Of course, the Ganges valley is the majority of the sixteen countries. This is caused by historical and geopolitical factors. The main reasons are the decline of Indus civilization, the development and prosperity of Ganges valley and the threat of Iran and other tribal countries in Central and West Asia to northwest India. This problem is related to the Millennium cycle of two core areas of ancient Indian civilization: the Indus River Basin and the Ganges River Basin. Explore several important stages of Indian history: Indus period, Five Rivers period, epic period, foreign period and so on.
1. Indus period
The Indus Mohenjodaro is located in Sindh province, Pakistan, and Harappa is located in Punjab province, Pakistan. They are two large-scale urban sites of Harappa civilization (or indus valley civilization) in ancient India. The owner of this farming civilization is Indian aborigines, mainly Daropi (including some Australian aborigines and Mongols). The era is from 2400 BC to 1700 BC, in which 2200 BC-1800 BC is the heyday. They built the largest city in the world at that time, and the scale of public bathrooms was no less than that of bath centers all over China today.
2. Five Rivers Period
Around 1500 BC, nomadic Aryans entered India from Central Asia through the Hindu Kush Pass, and their earliest resting place was the Wuhe area. The Five Rivers refer to the five main rivers in the upper reaches of the Indus River, namely the Jie Hellem River, the chenab river River, the Ravi River, the Satre River and the Bis River, and each river has many tributaries. Punjab means five rivers. Aryans overlapped with primitive Halaba culture during the Five Rivers period.
At this time, Halaba culture has declined. At present, the direct cause is still inconclusive, and one explanation is flooding. The Indus River is famous for its frequent devastating floods during the rainy season. Archaeology shows that some cities along the Harapa River were destroyed by periodic floods and rebuilt more than 20 times. Undoubtedly, after the Aryans invaded, they conquered the indigenous Indians in this area and gradually suffocated the relatively peaceful urban society. Rigveda is an early collection of Aryans' poems and songs, mainly written in the Five Rivers period, which recorded the battles between them and the aborigines and between different Aryan tribes during this period. Whether from floods or foreign invasions, the total destruction of cities in the Indus Valley can only be attributed to one reason: the destruction of the primitive agricultural system marks the end of grain production.
Conquest was accompanied by the integration of population and culture and the beginning of caste system. More indigenous people were driven to the south, including Sindh province in the lower reaches of the Indus River. An important event in this period was the tribal war known as the Battle of the Ten Kings. Because of the dispute over the diversion of the Ravi River, ten tribes joined forces against the Brahmins, and the Brahmins won. Among these ten tribes, there are Aryan tribes (such as Pu Ru people who are closely related to Brahma) and non-Aryan tribes.
3. Epic period
12- 1 1 century BC, Aryans longed for more fertile soil and migrated eastward along the southern foot of the Himalayas into the Ganges River basin. As can be seen from the Brahma Book, the geographical names in the Ganges region emerge in an endless stream. Since then, Aryans have changed from semi-nomadic state to agricultural civilization stage, and their productivity has been greatly developed, forming a tribal city-state group visible in the picture.
Kulu and Vasu in the Sixteen Countries are closely related to Pu Ru people who moved eastward. Julu (now Delhi and Milan) is the place where the epic Mahabharata took place. The Yidu people living in Indira Plata (now Delhi) finally defeated the Gulu people in Hastingnapur and inherited the throne of balata. Later, the king moved the capital from Elephant City in Gulu to Kausambi (later Vasu) next to Jumu River, a tributary of Ganges River.
In the lower reaches of the Indus River, which is now the Sindh area, when Xuanzang arrived in the 7th century, he saw that although he had a large population, he was still in the grazing stage, and even retained the crude custom of intermarriage among Aryan tribes.
Of course, not all Aryans migrated eastward, and some Pu Ru people stayed in Punjab until the end of 4th century BC. Pauravas was Alexander's formidable opponent before he invaded northwest India in 327.
Why did the developed Ganges River basin replace the original Indus River basin as the core area of Indian civilization?
On the basis of absorbing the achievements of Indian native civilization, the savage nomadic Aryans completed the transformation from nomadic to agricultural civilization and from slave society to feudal society by moving eastward. The transition from primitive * * to monarchy was a prelude to the merger of sixteen countries into four countries: Dai Di, Posto Salo and Mojeto, and then Mojeto was unified.
The Ganges River basin has wider and more fertile land and better hydrological conditions, and is close to the high-quality open-pit iron mines in Bihar. Buffalo in Ganges River basin can be used for large-scale rice field farming, and the quality of dairy products is also very high. Elephants are easy to domesticate and can be used for transportation; All these provide favorable conditions for the development of productive forces. There are frequent floods in the upper reaches of the Indus River and large deserts such as Sindh in the lower reaches.
In the direction of the Aryans invading the Indian Pass, such as Khyber in Hindu Kush, the political forces in Central Asia and West Asia have been coveting the subcontinent and exerting great military pressure on the Indus region. These forces include the Scythians, Persians (closely related to the Aryans in India) and even Assyrians and other tribes in eastern Iran. Since around 550 BC, it was invaded by the Persian Empire. 5 18 years ago, the only Gandhara in the Indus Valley (including Kambuga in the northwest) became a province of the Persian Empire. The Ganges River Basin enjoys a better security situation.
In the long history that followed, Greeks, Xia people, Dayue people, Skeeter/saints, Bada people, rest people, Turks, Afghans and Mongols headed by Alexander successively entered India from the Hindu Kush Pass, occupied Punjab or wider Indian territory, and wrote their own chapters in Indian history.
Therefore, this region is India's northwest gateway to Eurasia, and it is also a battlefield with frequent wars. Objectively, this has also led to the integration of various cultures, and Gandhara art is one of the representatives. It became the center of Mahayana Buddhism and spread to Central Asia and China.