Indigenous Asian Civilizations

In at least two instances it is possible to recognize an indigenous development of an Asian civilization with minimal outside influence. The origins of the Indus Valley civilization can be traced to increasing social complexity in the basin of this river and the surrounding uplands to the north and west, linked with growing maritime and overland trade with the contemporary civilizations of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Here are all the classic hallmarks of an early state system: huge walled cities with elite precincts dividing the priests and aristocrats from the rest of the urban population; regular streets, granaries, craft workshops, and domestic houses; and, most intriguing perhaps to the visitor, an efficient system of latrines and drains. A written script was used by at least 3300 B.C.E., but the failure of modern scholars to read the brief texts means that the administrative and ruling system remains conjectural. Several large cities dominated, particularly Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, but there were many smaller centers, villages, and hamlets.
The end of this civilization is dated to the first half of the second millennium B.C.E., but the reasons for the decline are not yet clearly defined. Some scholars have turned for explanation to the Rig-Veda, sacred ritual hymns, which survived through oral tradition in India until first transcribed in the 14th century C.E. For millennia Hindu priests have intoned these hymns during religious ceremonies incorporating the soma ritual. This ritual involved taking the juice from the soma plant, the identity of which remains unknown. Some was then offered to the gods; the rest was imbibed by the priests. The gods worshiped include the principal Hindu deities in their early manifestations: Foremost are Agni, the god of fire; Surya, the Sun god; Rudra, god of storms; and Indra and Vishnu, the gods of war. The Rig-Veda survives in Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, and its early manifestation was once seen as evidence of warriors arriving in the Indus Valley from the northwest, warriors who destroyed the cities of the Indus. Few now hold to this view for lack of archaeological evidence. Indeed some scholars have even suggested that the Rig-Veda in essence originated in the Indus cities and actually describes events that occurred in them. In any case the Indus civilization did not survive in a recognizable form beyond the first centuries of the second millennium B.C.E. The center of gravity in India then moved to the Ganges (Ganga)-Jamuna Basin, where a series of small competing states, known as janapadas, arose. The elimination and absorption of the weak led to the formation of larger states, and ultimately by the same process, the Mauryan state arose to form the first Indian empire in the fourth century B.C.E.
The second independent development of a civilization took place in China from about 2000 B.C.E. For many years, the central focus for the early Chinese state lay in the middle reaches of the Huang (Yellow) River Valley. Early Chinese histories described the states of Xia and Shang, including the names of capitals, dynasties, and kings. Archaeological research has validated these semimythical states, identified cities, recovered early written records, and opened the burials of elite leaders. Even after nearly a century of such research, new discoveries are still crowding in. Thus a new Shang capital was found as recently as 1999 at Huanbai. Excavations have also revealed the antecedents of the first states, which reach back to the period of early farming, and extending through the increasingly complex societies of the loess land bordering the Huang River. Long-range contact with the West was manifested by the beginnings of bronze casting and the adoption of the chariot.
Of even greater significance, there is compelling new evidence for a parallel development to the south, in the lands bordering the mighty Chang (Yangtze) River. Here
rice replaced millet as the subsistence base of states known as the Changjiang civilization. Already by 4000 B.C.E., walled settlements like Chengtoushan were established.
The Liangzhu culture (3200 to 2000 B.C.E.) of the lower Chang River Valley presents the picture of a complex society, whose leaders were interred in opulent tombs with fine jade grave goods. The most spectacular finds are from Sanxingdui in the Sichuan Basin, a huge walled city and likely capital of the regional state of the Shu people during the second millennium B.C.E. The bronze, ivory, gold, and jade offerings recovered from two sacrificial pits reveal a society no less complex than its contemporary at Anyang, the capital of the Shang state in the Huang Valley to the north.
In north China, the Shang dynasty was replaced in 1045 B.C.E. by the Zhou rulers. The Western Zhou kings controlled a considerable area. However, their policy of sending royal relatives to rule over newly conquered regions in due course weakened the center, as regional lords assumed their own power bases and formed their own states. In addition, the states known to the Chinese as Shu and Chu continued to flourish in the Chang Valley independent of the Zhou. This policy, with the transition to the Eastern Zhou period in 770 B.C.E., led to the weakening of the royal house; as rival states entered into increasingly bellicose relationships, the state of Qin emerged as the dominant force. By 221 B.C.E., the first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, had vanquished his last rivals. His dynasty, however, was short lived, being succeeded by the Western and then the Eastern Han. This period of empire, which ended in 220 C.E., saw the establishment of an enduring Chinese state that exercised considerable influence on its borders.