't know much about like I said so uh thanks for watching please hit that like button we'll come back with part two if it does indeed exist

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 66,053

Keywords: history of india, indian history, the history of india, when was india founded, ancient india, colonization of india, indian documentary, chandragupta maurya, ancient indian kingdoms, ashoka the great, what is the history of india, history of ancient india, history reaction, indian history reaction, medieval indian kingdoms, historian reacts, india reaction, white people react to history of india, foreigners react to india history, foreigners react to history of india

Id: 8ffPhlK5RwU

Length: 27min 50sec (1670 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 21 2022