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INDIA is a country east of Persia. The people who live there are called Indians. The Indians, of course, are entirely different from Native Americans who were called Indianswhen early explorers believed they had reached India or the East Indies.
You may remember that India was one of the very early civilizations that grew up along a river valley. Do you remember the name of the river—Here's a hint. It sounds like India. Did you remember? It's the Indus River.
India is a very old country. Its modern neighbor, Pakistan, used to be part of India, too. Long, long ago—about 2500 B.C.—the people living along the Indus River, in what is now India and Pakistan, sailed up and down the river to trade with each other. They invented a system of writing to keep their records. They built large cities with wide, straight streets. Their houses even had bathrooms with drains that were connected to a city sewer system. Did you think that modern people were the only ones to have sewer systems? If you did, you were wrong. You can see that ancient Indians thought up this healthy system long before we did.
About a thousand years after the ancient Indians built their first cities along the Indus River, people from the west invaded their land. These people were Indo-Europeans who came from somewhere near Persia. When they first arrived,these newcomers did not know how to write. They were strong warriors though and gradually conquered more and more of India. The original Indians and the newcomers learned from each other and adopted some of each others' customs.
In the course of time there came to be four chief castes, or classes, of people in India. No one in one caste would have anything to do with a person in another caste. A boy or girl in one caste would never play with a boy or girl in another caste. A man from one class would never marry a woman from another. No one from one class would eat with someone from another class.
The top caste was made up of the priests and scholars. In the next caste were people like rulers and warriors. Then, in the third caste, came farmers and merchants. Fourth, and last, were laborers, men who chopped wood, or dug the soil, or carried water.
But they weren't the lowest! There were other people so low that they didn't even belong to a caste, and so they were outcasts and untouchables. Even today, though India is trying to make changes and caste distinctions have been made illegal, these people are the ones who sweep the streets, clean the gutters, collect the garbage, and do the dirty work that no one else will do.
India today is terribly crowded with people. It is about one-third the size of the United States but has more than three times as many people. Think what that means!
Most Indians today follow the Hindu religion, but from about 300 B.C. to 400 A.D.—seven hundred years—Buddhism was very popular. It happened this way.
About 500 B.C. there was born a prince in India by the name of Gautama. Gautama saw so much suffering and trouble in the world that he felt it was not right that he himself, just because he by chance had been born rich, should be happy while others were miserable and unhappy. He gave up the life to which he had been born, a life of ease and luxury with all its good things, and spent his entire time trying to make things better for his people.
Gautama taught the people to be good; he taught them to be honest; and he taught them to help the poor and the unfortunate. After a while people began to call him Buddha, and he was considered so holy and pure that at last they came to think that he must be a god himself, and so they worshiped him as a god.
These people who believed in Buddha were called Buddhists, and many others quickly became Buddhists, too. Buddhism seemed so good that we do not wonder that great numbers of people became Buddhists.
Buddhists thought their religion was so good that they wanted everybody else to become Buddhists. They sent missionaries across land and sea all the way to the island of Japan, and this new religion spread far and wide. Today there are more Buddhists in the world than there are people in the United States.
You can see that India is a very important place. It is the home of one of the world's oldest civilizations and two of the world's important religions.
印度是波斯东面的一个国家，生活在那儿的人叫印度人。当然了，这里的印度人和现在叫做“印第安人”的美洲原住民是完全不同的。印第安人原来也叫印度人，那是因为早期的探险家到达美洲时，以为自己到达了印度或是东印度群岛，所以把住在那里的人叫印度人。
你可能还记得印度是沿着河谷发展起来的早期文明发源地之一。还记得那条河的名字吗？给你个提示，它的名字听上去和印度有关系。记起来了吗？就是印度河。
印度是个非常古老的国家，它的现代邻国，巴基斯坦，曾经也是印度的一部分。很久以前——大约公元前2500年左右——在今天的印度和巴基斯坦所在地，印度河沿岸的人，驾着船只沿河航行，彼此做买卖。他们发明了一种文字系统来记录他们的生活。他们还建造了有着宽阔、笔直街道的大城市。他们的房子里甚至还有浴室，浴室的下水道和城市的排污系统是连在一起的。你认为只有现代人才有排污系统吗？如果你那么认为，可就错了。你看，古印度人早在我们之前很久就想出来了这种卫生设施了。
古印度人沿着印度河建造了最初一些城市后大约一千年，来自他们国家西边的人入侵了他们的家园。那些人是印欧语系的人，他们来自波斯附近的某个地方。最初到印度时，那批新人还不知道如何使用文字。不过，他们都是身强力壮的战士，在印度逐渐占领了越来越多的土地。原来的印度人和新来的移民相互学习，彼此都吸收了对方的一些风俗习惯。
在印度的历史过程中，印度社会逐渐形成了四个主要的“种姓”，或者叫等级。不同种姓之间不会有任何往来。一个种姓的男孩或女孩绝不可以和另一个种姓的男孩或女孩一起玩。某个等级的男人永远也不会娶另一等级的女人。不同等级的人绝不会在一起用餐。
最高的种姓是由僧侣和学者组成的；各级官吏和士兵次之；农民和商人属于第三种姓；第四个，也是最后一个种姓，是劳工，就是那些砍柴、挖土、挑水的人。
但是，这些人的等级还不是最低的！还有一些人，他们地位低下到不属于任何一个种姓，所以他们是“贱民”，也叫“不可接触者”。甚至到了今天，虽然印度试图改变这种状况，而且等级区分已被定为非法，但是这些人依然在打扫街道、清扫水沟、收拣垃圾、做那些没人愿意干的脏活儿。
今天的印度，人口十分密集，它的面积只有美国的三分之一，但是人口却是美国的三倍还多。想想这意味着什么！
今天，大多数印度人信奉印度教，但是从大约公元前300年到公元400年，足有七百年的时间——佛教一直很兴盛。它产生的过程是这样的。
大约公元前500年，印度有位王子出生了，名叫乔答摩。乔答摩看到世界上有这么多苦难和不幸，就觉得仅仅因为自己幸运出生在贵族家庭就过着幸福生活，而其他这么多人都生活得很悲惨，太不公平。他放弃了生来就享受的那种生活——安逸、奢华、享用的东西无不精美的生活。他把自己毕生的时间都用来造福人民。
乔答摩教导他的人民要善良，他教导他们要诚实，他还教导他们要帮助穷人和不幸的人。过了一段时间，人们开始称他为“佛陀”。人们觉得他是那样神圣和纯洁，最后他们认定他本人就是神，所以，他们就把他当做神来崇拜。
这些信仰佛的人叫佛教徒，很快，其他很多人也成了佛教徒。佛教似乎很完美，所以，有大量群众成为佛教徒，对此我们并不觉得奇怪。
佛教徒们认为他们的宗教如此完美，因此希望所有的人都能成为佛教徒。他们派出传教士越过陆地，漂洋过海一直到了日本岛。从此，这种新宗教就广泛地传播开来。今天，世界各地的佛教徒比美国的人口还要多。
你现在明白了吧，印度是个非常重要的地方。它既是世界上最古老文明之一的发源地，也是世界上两大宗教的家园。