[INDOLOGY] New Book

[Nagaraj Paturi]

"The quality of India's -military strength was seen very soon after
Alexander's return and death, when Seleucus attempted another invasion. He
was defeated by Chandragupta and driven back. Indian armies then had an
advantage which others lacked; this was the possession of trained
war-elephants, which might be compared to the tanks of to-day. Seleucus
Nikator obtained 500 of these war-elephants from India for his campaign
against Antigonus in Asia Minor in 302 B.C., and military historians say
that these elephants were the decisive factor in the battle which ended in
the death of Antigonus and the flight of his son Demetrius."

-- Discovery of India, pp 115

Focus is only on Nehru's awareness of wars in ancient India; not on the
historical validity of facts mentioned in this dated book .

On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 11:55 PM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The intro to the book begins with the sentence:
>
> "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*)."
>
> Even if the statement that these two leaders created the myth of
> non-violent ancient India can be substantiated through proper documented of
> where and how they created this myth, I can say with certainty that ancient
> India was never imagined during or later to the independence movement,
> either by the educated Indians or by the common public as an India without
> wars or without harsh punishments or without harsh ways of crime control
> etc. Wars etc. of ancient India were common place from the lowest level
> history text books, or the most common sense /layman's /non-professional
> books on history to the most professional university level books on
> history. Nationalist historiographers glorified the valour of the ancient
> Indian kings in their history writings. The legends about sahivaji contain
> descriptions of Jijiabai teaching young Shivaji , the stories of Ramayana
> and Mahabharata as stories of valour (whereas Anandavardhana looks at the
> angirasa of these books as S'aanta Rasa and some other authors of poetics,
> plays or poetry view Ramayana as a book of Karuna Rasa, my teacher views
> both these books as books of Dharma veera). Even the most ardent followers
> of Gandhi compared him to Buddha ,  Buddha now newly known as an epitome of
> non-violence through the modern history works unlike in the pre-modern
> Indian literature where he was either an avatar of Vishnu or a vaada
> poorvapakshin for the Vaidika schools of philosophy. The comparison of
> Gandhi selectively to Buddha was required only because the remaining
> picture of ancient India was dominated by the incidence of wars etc.
>
> I have to read Sri Upinder Singh's book to be able to say if the book is
> really an attempt to demolish a non-existent impression of India in the
> general Indian people.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 6:59 PM, Olivelle, J P via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> With apologies for cross-posting, I want to announce a wonderful new book
>> by Upinder Singh: Political Violence in Ancient India. It demolishes the
>> common stereotypes about non-violence etc. Published by Harvard.
>>
>> http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674975279
>>
>> Patrick Olivelle
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Nagaraj Paturi
>
> Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
>
>
> BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra
>
> BoS, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, Veliyanad, Kerala
>
> Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
>
> FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
>
> (Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
>
>
>
>



-- 
Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.


BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra

BoS, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, Veliyanad, Kerala

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )


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