ANCIENT
INDIA

Long before the Buddha or the Taj Mahal, a brilliant urban culture flourished along the Indus River in what is now Pakistan and north-west India. Broad streets crossed at right angles like a modern grid. Houses had brick-lined bathrooms connected to covered drains under the streets, running water and rubbish chutes when much of the world still lived in huts. Granaries stored taxes of grain; seals carved with unicorn bulls and unknown script marked trade goods. We cannot yet read their writing, so many details stay mysterious, but weights and measures were standardised across hundreds of miles. Around 1900 BCE the big cities slowly emptied, perhaps rivers shifted or trade broke, yet village life and ideas flowed onward into later India.

Ancient India was never frozen, Persian, Greek, Central Asian and Southeast Asian influences flowed back and forth along monsoon sea lanes and caravan routes. Buddhism reshaped art from Afghanistan to Japan; Hindu numerals and chess migrated west; spices and cotton textiles financed empires. Muslim sultanates and later the Mughals added new layers of architecture, language and cuisine, yet Sanskrit learning and temple worship never vanished. British colonial rule brought pain and resistance, but also rediscovery of India's own past through archaeology. Today the Republic of India holds dozens of languages, a billion citizens and a space programme, yet still lights lamps on Diwali, chants texts older than Homer and debates philosophy first argued on the Ganges plains three thousand years ago.