PAKISTAN'S HISTORY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Aryan Civilization

                           Until the entry of the Europeans by sea in the late fifteenth century, and with the exception of the Arab conquests of Muhammad bin Qasim in the early eighth century, the route taken by peoples who migrated to India has been through the mountain passes, most notably the Khyber Pass, in today's northwestern
Pakistan. Although unrecorded migrations may have taken place earlier, it is certain that migrations increased in the second millennium BC.

In or about 1500 B.C., the Aryans from Central Asia descended developed the rudiments upon the Punjab and settled in the Sapta Sindhu, which signifies the Indus plain. They brought with them and of the religio-philosophical system of what later evolved into Hinduism. They developed a pastoral society that grew into the Rigvedic Civilization. The Rigveda is replete with hymns of praise for this region, which they describe as "God fashioned". The earlierhymns exhibit the Aryans on the northwestern frontiers of India just

starting on their long journey.

                          They show the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes, sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the "dark-skinned" aborigines. They also brought an early version of Sanskrit, the base of Urdu, Punjabi, and Sindhi languages that are spokken in much of Pakistan today. They settled down as husbandmen, tilled their fields with the plough, and lived in villages or towns. But they also clung to their old wandering life, with their herds and "cattle-pens.

                          Cattle, indeed, still formed their chief wealth, the coin in whichpayments of fines were made; and one of their words for war literally meant "a desire for cows". They learned to build "ship perhaps large river-boats, and also seemed to have heard something of the sea. 9 The Aryan tribes in the Veda were acquainted with most of the metals, and had among them blacksmiths, coppersmiths and goldsmiths, besides carpenters, barbers and other artisans. They fought from chariots, and freely used the horse, although not yet the elephant, in war.

In those early days the Aryan tribes were known to be divided into four social grades on a basis of colour: the Kshatriyas or nobles, who claimed descent from the early leaders; the Brahmans on sacrificing priests; the Vaishyas, the peasantry; and last of all the Sudras, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, of non-Aryan

descent. Even below these there were low tribes and trades,aboriginal tribes and slaves. 10 But it is also clear that so long as the Sapta Sindhu remained the core of the Aryan Civilization, it remained free from the caste system.

                        The caste institution and the ritual of complex sacrifices took ape in the Ganges Valley where a social and political system evobserved in which the Aryans dominated but various indigenous Peoples and ideas were also accommodated and absorbed. There can no doubt that the Indus Valley Civilization contributed much to
evelopment of the Aryan civilization.