Take care of your mental health and visit our sponsor: BetterHelp.com/Sandrhoman. Clicking this link gets you 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. So, for those people who do NOT actually watch the video but nonetheless claim wild things about it: We never say that there was an invasion into India instead we talk about migration. And yes, as pretty much every historian who researched India would tell you: migration did happen. And NO it's not "debunked", it's actually the mainstream opion in historiography with a plethora of evidence, from linguistics to archaeology, backing it up. And let me be clear: historiography is an international field. You don't have to be Indian to talk about Indian history but let me assure you that however you may see this, this video builds on the work of an Indian historian: BurjorAvari. His books are brilliant, were well received and positively reviewed among historians. Lastly, this channel is dedicated to reporting the insights of historians and historiography. We will never report a fringe opinion. So, only If the nationalistic Indian view on history will become the mainstream opion, we will use it to write our videos. To people who hold this view dearly and want us to consider these views, I suggest you become a historian and start shaping the field of history with your potentially new and insightful research. Because as of right now, there are only fringe historians that claim those things and we can't use these books because they are always negatively reviewed and their flaws both in content and methodology are plentiful. .

Finally a good video on ancient Indian warfare. Most channels hardly touch this area or time. I wish people would also do some on Sri Lanka.

Very nice SandRhoman. UKposts has this problem with tabloid pop history that spreads everywhere. Not here.

Everyone arguing about modern Indian nationalism and other youtubers while I'm just interested in learning about ancient civilizations.

I love how you are doing more ancient era stuff now. Please do some on ancient greek warfare, and maybe some videos about ancient mercenaries? would be really cool

Please do a video on the Mauryan-Seleucid war. I'm having a hard time finding any information on the period, and most sources just summarize it to "Chandragupta defeated Seleucus, took some land, married his daughter, then gave him 500 elephants."

Finally a video on ancient Indian history...I'm tired of people talking about the Mughals, Mauryas and other Indian dynasties all the time

First lesson of UKposts: Stay away from anyting related to india, least there be death threats

Archaeologists seem to want to prove that some civilisations were peaceful and without was. The claimed the Mayans were also peaceful but now we know different.. I myself am skeptical of any civilisation has ever gone totally without wars. Human nature says different.

Oh my science!! A HECKIN civilization with no gods, no kings and no wars?

More like the original lego valley civilization wth those uniform bricks

Thanks for this video. It's pretty hard to find good content about ancient Indian military history. You guys handled the subject with respect and really nailed it. Hope you do more videos about India!

FINALLY! I've been hoping for you to touch non-european parts of the world... especially mine!

very interesting take on this bit of history. thoughtful, nuanced and well researched. thank you for your work.

This video was fascinating! I learned so much about the evolution of warfare in ancient India. I'm also interested in the Indus Valley Civilization, so I'll definitely check out the video you recommended. Thanks for sharing!

Very interesting video and excellent choice of topic SandRhoman!

Found this channel accidentally and now I'm a daily viewer, I'm grateful UKposts recommended me your channel!

A society without the will or means of defending itself will crumble against the very first aggressor. The fact that Indus Valley civilisation survived for some time before falling to non-invasion causes should be proof enough for people that they possessed the capacity and willingness to wage war even if the evidence is not forthcoming.

Thank you very much for bringing this topic

Thank you for making this video

Thank you for making this video.

I hope you guys will do some North American warfare sometime, Conquests of Aztecs and Inca, Metacomet's War, Beaver Wars, French & Indian War, American Revolution, etc.

I know basically nothing about this part of history. I'm looking forward to changing that.

Sir, I thank you for posting this video, your research into everything warfare is much appreciated.....

Oooo, finally doing this one. Been a little bit since you asked about referential sources.

Incredible documentary, I always learn something new!

Glad to see you expanding your focus, and bringing your narrative talents to often-neglected eastern history.

incredibly excited for this video.

Better help is a scam organization that does not use actual therapists but sells personal data gathered from talk sessions to advertisers. Please find sponsors from more reputable sources

Judging by the comments making a video about indian history seems to be more trouble than it's worth lol.

Very well researched video. Just a correction, Indo- Aryans used copper instead of bronze and they also wore copper armours (maybe only worn by elites). One more peculiar thing is that women very often participated in warfare during Vedic period, can also mention that. Also do some research on Ajatshatru and weapons he used.

