Golden Bird India

I was often told that India was very prosperous in past…. It was ‘bird of gold’.  I myself heard this claim many times in past. I just believed in it. Never really checked its validity.  A long  inconclusive friday night discussion with a friend left me wondering…. “Is it just an uninformed claim by a pompous Indian ? “. So I decided to systematically check the validity of the cliched statement. The question about the prosperity is intricately related to the trade or economic activity in ancient India. The rest of the post is dedicated to check whether the ‘bird of gold’  statement holds any water by looking at the economic activity in ancient India. The following summarizes what I learned.