Agriculture in India

Vedic literature provides some of the earliest written record of agriculture in India. Rigveda hymns, for example, describes plowing, fallowing, irrigation, fruit and vegetable cultivation. Other historical evidence suggests rice and cotton were cultivated in the Indus Valley, and plowing patterns from the Bronze Age have been excavated at Kalibangan in Rajasthan.[16] Bhumivargaha, another ancient Indian Sanskrit text, suggested to be 2500 years old, classifies agricultural land into twelve categories: urvara (fertile), ushara (barren), maru (desert), aprahata (fallow), shadvala (grassy), pankikala (muddy), jalaprayah (watery), kachchaha (land contiguous to water), sharkara (full of pebbles and pieces of limestone), sharkaravati (sandy), nadimatruka (land watered from a river), and devamatruka (rainfed). Some archaeologists believe rice was a domesticated crop along the banks of the Indian river ganges in the sixth millennium BC. So were species of winter cereals (barley, oats, and wheat) and legumes (lentil and chickpea) grown in Northwest India before the sixth millennium BC. Other crops cultivated in India 3000 to 6000 years ago, include sesame, linseed, safflower, mustards, castor, mung bean, black gram, horse gram, pigeonpea, field pea, grass pea (khesari), fenugreek, cotton, jujube, grapes, dates, jackfruit, mango, mulberry, and black plum. Indian peasants had also domesticated cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs and horses thousands of years ago. Some scientists claim agriculture in India was widespread in the Indian peninsula, some 3000–5000 years ago, well beyond the fertile plains of the north. For example, one study reports twelve sites in the southern Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh providing clear evidence of agriculture of pulses (Vigna radiata and Macrotyloma uniflorum), millet-grasses (Brachiaria ramosa and Setaria verticillata), wheats (Triticum diococcum, Triticum durum/aestivum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), hyacinth bean (Lablab purpureus), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), cotton (Gossypium sp.), linseed (Linum sp.), as well as gathered fruits of Ziziphus and two Cucurbitaceae.[17][18] Some claim Indian agriculture began by 9000 BC as a result of early cultivation of plants, and domestication of crops and animals.[19] Settled life soon followed with implements and techniques being developed for agriculture.[20][21] Double monsoons led to two harvests being reaped in one year.[22] Indian products soon reached the world via existing trading networks and foreign crops were introduced to India.[22][23] Plants and animals—considered essential to their survival by the Indians—came to be worshiped and venerated.[24] The middle ages saw irrigation channels reach a new level of sophistication in India and Indian crops affecting the economies of other regions of the world under Islamic patronage.[25][26] Land and water management systems were developed with an aim of providing uniform growth.[27][28] Despite some stagnation during the later modern era the independent Republic of India was able to develop a comprehensive agricultural program.[29][30]