A channel that has proved not only good research but originality and good visual taste still matter

Im Indian.. But my childhood hero was Alexander the great..and the old maps and history books in early 80s were so intriguing to read..my Indian warior hero Mahabharata ... non other than Abhimanyu... who broke through the Spiral formation of chariots and soldiers.

This is why you guys are top tier. You do actual research instead of regurgitating existing content and pretending it's new.

War and civilization are interlinked, one cannot be without the other . Civilization started because people built settlements to defend themselves from others

Great video thank you

Very informative❤

I think that the reason that the myth of a Peaceful Hrappan Civilization has persisted for two factors: Firstly that it is attractive to those deconstructionists that believe that humanity is fundamentally good and merely corrupted by institutions to have an actual civilization that they can point to to justify their belief. Secondly it could also be used to justify the racist view that the peoples of Bharat are little more than harmless cattle to be pushed around by their betters.

Have fault lines categorically identified in this region.... it is a siesmically active region, so earthquakes could be identified. Another question how different are the bricks of prevedic and vedic period different from that of freemassonry period , if there is such a term.

A really interesting piece of history of less-known river valley ancient civilisation

Glad to see you guys branching out into other periods and cultures. I’d love to see content about china and pre-columbian americas

hehe i knew that a germanic sounding accent would HAVE to make a sidebar disclaimer about the term aryan 😅

I love these videos because you're always so measured in your descriptions and back up the everything with citations These recent dives into ancient warfare have been really cool. This covers such a huge timespan I can't imagine how much time this must have taken to research. Hats off to you! As an aside, I wonder if you could slip in a slightly more clickbaity title like "Warfare in Ancient India - From the Indus Valley Civilisation to Alexander the Great" to highlight the two parts of the video people are most likely to have heard of. (You can still accurately describe the video somewhere between the thumbnail and title.) The care you guys put in is clear and I want you to be as successful as possible!

Love this channel, last time i saw it had 70k subs now it has 300k

Great video.

Is it possible we can get Indian sieges or early modern era warefare? That would be great :) Look forward to it.

