| I believe that the ancient Vedic civilisation (of which the Indus Valley civilisation was a component) descended from a prehistoric civilisation which existed deep in the South of India during the last great Ice Age. This was a time when all of Europe was under thick sheets of ice. A time when the sea levels were drastically lower than today. A time when the landmass of South India extended much deeper into the present day Indian Ocean, incorporating Sri Lanka as well. This antediluvian civilisation was ruled by a line of emperors called the Pandyas2. The name of the civilisation itself remains inconclusive. I have used the term Sangamtamil in the book.
This civilisation was destroyed as the sea levels rose with the end of the Ice Age (climate change happened at that time as well!). It is believed that Manu, a Pandyan prince, escaped the devastation of his country and settled with his band of followers in north-western India. This band grew into the mighty Vedic civilisation of yore.
The Indus Valley people (or the Meluhans3) themselves were a nihilistic group which broke many of the Vedic restrictions, creating a new way of life that fills people with awe even today. The sheer genius of their engineering, the plainly apparent egalitarianism of their city planning, their love of standardisation and order, the obsession with water, has fascinated historians for ages. They burst suddenly on to the Indian scene with awesome brilliance around the end of the 4th millennium BC, blazed mightily for longer than a 1000 years, and then went into slow decline. The fact that their script remains tantalisingly elusive adds to their mystique.
But there is another memory that Indians hold in even greater awe. The memory of an empire administered in a perfect manner - with laws, equality, fairness and abundance. The memory of an emperor so perfect, that over time, he came to be revered as a God. The memory of Ram Rajya, or simply, the rule of Ram.
I believe that the perfect era, Ram Rajya, that exists in all our collective memories, was nothing but what we know today as the Indus Valley Civilisation. Lord Ram established it at the end of the 4th millennium BC. It flourished for more than a thousand years. But all good stories must encounter some twists and turns. The Indus Valley people too faced a terrible twist, an existential trouble, around 1900 BC. They needed a saviour as perfect, as brilliant, as charismatic as Lord Ram.
Enter Lord Shiva.
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| 1. Many Indians believe that Arya is simply an honorific, equivalent to the modern ‘sir’. It does not denote any separate tribe
2. You can read more about this theory in Graham Hancock’s brilliant book, Underworld
3. The name Meluha has been assumed by some historians to mean the Indus Valley Civilisation. Meluha is used in ancient Mesopotamian texts to refer to a wealthy, vast and powerful land to the East
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