CHAPTER-4: Geographical Setting ( Ancient History Notes for UPSC/IAS Exam)

CHAPTER-4

Geographical Setting

Revision Notes (PRELIMS + MAINS)

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1. Emergence of India

• Peninsular India, together with Antarctica, Africa, Arabia, and South America, is considered to have been a part of the southern super-continent called Gondwanaland.
• Earlier, Gondwanaland, together with the northern super-continent Laurisia, comprising North America, Greenland, Europe, and most of Asia north of the Himalayas, formed a single land mass called Pangaea.
• Then Gondwanaland and Laurisia became separate units. Due to tectonic movements different parts began to break away from Gondwanaland, giving rise to separate geographical units including peninsular India.
• The uplift of the Himalayas took place in four phases. The last and the final uplift took place in the Pleistocene epoch, that is, in c. 2 million–12000 BC.
• Indian subcontinent is as large in area as Europe without Russia, The subcontinent is divided into five countries: India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Pakistan.

1. The Role of the Monsoon

• south-west monsoon lasts between June and October. The kharif crop in north India depended on the south-west monsoon.
• In winter, the western disturbances bring rains to northern India. The coastal areas of Tamil Nadu, gets its major rainfall from the north-east monsoon from mid-October to mid-December.
• The Northern Boundaries
• India is bounded by the Himalayas on the north and seas on the other three sides.
• Himalayas protect the country against the cold arctic winds blowing from Siberia through Central Asia.
• On the north-west, the Sulaiman mountain ranges, which are a southward continuation of the Himalayas, could be crossed through the Khyber, Bolan, and Gomal passes.
• Sulaiman ranges are joined southward in Baluchistan by the Kiarthar ranges which could be crossed through the Bolan pass. The Hindu Kush, the westward extension of the Himalayan system.

1. Rivers

• These consist of the plains of the Indus system, the Indo-Gangetic divide, the Gangetic basin, and the Brahmaputra basin.
• Indus and the western Gangetic plains principally produced wheat and barley, while the middle and lower Gangetic plains largely produced rice, which also became the staple diet in Gujarat and south of the Vindhyas.
• Harappan culture originated and flourished in the Indus Valley; the Vedic culture originated in the North-West Frontier Province and the Punjab, and flourished in the western Gangetic basin; the post-Vedic culture, mainly based on the use of iron, throve in the mid- Gangetic basin. The lower Gangetic valley and north Bengal really came into focus in the age of the Guptas; and finally, the Brahmaputra valley covering Assam gained importance in early medieval times.
• In the eastern part of the Indian peninsula, the area known as Kalinga, covering the coastal belt of Orissa, was situated between the Mahanadi to the north and the Godavari to the south.
• Similarly, Andhra Pradesh largely lay between the Godavari to the north and the Krishna to the south. The Kaveri valley extended in the south roughly to the Vaigai river, and in the north to the south Pennar river.

• The eastern part of the peninsula is bounded by the Coromandel coast. The port cities of Arikamedu (modern name), Mahabalipuram, and Kaveripattanam were situated on the Coromandel coast.
• Maharashtra located between the Tapi (or Damanganga) to the north and the Bhima to the south. The area covered by Karnataka seems to have been situated between the Bhima and the upper regions of the Krishna to the north and the Tungabhadra to the south.
• coastal area in the extreme south-west of the peninsula was covered by the modern state of Kerala.
• sea coast along the western part of the peninsula is called the Malabar coast. In between the Indus and the Gangetic systems to the north and the Vindhya mountains to the south lies a vast stretch of land which is divided into two units by the Aravalli mountains.
• area west of the Aravallis is covered by the Thar desert. The south-eastern portion of Rajasthan has been a comparatively fertile area since ancient times, and because of the existence of the Khetri copper mines.
• Situated at the end of the north-western portion of the Deccan plateau, Gujarat includes the less rainyKathiawar peninsula. South of the Ganga–Yamuna doab, and bounded by the Chambal river to the west, the Son river on the east, and the Vindhya mountains and the Narmada river to the south, lies the state of Madhya Pradesh.
• The eastern part, mostly covered by the Vindhyas, western MP includes Malwa,

1. Natural Frontiers and Cultural Contacts

• Vindhya mountains cut right across India from west to east and formed a boundary between north and south India. The speakers of the Dravidian languages lived south of the Vindhyas, and of the Indo-Aryan languages north of them.

1. Minerals and Other Resources

• richest copper mines are located in the Chhotanagpur plateau, particularly in Singhbhum district.
• The copper belt is about 130 km long and shows many signs of ancient workings. People who used copper implements in Bihar exploited the copper mines of Singhbhum and Hazaribagh, and many copper tools have been discovered in south Bihar and parts of MP.
• Rich copper deposits are also to be found in the Khetri mines in Rajasthan. The Harappans possibly procured some tin from Rajasthan but their main supply came from AfghanistanTin for the Bihar bronzes of Pala times was possibly obtained from Gaya, Hazaribagh, and Ranchi, for in Hazaribagh tin ores were smelted till the middle of the last century.
• The large scale use of iron made Avanti, with its capital at Ujjain, an important kingdom in the sixth and fifth centuries BC. Andhra possesses large lead resources, which explains the large numbers of lead coins in the kingdom of the Satavahanas, who ruled over Andhra and Maharashtra in the first two centuries of the Christian era.
• Lead may have also been obtained from towns in Rajasthan. The earliest coins, called punch-marked coins, were made largely of silver, although this metal is rarely found in India.
• Silver mines existed in early times in the Kharagpur hills in Monghyr district, Large quantities of gold dust. These deposits are called placers. Gold is found in the Kolar goldfields of Karnataka.
• India also produced a variety of precious stones, including pearls, especially in central India, Orissa, and south India.