The Mahabharat war (3139 BC) had shattered
the economy and abolished many localized civilizations of India. There
were thousands of kings and millions of people who died in that war. That
much loss of population in those days was a big thing, and, as a
consequence of the war, big patches of uninhabited land lay stretched
across the subcontinent. There were no common roads in those days to join
two distant states of India, and thus, the communication between them was
bleak. In that situation, the people, living in different locations of
India, developed their own culture and their own communicating language
which had classical or locally spoken Sanskrit background and the image of
original Bhartiya civilization.
Time went on and gradually Brahmi script and Pali
language developed in India. Pali language was liberally used to write the
tenets of Buddhism. The prime Vedic civilization of Bharatvarsh would have
been concentrated in Mathura, Allahabad and Varanasi areas which were
always the center of Bhartiya culture and scriptural education.
People living around the Indus valley gradually
developed their civilization. It was later on called the Harappan culture
or Harappan civilization and was considered to exist around 2700-2500 BC.
But it appears that that civilization was totally out of touch with the
mainstream of Bhartiya culture, that’s why their linguistic and literary
developments remained in a very primitive shape. The inscriptions of
Harappan civilization are found on seals and tablets in the form of signs
which very much resemble Phoenician and Semitic signs that were developed
around 1500 to 1000 BC and which became the prototype for the development
of all the writing systems of the western world.
But, on the other hand, we have the historical record,
documented in the Bhagwatam itself (Bhag. Ma. 6/94, 95, 96) that in 3072
BC, 2872 BC and 2842 BC, three public programs of the recitation of the
Bhagwatam and the discourses on Krishn leelas had happened in which
Saints and the devotees participated.
We have thus two entirely different views about the
civilization of India in almost the same period of time. To understand
this situation I will give you an example: Suppose someone, who has never
been to India and has only heard about it becomes curious and desires to
see India. He and his younger brother in two helicopters approach India
and prepare to land. One person lands near Bhabha Research Center
(Bombay), interviews some people and talks to the research scientists of
the Center and departs for his homeland. The other person loses the track
and ends up landing in a jungle clearing where the tribal natives (called
the adivasis) come to see the helicopter which is like a celestial
machine for them. The person, baffled with the findings and unable to
understand the tribal language, comes back home, disgusted and
disappointed, where he finds his brother excitedly talking about all the
good things of India. Both brothers tell their stories and both find it
hard to believe each other. But both are facts, and both situations
simultaneously exist.
Thus, during the period of the Harappan culture, in
some areas of the Ganges valley, India did have its advanced civilization
and the scholars of Sanskrit language because the discourses on the
Bhagwatam were in Sanskrit language; and you should know that India is
never bereft of such Sages and Saints who hold the knowledge of all the
scriptures in their Divine mind.
When the historians write the history of India, even if
they are sincere in their efforts, still they try to patch up the Harappan
culture with Vedic culture and, in a worldly manner, they try to determine
the advancement of the Sanskrit language which is eternally perfect. Such
a notion is absolutely wrong. They think that they are trying to be
logical in their historical research, but they forget this fact that one
cannot determine the history of Bharatvarsh on meager archaeological
findings of coins, toys and pots. Whereas the general history of
Bharatvarsh is already written in its scriptures and the Puranas whose
texts and the philosophical descriptions are the outcome of the Gracious
and benevolent minds of eternal Saints.