into Punjab in search for food for themselves and better pastures for their cattle. They found the country congenial and able to meet their needs. Thus they stayed on and spread themselves to further south and made India as their home.

After the Aryans had finally become masters and settled peacefully, the scholarly class among them, the Brahmans devoted their time to learning and literary pursuits. This was only possible after they had crossed the Sutlej around 2000-1500 B.C. and were in the plains of Malwa with the Yamuna on the east. They established hermitages and ashrams on the bank of the Sarswati river. Thanesar (Kurukshetra) and adjoining areas became places of pilgrimage. Sanskrit literature and Rig-Veda is reported to have been written here. The area between the Sarswati and Driswati rivers was known as Brahmavarta. These rivers were considered sacred and have been mentioned in the Rig-Veda, Puranic literature, the Mahabharata and in the Manu-s Dharmashashastra.

Punjab became the seat of learning. Besides the facilities available in Brahmavarta, there was in Gandharvadesa (Jehlum - Peshawartract), the famous University of Taxila (Takhsh - Shila) which attracted students from far and wide. Speakers of knowledge from all parts of the world flocked here which included high ranking scholars like Prasenajit and Jivika from the East. Chark, one of the founder of the Ayurvedic branch of medicine, Kautilya, the author of famous Arth-Shastra and preceptor Chandergupta Maurya the great, Paninni the renowned Sanskrit Scholar were all associated with Taxila University. Mahabhrata was first recited in the halls of this university.
Panini, the great grammarian and his precursors Rishi Pingal, the author of Treatise on Prosody, the writer of the Natya Shastra, Sage Bharati, the inventor of dramatic entertainment, Chark, founder of Ayurvedic system of medicines, all belonged to Punjab.

In the field of politics as well, the early Aryans established their kingdom in Punjab before spreading out to other parts of India. It was also here in the land of five rivers that two historic battles were fought. The first battle took place between Raja Sudes of North Panchaldesa and number of other Rajas. The second battle, which is more important and widely known is Mahabharata fought in about 1400 BC at Kurukshetra between the Pandavas and Kauravas. The second one in a way was the extension of the first battle.

The Aryans by and large, as already mentioned earlier, were nomadic people. They however, gradually began to organize themselves which lead to the establishment of state and administrative machinery. Aryan society was patriarchal. Father was the head of the family and the family was the basic social unit. Caste system had become narrow, as was the case in the later years.

Both polygamy and polyandry was practiced in a limited fashion. Child marriages were not known. Custom of dowry was uncommon. Women participated in social life and enjoyed certain amount of freedom but they were not treated at par with men.

Other races followed the Aryans. The Parsians under Darius (522-486 BC) conquered Northwest Punjab and for many years his successors ruled over the area comprising Indus Valley and Northwest Punjab. These areas were constituted into 20th Satrapy, which was the richest part of his empire. Darius, who faced a formidable enemy in King of Gandharvadesa, came to the conclusion that secret of his strength laid in the concentration of power and resources. He therefore decided to divide the conquered territory into small administrative units. He created political system, which endured for well over a century.

In other areas also the Persian influence was of a considerable nature. The system of taxation, centralized control salaried secretariat, the Ashokan column, the edicts inscribed on them, the style of communication adopted, the use of Arabic script and the Kharosthi script derived from it in their inscription are pointer to the Achaemanican impact.

The Indian possessions slipped out of the hands of the Iranians after the death of Xerxes (486-465 B.C). The -Purus- or Pauravas came down from their highlands and created a strong kingdom by incorporating these territories.

The excavations at Dholbaha, the ancient temple town near Hoshiarpur take back its antiquity to the Pleistocene period of the stone age man and show evidence of continued development of civilization right down to the 7th and 8th century AD.

Ruins in the vicinity of the village Ghuram now situated in Patiala district on the old high road connecting Shiwalik to the Arawali ranges show that once it was a great entrepot during the ancient time. It remained the first seat of the Muslim Empire in India during the last decades of the 12th century before the capital was shifted to Delhi. Ghuram is reputed to be the home of Mata Kaushalya, the mother of Raja Ram Chander Ji of Ayodhya.

Clues of great historical importance of Punjab have also been unearthed at village Sanghol, commonly known as Uccha Pind in Fatehgarh Sahib district.

The words of Guru Rabindranath Tagore calling Punjab the home of first civilized man ring true and from ice age to the modern times Punjab has been the cradle of the world’s greatest civilizations, the Vedic age, the epic ages of Ramayana and Mahabharata being the ones which reaffirm Punjab’s standing as Brahmavarta in Aryavarta