Going Back 6,000 years
Punjab is the wellspring of Indian culture. Traditional literature the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Puranas, the Vedas, all take us back to Punjab. Archaeolgiststs find the earliest evidence of recognisably Indian civilisation in the excavation of Punjab's Harappan sites. The uninterrupted continuity of Indian culture flows forth from ancient Punjab.

Artifacts dating back to the Pleistocene Age have been found in the valley of Kangra, Pehalgam, and Hoshiarpur. These finds testify to the cultural unity extending to the whole of the region. The Harappa-Ropar and Sanghol civilisations were the outcome of the culture that developed over a vast area. The Harappan civilisation perhaps was overwhelmed by the village folk, who, although did not belong to a different culture, represented a different pattern of life.

There is no conclusive evidence to prove that the authors of the Rig Veda came to the land of seven rivers from any outside country. The whole complex of Rigvedic hymns shows them settled in this region from the outset and considering it their sacred land and original home .

Sage Priyamedha Sindhukshit in the famous ‘Hymn of Rivers" (Nadi-stuti) after invoking the favour of rivers soars to a high pitch of exultation in his reference to the Sindhu. He clearly states that his ancestors were the inhabitants of the land through which the river flowed from ages immemorial,

The Vedic and the later Epic periods of the Punjab were socially and culturally the most prolific. The Rig Veda was composed here.

During the period quite a number of centres learning and culture were established. Panini and Vishnu Gupta were associated with this.religion , Philosophy, grammer, law, astrology, medicine and warfare were taught . Yasak’s Nirkuta and Panini’s Ashtadhyayi are those classic creations of which help us to understand the language and culture of the ancient Punjab.

The field of action of the Ramayana is believed to be outside the Punjab but the tradition maintains that Valmiki composed the Ramayana near the present Amritsar city and Kaikeyee belonged to this region.

The advent of Buddhism saw Punjab become, more than ever, a cultural crossroad. A few years before the birth of Buddha (556 BC), the armies of Darius I, king of Persia, had swept across Punjab and made the area a protectorate of Persian empire. This was a fruitful interaction that ripened into the cultured and sophisticated cities of Gandhara (present day northern Pakistan-southern Afghanistan). To the Buddhists Punjab was Uttar Path – the way to the North, to the valleys of Afghanistan, and further on to Central Asia and China. In 327 BC Alexander invaded Punjab, defeating Raja Paurava (Porus). The centuries that followed brought more incursions from the north but the Indian response was vigorous. This happened during the rules of the Mauryas, the Sungas, the Guptas and the Pushpabhuti.

Guru Nanak Dev and a New Vision of Man
During the Sultanate period and Mughal rule, Punjab was engaged in intermittent warfare. It was an age of chaos. Saints have a way of arriving when times are bad and sure enough, this was the time when a remarkable man was born – a man who would transform the Punjabi consciousness permanently. This was Guru Nanak Dev. He was born in 1469 in district Sheikhupura (now in Pakistan), and spent his entire adult life roaming through Punjab – and beyond Punjab to the farthest corners of India and even westward to Mecca and perhaps to Rome. By the time he died in 1539 he had launched a powerful movement with radical rejection of caste, dogma, ritualism and superstition, and this constituted the true beginning of modern thought in India. It was said of him: "Guru Nanak shah fakir, Hinduon ka guru, Mussalmanon ka pir" – meaning, "Guru Nanak, lord of renunciation, teacher of the Hindus, guide of the Muslims".

The religio-social movement of Guru Nanak was strengthened by a line of illustrious successors for the next two centuries. In circumstances transformed a purely socio-devotional movement into a creed compelled to struggle for survival with degnity and integrity of faith. The martyrdoms of Guru Arjan (1606, AD) and Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621-1675 AD), the fifth and the ninth master, the heroic sacrifices of the tenth master, Guru Gobind Singh, find no comparison in. the history of the world. Their cause was humanity and the exaltation of the human spirit.

The compilation of the Adi Granth in 1604 by Guru Arjan Dev is a remarkable literary accomplishment. It includes the works of 36 writers - six Sikh Gurus, Hindu and Muslim saints and the works of great Bhaktas We find in the lengthy volume of 1430 large-size pages, .the coherent, composite and compact philosophical compositions like Japji, Sidha Goshta by Guru Nanak and Sukhmani by Guru Arjan. The Adi Granth, in fact, besides being the treasure-house of Indian philosophy, depicts through the poetry spreading over the centuries, the social and cultural history of Punjab.

The tenth master, Guru Gobind Singh (1661-1708 AD) created the Khalsa, an army of saint-warriors to protect the down-trodden. He infused a new spirit among the masses and they rose up against the ferocity perpetrated by the rulers. He charged his Sikhs with the responsibility of fighting for the exploited and the oppressed. He was a scholar and poet, who recreated in the forceful language the myths and the traditions of the past, Figuratively speaking, he "inspired the sparrows to fight with the hawks".

The Sikhs carried on their struggle and after the fall of Banda Bahadur, they established themselves as sovereign rulers of the greater part of the Punjab. This was the age of the Misals, autonomous units participating in a republican type of confederation in which an attempt was made to reconcile local autonomy with central responsibility. From the misals evolved the government of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1778-1839). He was the first independent native Indian ruler after the centuries of slavery. His reign, though not long, is significant because of its concept of dharma entwined with the practice of secularism.