Outline of Posts
First (Oldest) Previous Next Top (Latest)The posts in this blog begin with a description of the initial populations of South Asia resulting from the 60,000 year-old migration out of Africa. It will progress to the description of the demographic distribution of three variant haplotypes ("Ancient North Indian", "Ancient South Indian", and "Ancient East Indian") in the northern plains. Then, we will provide the frame story of the Re-imagined Mahabharata, i.e., How the orally transmitted Mahabharata came to be written down and the political reason it was distributed all over India (like the Re-imagined Mahabharata these frame stories are speculative.
[I am leaving this collection of posts unchanged, even though many changes in the grand story have been made since March 2013. The first book The Last Kaurava was published by Leadstart Inc., of Mumbai India in November 2015, a revised version will be released this year as the first in a series of 5 books. The population distribution described here is used as a driver of conflict in these books.]
These frame stories will introduce the third Kindle book Bhishma Remembers (to be published), which will cover the story of Santanu's attempt to deal with a refugee crisis; then the story of his son Bhishma/Devavrat from childhood to his first handover of power to his half-brothers Chitrangada and Vichitravirya; then, a second handover of power to his nephews Dhritarashtra and Pandu; and then a third handover of power to his grand-nephew Suyodhana that results in the disastrous war. The last episode will be the one that results in Bhishma's death and the end of the Kuru family.
Later Kindle books will cover other primary characters, from Pandu to Ashwatthama.
Outline of Posts
The demographic lay of the land in the Indo-Gangetic plain and how it came about.
Posts #1 and #2 have described the evidence that the population of South Asia derived from three haplotypes, all of which originated at least 10,000 years ago.
This Overview is Post #3.
The next post (#4) will describe how two of these ancient haplotypes ("Naga" and "Rakshasa") came to occupy different regions of the Gangetic Plain in the east, while one haplotype ("Western") occupied the Sindhu/Saraswati plain.
I will then digress (post #5) to a discussion of how matriarchy, the traditional band organization of all three branches, evolved as bands settled down into cities and towns. In conditions of resource competition, the changes led to patriarchy. Otherwise, formal matriarchy continued and developed frameworks of mystery around the matriarch while the underlying polity became (or could become) gender-neutral and either democratic or led by a council of families.
Coming back to the main line, Post #6 will describe how the three haplotypes expanded from a small beginning and occupied the regions they did.
Post #7 will describe how the Western or Saraswati-Sindhu culture (SSC) culture developed into a system of cities and towns that were at peace with each other and formed the eastern end of a great trade route to Mesopotamia and Egypt; how, internally, they were ruled by a council under a matriarch in which the leading families of the city had representation; how men and women shared power equally in that council, and the pressures that were pushing them to become a male-dominated polity; some key technologies developed by the Western culture -- extensive use of "human archives" for memorizing contracts; extensive use of standardization; the use of "human chronometers" for time-telling; the domestication of the zebu (the humped cow common in India); and, finally, some key technologies that they did NOT develop (writing and coinage) which I will attribute to the use of "human archives" as guarantors of contracts. (This is also speculation though I would welcome discussion on why or whether this provides a reasonable explanation for the three historical mysteries of the undeciphered (and possibly undecipherable) Indus script, the apparent non-use of writing for monuments in India before 500 B.C.E., and the late development of coinage despite extensive trade ties with other coin-using cultures).
Post #8 will describe how the political structure of Naga bands evolved into one confederacy (Panchala) that claimed dominance over all other Naga bands.
Post #9 will describe how the Rakshasa bands evolved into two very loosely coupled confederations on either side of the Ganga. Naga-Rakshasa rivalry was avoided by the two sides initially by maintaining a buffer between the two.
Post #10 will describe how one SSC family (the Kurus) attempted to extend the trade route further east into Naga territory by establishing the city of Hastinapur on the banks of the Ganga. The resulting conflict with the local Nagas and, later, the conflict with Panchala, and the consequences of Hastinapur victory, put increased pressure on the Nagas to conflict with Rakshasas further east over land.
Post #11 will describe the tectonic events leading to the crisis and how Hastinapur was overwhelmed by refugees. This will also describe the Yadava migration through Saurashtra (in Western India) and their ultimate settlement on the banks of the new river Yamuna. This increases pressures on the Nagas to go east and increases conflict with Rakshasas.
These posts will have established the cultural and political landscape that Bhishma and his successors had to deal with.
With these posts we are headed towards the following two frame stories for the Mahabharata:
1) Post #12: The Emperor Pushyamitra Sunga's (circa 150 B.C.E.) project to rewrite and distribute a master written text of the Mahabharata as a way of countering the influence of Buddhist monks;
2) Post #12 & #13: The Bharata project (circa 800 B.C.E.) of Hastinapur to transcribe its orally maintained history to a written form in order to preserve it.
Post #14 will be a digression -- it will be a summary of the ORIGINAL Mahabharata and an introduction to the rest of the Re-imagined Mahabharata.
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