Locating Indic Civilization in its Knowledge Traditions

Abstract

India belongs to an ancient and continuously surviving and thriving civilisation known as Sindhu-Sarasvati or Indic Civilisation. Once a part of a larger geographical land mass known as Jambudweep, it has seen the dawn of human civilisation in this part of the world. Being the oldest surviving civilisation, India has evolved unique characteristics about its historical identity. Historically, India existed even before the practice of recording human activities started.  There are intellectuals and academicians debating on the idea of India and its existence as a nation before the modern period or more precisely, before the colonial era. Usually, they follow the nation-state theory to define the formation of India as a nation, just ignoring the fact that India existed even as a larger unit than the present one much earlier than the Western political theories came into existence. This is the reason why they fail to conceptualise India as a nation. They argue that it cannot be proved because of the diverse socio-cultural practices of the people, hundreds of language dialects and many more differences on a range of other cultural grounds. But then, how does this problem help us in finding the solution? The fact is that India is still not a nation-state as per Western theoretical parameters, but it is a Civilisational State.