Hey, I was just coming back from X and got this video recommended. So, what I read from Greek Sources which were posted on X platform is that, Alexander before arriving Sindhu river had actually fought with many other small kingdoms and clans. These Kingdoms and clans were very much small and the people used to arm themselves during war. One Source says that, people near Sagala (Sialkot) were very much healthy who lived up to 130 years. Ate only one kind of food and they practiced Medicine as profession. The people too were very much beautiful and the new born child was checked for any diseases after the 2nd month of birth. Sadly, Alexander destroyed all these small Kingdoms which resisted against him. He crushed many cities. At least 20,000 civilians were killed and 70,000 were taken as slaves from one whole Kingdom. If we come to the Battle of Jhelum (Hydaspes), the land between Jhelum and Chenab was ruled by King Purushottam of Paurava Clan (may be). The outcome of the war is pretty much highly debatable because Alexander had personally suffered so much during this war. He would have killed the King and enslaved the people like what he has done before. But, we know that Alexander understood conquering India is not as easy as Persia. His Army has suffered so much due to the small kingdoms and clans already, if he does cross Sindhu and enter into Ganga region, he would have to face much richer and resourceful Empires like Magadh which had always maintained ~100,000 strong soldiers with 1000s of Chariots and War Elephants. The morale of Alexander’s soldiers were also too low to continue the invasion further. There is an another source which tells that Porus had sent 5000 soldiers to help Alexander win a fight against some Tribes. You could imagine the situation of the Greek Army. Bonus: Greek sources talks of an incident where young Chandragupta met Alexander at Takshashila. Chandragupta conquered Magadh after 3-4 years of Alexander’s Departure from India and created the biggest Empire India has ever seen with the guidance of Chanakya. Edit 1: King Rimush of Akkad, a great king of Mesopotamia says in his inscriptions that he was very much proud of himself by defeating the Persian Kingdom and the Armies from Meluha which had come to assist them. Now here the term “Meluha” is used to describe the people of Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation. And this war happened in ~3000 BC (somewhere around 2900-2800 BC). Imagine how powerful was the Sindhu Civilisation by the time Aryans invaded them in 1500 BC. Edit 2: It’s now about Alexander. These comments are reply to some other comments, so some of them may seem out of context but it will give you a broader side. Gangaridai is a term used by Greeks to describe the Ganga Delta. Magadh is actually modern day Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal. This states are pretty much blessed with Natural resources and one of the most fertile lands enough to maintain a huge army. So, Gangaridai is region which is situated within the Magadh Kingdom or it is the Magadh kingdom itself. Diodorus Siculus, a Greek Historian (69BCE-16AD) who wrote the about India citing Megasthenes’s Indica which was lost in time, listen what he says, “This river [Ganges], which is thirty stades in width, flows from north to south and empties into the ocean, forming the boundary towards the east of the tribe of the Gandaridae, which possesses the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size. Consequently no foreign king has ever subdued this country, all alien nations being fearful of both the multitude and the strength of the beasts. In fact even Alexander of Macedon, although he had subdued all Asia, refrained from making war upon the Gandaridae alone of all peoples; for when he had arrived at the Ganges river with his entire army, after his conquest of the rest of the Indians, upon learning that the Gandaridae had four thousand elephants equipped for war he gave up his campaign against them. He had twenty thousand cavalry, two hundred thousand infantry, two thousand chariots, and four thousand elephants equipped for war. Alexander doubted this information and sent for Porus, and asked him what was the truth of these reports. Porus assured the king that all the rest of the account was quite correct, but that the king of the Gandaridae was an utterly common and undistinguished character, and was supposed to be the son of a barber. His father had been handsome and was greatly loved by the queen; when she had murdered her husband, the kingdom fell to him. The first one along the Caucasus is India, a great and populous kingdom, inhabited by many Indian nations, of which the greatest is that of the Gandaridae, against whom Alexander did not make a campaign because of the multitude of their elephants. The river Ganges, which is the deepest of the region and has a width of thirty stades, separates this land from the neighbouring part of India. Adjacent to this is the rest of India, which Alexander conquered, irrigated by water from the rivers and most conspicuous for its prosperity. Here were the dominions of Porus and Taxiles, together with many other kingdoms, and through it flows the Indus River, from which the country received its name.” It is clearly known that Alexander was very much afraid of the Huge Elephants which were in 4000 numbers. One cannot easily defeat the Mighty Magadh Army. In fact, Chandragupta Maurya along with Chanakya occupied the Magadh after 4 years of Alexander’s departure. They too knew that defeating the huge Army was a joke, so they have allied with enemy kingdoms and with Magadh army itself. But the fact is that, History is a subject which is white/euro centric. History doesn’t have one side only. This kind of attitude must be changed. One more source, By Plutarch “The Battle with Porus depressed the spirits of the Macedonians, and made them very unwilling to advance farther into India... This river [the Ganges], they heard, had a breadth of two and thirty stadia, and a depth of 1000 fathoms, while its farther banks were covered all over with armed men, horses and elephants. For the kings of the Gandaritai and the Prasiai were reported to be waiting for him (Alexander) with an army of 80,000 horse, 200,000 foot, 8,000 war-chariots, and 6,000 fighting elephants.” The reason why I’m telling the result of the War between Porus and Alexander is highly debatable because Alexander never saw himself as the Winner and Porus as the Loser. Even the Greek sources quote that, Alexander wiped many Indian cities and small Kingdoms which resisted against him. He took 70,000 of Indians as slaves. The Greek sources also quote that few Kingdoms had armies except the people armed themselves against invasions, people of one particular city lived up to 130 years who were beautiful, practised medicine as profession and ate one kind of food which kept them healthy. Alexander had no reason spare Porus if he had considered himself as the Winner. So, the best hypothetical scenario happened in the Battle of Jhelum is that, Alexander was terrified with the Elephants and bravery of Porus’s Army and Porus was afraid for his people that they too would killed and crushed like what Alexander did to Parsopolis and other Indian Kingdoms, so they had a peace treaty. Alexander always feared and trusted Porus. He feared because of a possibility of rebellion by Porus which means his end and trusted him because he was the most different and unique person Alexander ever faced, they might have shared a good bond after the war. I always Considered Alexander as a good warrior but not as a good King or person. At the same time, I also consider Porus as a good warrior and a king who fought for his own kingdom but he was too selfish otherwise he wouldn’t have supported Alexander in further invasion of Punjab. Maybe, Porus didn’t want his Kingdom to be wiped off from maps like many others. Porus has successfully fulfilled his duties as a King which is to protect his people primarily but failed as a National because his own countrymen were brutally Killed by Alexander. I follow Hindu Nationalism because it’s good for the future of my ancient civilisation and culture. I think it’s the end. I don’t want to much write about Aryan Invasion Theory because I feel it’s not worth explaining to people who sticked to their superiority complex. And also I was too heart broken when Porus didn’t help his fellow countrymen but this is the truth. I realised the best people in the history of India are Chanakya-Chandragupta Maurya. I had done so much hard work for this comment. Hope this gets recognised and be appreciated. Peace… AUM SHANTI 🙏

Fantastic Summary! Clearly Changing Climates (2200 BC, 1500 BC, 1000 BC, 400BC, 600 AD) led to massive droughts, famines, mass migrations and civilization changing Wars. Thank you 🙏 🍻

Would you make a video abou war in Ancient West/ Central Africa?

