History of Meditation and of Ancient India - the Beginning

"Zen" is just the Japanese misreading of the Chinese characters for "Chan", the transliteration of the Sanskrit (Hindu) expression "dhyana", which means meditation. But that's only the end of meditation history which started, according to Matt Rossano (Did Meditation make uns Human? In :Cambridge Archeological Journal, Februar 2007) about 100.000 years ago, when homo sapiens joined hominid-people, who already lived for a long time around the world.

Most Hominids were a rather weak pray to each other and to hungry animals. But sometimes (according to Rossano) hominids, who stayed silently longer than necessary around their campfire were not attacked.
It took some 10.000 years until some homo sapiens too practiced silent sitting around the campfire to prevent animal attacks and cannibalism.

About 74,000 years ago with a tremendous bang Mount Toba on today's Sumatra literally exploded and blasted millions of tons of dust and stones into the Stratosphere.

It was the biggest volcanic eruption on earth in the last two million years. For years and years it was dark and continuously winter,  a time like in ice age.

All forms of life on the Indian subcontinent were suffocated and buried under three to six meters of volcanic stones and dust. 
The volcano killed about 70% of the world's hominid population. Modern humans, homo sapiens, survived outside Africa, only in Asia.
 

Mt.Toba -- How it happened

10,000 years later the human history of ancient India continued with survivors of the volcanic eruption, people from Africa, South- and Middle-Asia.

Some crossed the Himalayas others wandered along the coasts to India when sea levels were low.

Until today the genome of people in the western and the eastern part of India differ and an ancient human population still  lives on the Andaman Islands in the east of India.

African survivors of the vulcano-eruption migrated not only to India but also to Australia. Their common origin makes east coast Indians the genome-cousins of aboriginal Australians. 

The newcomer to India developed and became its indigenous population, todays dravidians. During their long migration these homo sapiens practiced their protective behavior to stayed together after meals in "meditation". Homo sapiens with larger brains then other types of hominids not only remembered but sometimes learned to use the protective "sitting together" today called "meditation" .
After again 10.000 years the human population re-occupied India and south-east Asia. But about 42.000 years ago suddenly the protective magnetic cover of the planet was reduced to ca. 5% of it's normal strength (Laschamp-event).  Deadly cosmic beams killed much life on earth. Many living beings on the planet dyed or even dyed out.   Hunter gatherer hominids dyed out even the clever homo neanderthalensis. Only homo sapiens survived, because they still lived in caves.

The Owner of the Land

The dramatic events in the history of ancient India from 70,000 to 40,000 years ago, are today scientifically proven through geological, archaeological and, especially, genetical methods.

Travelling Overseas

A genetic survey in South India discovered Dravidian people genetically close to indigenous Australians!

While East Asia and Europe became populated by humans who fled the droughts in central Asia, some migration from today`s Tibet added to the ancient Indian population.

For at least 30.000 years only Dravidian Indians lived as hunters and gatherers all over the subcontinent. This made them the natural owner of the land.

Some Dravidian groups later may have migrated into the Indus civilization to learn about agriculture techniques and protective "meditation".

Like their cousins in Australia, the indigenous populations of India were displaced and marginalized by human groups of Aryan origin.

In Australia the takeover happened in the 18th century and the intruders came from northern Europe. In India it happened about 7 thousand years earlier and the intruders came from the Indus Valley.

The Indus Valley Civilization

The first agricultural settlements in India emerged about 10.000 years ago along the Indus river system.
It's an area between today's Iran, Pakistan and India where indigenous villagers came in contact with other civilizations

History of India Timeline

They had 4000 years of trade and cultural exchange with neighboring Elam people in Western Iran, with Mesopotamia and with Egypt.

People of the Indus valley slowly developed systems for writing and counting and a technically advanced urban civilization.

At the beginning of the second millennium BC the Indus city of Harrapan had hydraulic systems for water supply and sewage removal.

But it didn't last.

During centuries of economic decline in the Indus Valley Indo-Asian tribes from the Caspian Sea area arrived.

These newcomers later dominated India but changed Indian history in their favor.

That's the second part of ancient Indian history, which also includes the beginning of Buddhism history.

 

Please Notice: Names and Labels

Only in the 19th century, when the British ruled India, the tribes of ancient India were given names by European scientists.

The indigenous people of India, the  Dravidian were labelled untouchables, dalits or tribals. The Indo-Europeans called themselves named "Aryans" or Hindus, members of the "Brahmanic culture". Brahmanism later became honored as cradle of European Civilization.

In early 20th century prehistoric sites of a Dravidian Civilization in the Indus Valley were discovered and turned the history of ancient India upside down.

Traditional India hasn't acknowledged these changes yet.

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