India: A Concise History (Illustrated National Histories)

by N/A

• Used

  Illustrated
  2002

  $5.78

  Francis Watson's acclaimed history of India begins in the third millennium BC with the Indus Valley civilization. The subsequent influx of pastoral nomads, first in a long series of invasions from the north-west which included the Moghuls nearly 3,000 years later, established the Vedic religious tradition. In a gradual assimilation of popular cults, and a formalization by the Sanskrit language and the institution of caste, this tradition supplied the cohesion upon which a national consciousness, in its Western sense, is a comparatively recent grafting. The enduring distinctiveness of India, its widely recognized but often bewildering 'diversity of unity', emerges from these pages as a product of geographical simplicity and historical complexity.

• Used

  Paperback
  1979

  $3.39

  The recovery of India's immense history owes much to Western and particularly British researches; yet attempts to compress it often concentrate on the brief Imperial period. This up-to-date survey treats the latter as merely the penuitimate chapter in a story that begins in the 3rd millennium BC with the Indus Valley civilization. The influx of pastoral nomads - first in a long series of invasions from the north established the Vedic religion, whose assimilation of popular cults and formalization in Sanskrit writing and social castes supplied the cohesion which subsequent events - the Moghul incursions, the British Empire, the rise of modern India - did little to change. The enduring distinctiveness of India, its often bewildering diversity of unity , emerges as a product of geographical simplicity and great historical complexity.