More recent studies find it more likely that the Indus Valley civilization was already Indo-Iranian speaking and actually correspond to the Aryas of the legendary sources, see: "Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages" Science, 28 July 2023. The steppe theory for the origins of Indo-European languages seems to be outdated once again.

23:36... another video we need. then!

Very nice video

Next time we need a video or a series about the warfare in ancient china , specially in the age of the waring states . The readers of kingdom manga will understand why it's so important.

I always fund super funny when somebody tries to idealize some part of the history and acts like these people were somehow better. If you know a little bit about history, you realize humans didn't change at all and it was the same everywhere.

Excellent video as usual. Keep up the good work guys

I love your videos please more

Why is everyone so salty? Just relax

Chariots have actually existed in Sindhu-Saraswati Civilization since 2,500 BC similarly the existence of copper swords and bows used in rakhigarhi during the same era and skeletal remains of horses in other regions. I am not denying steppe migration(migrations are always continuous) but it is not necessary that they brought vedic culture to bharat, they could have contributed to it. Also the geographical recordings in rigveda show a much older timeline than the arrival of steppe nomads, one being the existence of Saraswati river parallel to Sindhu(mentioned as Ghagghar Hakra channel in the video) whose drying up is said to have caused desertification. Another factor i want to mention is that Sindhu-Saraswati region was not desertified dried land, it was flourishing grassland with rhinos, biffaloes and tigers roaming.

I have always been curious how much Indus valley civilization was carried forward into India of classical antiquity.

Awesome

You should make a video on Maratha Empire(1645-1843/1947-50) too.

Ok it wasn’t a decisive victory, I mean Greek sources say it was one of the battles where Alexander was close to defeat, I’m not saying he lost im just saying it wasn’t a clean sweep either

inb4 Hindu nationalists barge in and claim that aryan invasion never happened or that Alexander lost in India

Did the Indus Valley People have a script/writing though? (@03:32) I'm not denying it, I just heard experts were still uncertain wheter they had actually a script or rather kind of a more symbolic proto-script.

It was likely a collection of city-states.

Extremely interesting, now I need a video about the Aryans, how the moved from Crimea into India, more about their culture. Are they the most direct descendants of Proto-Indo-European language?

What if the capital of the Indus Civilization has just not yet been found? Or it was washed away by the Indus?

Great subject matter.

Are you using the new pharoes game for this?

Fun fact- Alexander was Macedonian not Greek

I can believe Indian civilization had little hate. They were advanced at least in part from having a complicated language. They had to be very scholarly to attempt to understand any of their own culture at all. I do not believe hate is the primary cause of war. In a culture capable of producing complex architecture, complex language, complex politics, complex religion, complex civilization in all its forms, it seems normal to me that due to expedient necessary and technological opportunity, war would be a form of conflict resolution for disputes that had no other recourse. I credit the Indian civilization with likely being wise enough to regret the necessity of war and having as profound, epic, and tragic emotional view of war as the romantic ideals of Europeans. The association of war with honor and duty and the effort to morally restrict people from liking war while at the same time craftmasters would out of a genuine pursuit of peace likely recognize and honor each other's skill in battle. I believe that people get the mistaken impression that societies lack war when they observe what seems to be less hate than one might expect if one were cynical. Civilized people do commit wars and have cultures about wars though and other societies have the idea of the hero and the villain both well known to them. I forget what the national epic of India is called but I believe it is supposed to be, well, a rather famous piece of literature. Not less epic than the Lay of the Volsungs gotten from the Eddas which eventually through the Ring of the Niebelung became the Lord of the Rings. India I would expect to be at minimum as complex as Europe, if not moreso. They have such geography I'm afraid it must have somewhat excited a little bit the tacticians among them "this would be a geometrically interesting place to stage a pitched battle." Unlikely motivated by hate. Very likely motivated by art. However, still, in very human ways, pushed to become warlike.

