Punjab (State of Punjab)
The history of Punjab has witnessed the migration and settlement of different tribes of people with different cultures and ideas, forming a melting pot of Punjabi civilisation. The Indus Valley civilization flourished in antiquity before recorded history until their decline around 1900 BCE. Punjab was enriched during the height of the Vedic period, but declined in predominance with the rise of the Mahajanapadas. The region formed the frontier of initial empires during antiquity including the Alexander's and Maurya empires. It was subsequently conquered by the Kushan Empire, Gupta Empire, and then Harsha's Empire. Punjab continued to be settled by nomadic people; including the Huna, Turkic and the Mongols. Circa 1000 CE, the Punjab came under the rule of Muslims and was part of the Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire, and Durrani Empire. Sikhism was founded in the 15th to 17th centuries by the Sikh Gurus in the Punjab and resulted in the formation of the Sikh Confederacy after the fall of the Mughal Empire and ensuing conflict with the Durrani Empire. This confederacy was united into the Sikh Empire in 1801 by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
The greater Punjab region was annexed by the British East India Company from the Sikh Empire in 1849. Following widespread religious violence in 1947, the Punjab Province of British India was divided along religious lines into West Punjab and East Punjab. West Punjab became part of a Muslim-majority Pakistan, while East Punjab became part of a Hindu-majority India. After the Punjabi Suba movement, Indian Punjab was reorganised on the basis of language on 1 November 1966. Haryanvi and Hindi-speaking southern and eastern areas were carved out as Haryana, while Pahari-speaking northern hilly regions were attached to Himachal Pradesh. The remaining, mostly Punjabi-speaking areas became the current state of Punjab. A separatist insurgency occurred in Punjab during the 1980s. At present, the economy of Punjab is the 15th-largest state economy in India with inr 5290000000000 in gross domestic product and a per capita GDP of inr 151367, ranking 17th amongst Indian states. Since independence, Punjab is predominantly an agrarian society. It is the ninth-highest ranking among Indian states in human development index. Punjab has bustling tourism, music, culinary, and film industries.— — — — — — — —
Map - Punjab (State of Punjab)
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Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest. (a) (b) (c), "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence ‘panch’ and ‘ab’) draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva)."
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
INR | Indian rupee | ₹ | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
AS | Assamese language |
BN | Bengali language |
BH | Bihari languages |
EN | English language |
GU | Gujarati language |
HI | Hindi |
KN | Kannada language |
ML | Malayalam language |
MR | Marathi language |
OR | Oriya language |
PA | Panjabi language |
TA | Tamil language |
TE | Telugu language |
UR | Urdu |