India in the past

Different parts of India have different histories and legends. Indians in different parts of the country look at their past from a different point of view than Indians in other parts of India. Indian history has a past of over thousands of years. The Hindus record their religious history at over millions of year. They believe that the world is created and destroyed every few million years. Religious Hindus and some Hindu historians record their present history at over 7000 years. This belief is different from the accepted general history which claims Indian history to be shorter than 5000 years.

In general Indian history different kingdoms were established in different parts of India, some by foreign invaders. The first known invaders of India were Aryans (also mentioned sometimes as Indo-Aryans). It is believed that the Aryans arrived in north India somewhere from Iran and southern Russia at around 1500 B. C. The Aryans fought and pushed the local people called Dravidians southwards. The Aryans are referred to in Indian history as fair skinned people who pushed the dark skinned Dravidians southwards.

The north Indians are considered to be the descendants of the Aryans and the south Indians are considered descendants of the Dravidians. Even today the most basic division of the Indian society is of north Indian Aryans and south Indian Dravidians. But this division isn’t proper. Many Indians emigrated from one part of India to other parts of India and not all local people of north India were pushed southwards by the Aryans. Some stayed and served the Aryans and others moved to live in the forests and the jungles of north India. There were also other foreign immigrations and invaders who arrived mainly in north India. Many Dravidians consider themselves as original Indians and their culture as the original culture of India. They also feel that their culture is discriminated by the north Indians.

After the Aryans many others invaded India. Alexander the Great and other Greeks arrived in India. The ancient Persian Empire expanded its boundaries up to India. But the Persian Empire like Alexander the Great, didn’t arrive to the center of present India but to present day Pakistan and up to the borders of present India. But there were other Greeks who arrived in India and established kingdoms in India. Others to arrive in ancient India were Scythians, Kushans and Huns. These invaders also established some kingdoms in India. At a much later period there were Muslim invaders - Turks, Arabs, Afghans and others. And of course the Europeans - Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, French and English. In between Indians also established their own kingdoms and empires. These different kingdoms fought among themselves to expand their kingdom boundaries. But never in Indian history was there a kingdom that ruled the whole of India. These different kingdoms that were established in different parts in India created different aspects of Indian history for different regions of India.

Different regions of India adore different heroes and empires from India’s past. For example people from Maharashtra in west India adore the Maratha Empire which was created in Maharashtra and ruled over large parts of India in the 17^th and 18^th century. Their most respected hero is Shivaji who created the Maratha Empire. People of Tamil Nadu have their own Tamil originated heroes and empires like the Chola Empire that ruled south India and some parts of north India between the 9^th to 13^th century.