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The Idea of Ancient India

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Release : 2023-08-28
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 425/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Idea of Ancient India by : Upinder Singh

Download or read book The Idea of Ancient India written by Upinder Singh. This book was released on 2023-08-28. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can the complexities of ancient India be comprehended? This book draws on a vast array of texts, inscriptions, archaeology, archival sources and art to delve into themes such as the history of regions and religions, archaeologists and the modern histories of ancient sites, the interface between political ideas and practice, violence and resistance, and the interactions between the Indian subcontinent and the wider world. It highlights recent approaches and challenges in reconstructing South Asia's early history, and in doing so, brings out the exciting complexities of ancient India. Authoritative and incisive, this revised Penguin edition-with two new chapters-is essential reading for students and scholars of ancient Indian history and for all those interested in India's past.

The Idea of Ancient India

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Release : 2015-12-29
Genre :
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 471/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Idea of Ancient India by : Upinder Singh

Download or read book The Idea of Ancient India written by Upinder Singh. This book was released on 2015-12-29. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major contribution towards the different perspectives and issues central to understanding ancient India This book engages with some of the most important issues, debates, and methodologies in the writing of ancient Indian history. Thematically structured, the first section discusses religious and regional processes through a meticulous analysis of inscriptions and material remains. The second--based extensively on archival sources--connects ancient and modern India through a discussion of the beginnings of Indian archaeology and the discovery, interpretation, and reinvention of ancient sites in colonial and post-colonial times. The third underlines the importance of reconstructing the intellectual landscape of ancient India through a sensitive, yet, critical historicization of political ideas in texts and inscriptions. The final section makes a strong case for situating ancient India within a broader, Asian, frame.

Ashoka in Ancient India

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Release : 2015-08-05
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 259/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Ashoka in Ancient India by : Nayanjot Lahiri

Download or read book Ashoka in Ancient India written by Nayanjot Lahiri. This book was released on 2015-08-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the third century BCE, Ashoka ruled an empire encompassing much of modern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. During his reign, Buddhism proliferated across the South Asian subcontinent, and future generations of Asians came to see him as the ideal Buddhist king. Disentangling the threads of Ashoka’s life from the knot of legend that surrounds it, Nayanjot Lahiri presents a vivid biography of this extraordinary Indian emperor and deepens our understanding of a legacy that extends beyond the bounds of Ashoka’s lifetime and dominion. At the center of Lahiri’s account is the complex personality of the Maurya dynasty’s third emperor—a strikingly contemplative monarch, at once ambitious and humane, who introduced a unique style of benevolent governance. Ashoka’s edicts, carved into rock faces and stone pillars, reveal an eloquent ruler who, unusually for the time, wished to communicate directly with his people. The voice he projected was personal, speaking candidly about the watershed events in his life and expressing his regrets as well as his wishes to his subjects. Ashoka’s humanity is conveyed most powerfully in his tale of the Battle of Kalinga. Against all conventions of statecraft, he depicts his victory as a tragedy rather than a triumph—a shattering experience that led him to embrace the Buddha’s teachings. Ashoka in Ancient India breathes new life into a towering figure of the ancient world, one who, in the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, “was greater than any king or emperor.”

Men and Thought in Ancient India

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Release : 1924
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Men and Thought in Ancient India by : Radhakumud Mookerji

Download or read book Men and Thought in Ancient India written by Radhakumud Mookerji. This book was released on 1924. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Political Violence in Ancient India

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Release : 2017-09-25
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 286/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Political Violence in Ancient India by : Upinder Singh

Download or read book Political Violence in Ancient India written by Upinder Singh. This book was released on 2017-09-25. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru helped create the myth of a nonviolent ancient India while building a modern independence movement on the principle of nonviolence (ahimsa). But this myth obscures a troubled and complex heritage: a long struggle to reconcile the ethics of nonviolence with the need to use violence to rule. Upinder Singh documents the dynamic tension between violence and nonviolence in ancient Indian political thought and practice over twelve hundred years. Political Violence in Ancient India looks at representations of kingship and political violence in epics, religious texts, political treatises, plays, poems, inscriptions, and art from 600 BCE to 600 CE. As kings controlled their realms, fought battles, and meted out justice, intellectuals debated the boundary between the force required to sustain power and the excess that led to tyranny and oppression. Duty (dharma) and renunciation were important in this discussion, as were punishment, war, forest tribes, and the royal hunt. Singh reveals a range of perspectives that defy rigid religious categorization. Buddhists, Jainas, and even the pacifist Maurya emperor Ashoka recognized that absolute nonviolence was impossible for kings. By 600 CE religious thinkers, political theorists, and poets had justified and aestheticized political violence to a great extent. Nevertheless, questions, doubt, and dissent remained. These debates are as important for understanding political ideas in the ancient world as for thinking about the problem of political violence in our own time.

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