Ancient India’s philosophical, religious, and scientific influence over the world was not properly documented by historians in the olden times. Now one UK-born writer William Dalrymple in his recent book “The Golden Road: How India Transformed the World” has written on this subject. In his book, he has turned his attention to ancient and early medieval India to produce a powerful and sweeping account of land that was one economic powerhouse, a civilization cradle and exporter of merchandise and ideas-philosophical, religious and scientific.
In this book Dalrymple looks back at ancient Indian exports of Buddhism and Hinduism to astronomical texts, the number zero and the game of chess, and argues that more than the famous silk road, it was the waterways connecting India to Europe via Persia, Arabia, and northern Africa to the west and China, South-East Asia and Sri Lanka to the east that helped India build its empire of ideas.
Many of us are aware about ancient India’s vast trade networks as far as ancient Rome, and the incredible wealth that India had amassed exporting spices and gems among other things. We are aware about the Kushans, and the Gupta, and the Chola dynasties. We know about Ashoka and his conversion to Buddhism. We know about the influence of the Ramayana and Mahabharat as far as South- East Asia, spread of Buddhism to Sri Lanka and other Eastern countries. We also know about Aryabhata’s contributions to maths and phenomenal astronomical legacies. But over the years these facts about India were diluted by Mughals and British rulers.
What is less widely understood and Dalrymple explains in his book is how this exchange of knowledge happened. How both ancient India’s economic prosperity and enormous soft power owed much to a success formula that that continues to be hailed today. In the book, Dalrymple has described in details about the rules of Chandragupta Maurya (ruled 320-297 BC), Ashoka (304-232 BC), he has also written about Aryabhata (476-550AD), Brahmgupta (598-670 AD) and Chjaka-the self-declared king of calculations who was interested in metallurgy and weighing metals.
There is also a special focus on the people and things that helped ideas move from India to the rest of the world. Like 7th century Chinese traveler Xuanzang who visited many Buddhist monasteries in ancient India including Nava Vihara in northern Afghanistan, and stayed for many years in Nalanda (in present day Bihar). He was instrumental in bringing Buddhist learning and faith to China. As was Kumarajiva (344-413 AD), who translated Buddhist texts like ‘Lotus Sutra’ from Sanskrit to Chinese.
Dalrymple spends lot of time tracking where the Indian inventions and ideas went and how. He travel west in the book towards the Abbasid empire and its desire to understand Indian texts like Brahmaguta’s Sindhind-a compilation of Brahmagupta’s guide to astronomy and ‘ The Opening of Universe’.
The author has done a great job of contextualizing how the information travelled 2000 years ago. He has described the Indian way of doing business, knowledge of maths, astronomy and navigation abroad. How Buddhist monks ran the show from massive monasteries, and how their influence and ideas spread outwards. How the Middle-east became a melting pot of knowledge from India but also Greece.
In the book Dalrymple travels to places of significance. He shows the sculpted walls of Borobdour and gorgeous reliefs depicting scenes from Mahabharat in Hindu temples of South-East Asia. Vishnu Varaha Avatar as depicted in the Udayagiri Caves at Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh.
The author spent nearly 5 years writing this book. This book is reconfirming things, we Indian (Hindus) might have known about ancient India but with more stories and histories to support the claims of ancient Indian way of life.
Dalrymple’s has written all his ten books on the history and art of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle –East ( earlier known as Akhand Bharat), Hinduism, Buddhism, and the Jains .
One wild thought- the Congress Party which readily accepts everything what western authors write about India in present times, now the party should whole heartedly acknowledge the facts written in this book. The Congress leadership who time and again quote foreign authors to demean Indian way of life, should now accept the fact even foreign authors have started believing about ancient India.
Waiting for your feedback on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
24th October 2024