DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

6.1] THE PUNJAB 145
destruction of Aryan tribes), both dates being approximate. Of this
movement, the major advances were made in Magadha (Bihar), with
the consequent extension of a Magadhan religion (Buddhism) and of
the Magadhan empire to the whole country. The influence of both was
felt beyond the frontiers. Both the religious procedure (to some extent a
deliberate adoption) and the empire left ineradicable marks upon the
country.
6.1. The historical center of gravity had already shifted from the
Punjab to the Gangetic valley by the seventh century B. c. There were no
changes of any great importance in the Punjab. The conquest by
Darius towards the third quarter of the sixth century brought the land
of the seven (or by then only five) rivers into chronological history. His
inscriptions list Kambujiya, Gandara, Hindu£ among the provinces, which
therefore extended through Afghanistan to the Indus, over previous
Aryan settlements. Recruits and levies from the west Punjab (HinduS)
fought in the armies of Darius and Xerxes against the Greeks. Just at
the margin, perhaps subjected to a nominal tribute by the Persians (when
they could collect it) was the city of Taxila, a great center of overland trade
between two economically powerful regions, namely the static Persian
empire, and a growing kingdom in the Gangetic valley. The rest of the
Punjab was in the vedic state, except that some tribes like the Purus
had expanded, to an extent that would make them kingdoms by the
time of Alexander. The remaining cities were tribal headquarters,
overgrown villages but for Taxila and a few lesser centres like
Peukelaotis (Puskaravati, the city of the puskara lotus ponds, modern
Charsadda) ; none of these compared in size and planned organization
with Mohenjo-daro or Harappa. The population of the Indus valley
was now better armed, with a solid basis of pastoral and agrarian
production (using the plough with small-scale canal irrigation)
supplemented by trade.
Less is known of the southern peninsula which was in a state of
late stone-age savagery, with a trifling amount of metal in use at a few
undated spots. The pastoral life must have spread down some of the
river valleys, at least to the Andhra coast. Some hardy traders and an
occasional needy brahmin had begun to penetrate the south from Bihar,