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 ch...

This book is written as much for the general reader interested in India's antiquity and its pioneering archaeologists, as for students of the history of archaeology, colonialism, and constructions of the past. It breaks colonial archaeology down into its specific constituents and examines the ideas, impulses, tensions, and individual contributions that comprised early studies of India's ancient past. It focuses, at the outset, on the ideas and work of Alexander Cunningham, the first Director ...

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.

This book presents a complete and accessible description of the history of early India. It starts by discussing the origins and growth of civilizations, empires, and religions. It also deals with the geographical, ecological, and linguistic backgrounds, and looks at specific cultures of the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Vedic periods, as well as at the Harappan civilization. In addition, the rise of Jainism and Buddhism, Magadha and the beginning of territorial states, and the period of Mau...

India: The Ancient Past provides a clear and systematic introduction to the cultural, political, economic, social and geographical history of ancient India from the time of the pre-Harappan culture nine thousand years ago up until the beginning of the second millennium of the Common Era. The book engages with methodological and controversial issues by examining key themes such as the Indus-Sarasvati civilization, the Aryan controversy, the development of Vedic and heterodox religi...

With a curation of objects from the prehistoric ages through twenty-first century India, Sudeshna Guha provides a panoramic view of the rich histories of the subcontinent. The incisive essays in this collection detail not just the objects but the histories of their reception: examining how changing times and attitudes cast their shadow on the ways in which the past is interpreted and narrated. In doing so, A History of India through 75 Objects inspires us to interrogate our own no...

At its peak in 250 BCE the Maurya Empire was the wealthiest and largest empire in the world, extending across much of modern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In this book Colleen Taylor Sen explores the life, achievements and legacy of the Maurya emperor Ashoka, one of the greatest leaders in Indian history. The book relates how, after a bloody war in 261 bce, Ashoka renounced violence and spent the rest of his life promoting religious tolerance, animal rights, environmental protection, pe...

Between the late sixteenth and early twentieth centuries, Banaras, the iconic Hindu center in northern India that is often described as the oldest living city in the world, was reconstructed materially as well as imaginatively, and embellished with temples, monasteries, mansions, and ghats (riverfront fortress-palaces). Banaras’s refurbished sacred landscape became the subject of pilgrimage maps and its spectacular riverfront was depicted in panoramas and described in travelogues.I...

The Return of the Buddha traces the development of Buddhist archaeology in colonial India, examines its impact on the reconstruction of India’s Buddhist past, and the making of a public and academic discourse around these archaeological discoveries.The bookdiscusses the role of the state and modern Buddhist institutions in the reconstitution of national heritage through promulgation of laws for the protection of Buddhist monuments, acquiring of land around the sites, restoration of...

This book investigates how the material culture of South Indian courts was perceived by those who lived there in the pre-colonial period. Howes peels away the standard categories used to study Indian palace space, such as public/private and male/female, and replaces them with indigenous descriptions of space found in court poetry, vastu shastra and painted representations of courtly life. Set against the historical background of the events which led to the formation of the Ramnad Kingdom, ...

**INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERUSA TODAY BESTSELLERWinner of the Mark Lynton History Prize 2026 * A Kirkus Reviews Best History Book of 2025 * A Library Journal Best Book of the Year * An NPR Book We Loved This YearThe instant New York Times bestseller and international sensation-a sparkling, soaring history of ideas, tracing South Asia's underappreciated role in producing the world as we know it.**For a mille...

The most authoritative and highly regarded single-volume history of India – from ancient time to the modern day. Five millennia of the sub-continent’s social, economic, political and cultural history are interpreted by one of our finest writers on India and the Far East.India’s history begins with a highly advanced urban civilisation in the Indus valley, regressing to a tribal and pastoral nomadism, and then evolving into a uniquely stratified society. The pattern ...