How did Satrapy of Iran get involved with Indus valley? Different time zone.

I hope theres stuff on war elephants in this !!!

1:35 This is what I hate about UKpostsr history channels, a lot of them just repeat the same untrue, unproven thing that makes an ancient civilization seem better than we are now

Let's hope the comment section will be civilised and peaceful like the Harappan civilization was😅

Why do you have Charles Masson dressed with the uniform of a British soldier of the 1750s when he's supposed to be a east India company deserter in the 1820s

18:02 jana pada literally means Peoples way ! A republic society !

It is most likely the Harappans had these weapons in their homes because they had a militia system where all the men would fight rather than a state funded armoury. Americans today have guns in their homes too, so it's not out of reality for ordinary people to own weapons. Likewise the Greeks had citizen-soldiers who bought their own equipment.

My dad is from less than an hour from the site of Harappa, in Pakistan. Deciphering Indus Valley writing is one of the greatest mysteries we have yet to solve. Great video, loved it! (DNA test says I'm around 10% Greek myself, likely because of Alexander's invasion of Punjab).

we need more videos about india.

Waiting for others antiquity military history, especially non European like ancient Persian, Chinese Huang He civilizations, Berbers conferatian and Omlecs cities state

The IndoEuropean homeland was not the Steppe, but South of the Caucasus, likely Iran, Armenia. The original Indo European population was the Caucasus Hunter Gatherers which are closely related to the Iran Neolithic related ancestry found in India and the Middle East. Newest research has completely bodied the Steppe Hypothesis. Dont know why wignats are having trouble coping with this. Accept the truth and move on.

Enjoyed the video - informative thanks. but gotta say better help I deffo would not recommend

i like very nice.

a yes, that civilization we know nothing about is surely peaceful. Like the myceneans.

Seeing the comment section it seems like foreigners have started calling out these ultra hindu nationalist on internet, i wonder why did it take them so long, it has been almost a decade since they've come in power We normal Indians are fed up with them too

Got to love the uneducated ultranationalists in the comments.

11:54 Or a massive natural catastrophe, I hear Graham Hancock saying.

Very nice video. Clear, precise, well researched. It's a shame that the conversations about Harappan Culture and the Indo-Aryan migrations are so steeped in nationalism and pseudo-history.

One inaccuracy or rather minor misdating was that Indus Valley site was first discovered in the Sikh empire (1799-1849) by a Sikh scientist and a European general ventura who both studied and advanced indic numismatics greatly.

When you say Pakistan, it destroys the whole charisma as there was no Pakistan, there was Sindh or Indus, in fact there was no Punjab, different kings ruled the area as the names of the rivers

I've heard the army battle described in the opening of the Bhagavad Gita was based on something historical that happened at some point in 1500-500 BC. I'd love to see you cover that

The Macedonians engaged elephants at Gaugamela.

your research about historical timeline is not entirely correct dude. you are relying too much on old historians who are proven wrong. i am only critiquing the historical timeline you mentioned, not the army composition, you are correct about the 4-fold warring system of India or " chaturangini" system.

Jai bhavani jai shivaji 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🕉️❤️

The Persian incursions were versions of diversions by Persians with surgeons.

Thank you for this video. Indians dont really idolise their martial nature i assume. Its very rare to see armor or helmets depicted in art. Wars arent depicted realistically in steele or walls. But the myths certainly talk of armours, tactics and all kinds if weaponry. Also thanks for pointing that Harappan civilisation did have arrmory of sorts. India has a lot of martial races like Rajputs, Sikhs and Marathas but these were born in medieval india. We know very little about ancient indian warfare.

15:03 nitpicky correction... the pre-vedic Indo-European religion is Not considered Hinduism. Hindusim, almost by definition, is what was evolved in situ... the Vedic elements of that descended from but greatly expanded on the Indo-European religion, became the bedrock, and fused over millennia with elements found in the subcontinent o become what we call Hindusim.

Im a big history buff but indian history has largely illuded me

Love the work but the part about indo aryans is just wrong. Indo Europeans were just a small part of indo aryans, and they didn’t bring Veda’s to India it was compiled in India. If you look at the tribes being called dasas, it’s all indo European tribes living around swat valley, which makes sense bc they were enemies of the main tribe Bharatas in the war of 10 kings.