The Indic civilisation is one of the oldest cultures in the world, having no definable point of origin. Its roots go back into millennia, with phases of transformation and adaptation of new external ideas existing within a seamless flow of time.
Indians are not just citizens of a country but inheritors of a culture and civilisation whose history goes back to the moment when modern Humans, the Homo sapiens, stepped out of Africa into Eurasia. So when we call ourselves Indians, we are talking of ourselves as the preservers, guardians and custodians of 50,000 years of human knowledge, experience and intellect.
The Indian subcontinent is like a closed pocket, cut off from the rest of Asia by the deserts and hills of Baluchistan in the west, the Himalayas extending from Afghanistan to Arunachal Pradesh all along its north and the dense hilly forests of Myanmar in the east.
Some of the first Homo sapiens who stepped out of Africa into Eurasia reached the Indian subcontinent following the coastline, entering this closed geographical region through the Makran coast. The story of the Indic civilisation starts at that point and continues till date, with modifications and additions dictated by historical circumstances as well as environmental factors.
After the decline of the last Ice Age, the population of humans in the subcontinent must have sharply raised, the large scale agricultural and cattle herding communities evolving with time to create one of the earliest urban cultures of the world in the form of the Harappan civilisation.
From the decline of the Harappan civilisation grew the sixteen janpads of the Indian subcontinent, the sixteen ancient nation states. Within this book is the story of this great transition, the history of a land which has seen the above transformation from hunter gatherer to agriculturist to the cities and villages of the great Harappans to the rise of the first of the nation states of India, the Kuru Janpad. This Janpad lived on through the rise and fall of empires till the establishment of the Dilli Suba by Akber, retaining nearly the same geographical boundaries as that of that ancient nation state.

THE STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH AS IT STANDS TODAY

The Mughals carved out the 'subas' according to defined cultural identities. The British on the other hand never created states based on cultural or linguistic identities. Thus Mysore, Madras and Bombay states were never cultural units. The reorganisation of Indian states that has been undertaken from time to time since 1947 has been based on linguistic criteria as well as cultural zones giving India its present political map. Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh but the rest of this huge state is not a homogenous entity like many of the newer states that had been created. The present state of Uttar Pradesh has four distinct cultural zones that have been clubbed together into a single state -

- Western Uttar Pradesh (extending from Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan upto Awadh) Awadh in the centre
- Bundelkhand in the south, part of it being within northern Madhya Pradesh
- Purvanchal in the east (culturally congruous with West Bihar)

These cultural zones are distinct not just linguistically and culturally, but they have had a distinct historical trajectory all through the course of Indian history. Another important fact which needs to be understood is that Awadh and Purvanchal are both part of the eastern Indian cultural mega-zone, being linked to the cultural identity of eastern India. Both Awadhi and Bhojpuri languages are part of the eastern group of languages - Awadhi being part of the Eastern Hindi or Kosali group and Bhojpuri being part of the Madhadan group respectively.

The languages and dialects of Hindustani spoken to the west of Awadhi belong to the Western Hindi group which is completely different from the above, the traditional line of demarcation of the two linguistic subgroups passes through Kannauj, dividing Pashchimi (Western) and Puravi (Eastern) Uttar Pradesh.

DEFINING WESTERN UTTAR PRADESH THROUGH GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY

Most cultural zones in the Indian subcontinent exist within definite and definable geographical regions. Interestingly, many of these geographical regions have retained their unique cultural identity through at least the past 3000 years when the first of the sixteen janpads of the subcontinent emerged after the decline of the Harappan civilisation.

As stated earlier, the Western Uttar Pradesh cultural zone has a definite geographical localisation. It extends between the eastern border of the Yamuna in the west, along the borders of the foothills of the Shivaliks in the north and up to a line passing roughly north - south with Kannauj in the east. The Kannauj boundary is interesting as it is also the line of demarcation between the Western Hindi zone (Hindustani, Jatu, Ahiri, Gurjari, Brajbhasha, Kannauji, etc.) and the Eastern Hindi / Magadhan zones (Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Maithili etc).

Western Uttar Pradesh zone is culturally and historically congruous with the cultures that lie to the west of the Yamuna, including those of nearly the whole of Haryana upto Sirhind in the north - west. In the south - west it is congruous with the cultural segment of Bharatpur and related parts of Rajasthan.

As stated earlier, the historical janpads that today constitute this Western UP cultural zone are -

- Eastern half of Kuru - North Western Uttar Pradesh - East Delhi (our region of focus in this book, the western half of Kuru region being rest of Delhi with northern and central Haryana).
- Sursen - Braj speaking regions (Braj speaking area of the Middle Ganges - Yamuna
- Doab, Dist. Mathura, Dist. Agra, Dist. Bharatpur with adjoining parts of Rajasthan and Haryana)
- Uttar Panchal - presently Rohilkhand which was earlier called Katehr (plains extending between Kumaon Mountains and the northern banks of the upper course of the Ganges)
- Dakshin Panchal - plains of Middle Ganges - Yamuna Doab, extending from beyond the borders of Aligarh to Farrukhabad.

These kingdoms, even in ancient times, were said to be having a shared language and culture, Kuru - Panchal were sometimes even referred to as twin kingdoms.