India is the land of the Vedas, which has defined almost every aspect of human l ifestyle.

Back then, Bharatvarsha was ruled by the powerful men. The power of ma n was his strength due to his Sena (army), which, in turn, was made by a people possessing mastery over the use of weapons. It was this aptitude which led to co mpetition among men, and gave birth to the early sports of archery, athletics, s wimming, wrestling, etc. History reveals that Teerandazi (archery), Talvarbazi (fencing), Ghursavari (Equ estrian) and Mallvidhya (wrestling) traced their origin to ancient Indian cultur e. The sports which used weapons of war, such as the javelin (toran) and the dis cus (chakra), found their existence in the past. The Mahabharata has many charac ters which were champions of these sports. Arjuna and Karna were known to be great archers, whereas Bhima, Jarasandha and D uryodhana were among the wrestlers. Lord Krishna was known for his Chakra. In th e indoor games, chausar and shatranj (chess) were among the common sports. Many examples of other sports such as swimming and athletics were also found in histo rical writings. The Yogas were considered the base for many Indian sports, espec ially martial arts. With the pace of time, many sports came into existence. Amon g them, Kabaddi was one of the sports which gained wide popularity all over Asia . During the period when India was under foreign rulers, many other sports were in troduced. The most important development in sports was brought by the Europeans. The sports using wooden articles were among them, and there comes hockey, crick et etc. With the advancement of sports throughout the world, especially with the international competitions, several sports witnessed rapid development. India e merged as one of the undefeated champions of hockey in the mid-20th century. The champions could not sustain their victory long enough. It was cricket which eme rged as the most widely accepted sport in the late 1900 s. The once most popular kabaddi, was now replaced by hockey, which in turn, was re placed by cricket, with the passage of time time. These days, cricket can be uno fficially stated as a national game. Despite the great history of indigenous spo rts, cricket has reached on top of the list of sports in India these days. Why w ould this game not peak the list, when some of the best cricketers of the world belong to India? Let s take the one side. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is one of the multi billionaire sports authorities of the world. In the mid-20th century, hockey was among the most liked sports, but with the downfall of the game, its c raze was out. It was the emergence of cricket in the later half of century, with a big win over the then cricket superpower, the West Indies, that the craze for this game took a momentum and never stopped till date.