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The Indian
country is very old and simply complex. According to a popular estimate,
it has covered a span of five thousand years since the period of its first
known civilization.
During this period, several strains of immigrants, representing
different ethnic families and linguistic ones have merged into it and have
contributed to its diversity and vitality.
Several
different levels of social evolution co-exist in India; like the hunters,
the cultivators, the nomads, the itinerant traders, professionals and different
artisans. Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism are found here, along
with a bewildering number of sects and cults , each with its own rituals
and beliefs. Add to this the modern academic, bureaucratic, industrial and
scientific elites and one can find the past, the present and the future
living together.
It is very
difficult to identify the earliest inhabitants of India. There are no written
records about them, since writing was not invented then. The orally told
history is not much reliable. Many minute details could not withstand the
ravages of time. Early human activity in India goes back to the second Inter-
Glacial period, between 400,000 and 200,000 B.C. Stone tools found and cave
paintings unearthed in many places in the country prove this point very
clearly.
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