National Law University, Jodhpur

Book Review

India: A History

By: John Keay

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Prof. Om Prakash Mishra Surya Pratap Singh

Faculty of law B.A(L.L. B)

NLU, Jodhpur
 About The Author

John Stanley Melville Keay, widely known as John Keay, is a British

historian, journalist, radio presenter and lecturer specialising in popular
histories of India, the Far East and China, often with a particular focus on
their colonisation and exploration by Europeans. In particular, he is widely
seen as a pre-eminent historian of British India. He is known both for stylistic
flair and meticulous research into archival primary sources, including
centuries-old unpublished sources. The author of some over twenty-five
books, he also writes regularly for a number of prominent publications in
Britain and Asia. He began his career with The Economist. He has received
several major honours including the Sir Percy Skyes Memorial Medal. He is
a Fellow if the Royal Geographical Society. Keay lives in Argyll in the West
Highlands of Scotland and travels widely.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

A major project work like this can never be the work of someone alone.
The combinations of lots of different people and in different ways have
made this possible. It gives me great pleasure to prepare this assignment.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and
personal regards to Dr. Om Prakash Mishra for inspiring and guiding me
during the course of this project work, without their valuable guidance
and support the completion of the project would not have been possible.
I would like to thank the library staff for working long hours to facilitate
me with required material going a long way in quenching my thirst for
education.
I would also like to thank my seniors for guiding me through tough
times. I am also thankful to my parents who continuously encouraged
and inspired me for my assignment work. I have made efforts to avoid
errors but in spite of it some errors might have crept unknowingly.

Surya Pratap Singh

 Contents

1. The Harappan World

1.1– Breaking Of Waters

2. Vedic Values
2,1 – The Mystified Aryans
2.2 – No Bad Hymns
2.3 – Pastoral Peoples

3. The Epic Age

3.1– From West To East
3.2– The Mahabharatha Versus The Ramayana
3.3– Monarchies and Republics
3.4 - City and Caste

4. Out of the Myth-Smoke

4.1– Where the West Meets East
4.2 - The March of Magadha
4.3 - The Macedonia Intrusion

5. Gloria Maurya
5.1 – The Greatest of the Kings

6. Gupta Gold
6.1 - The Arms Of Guptas
 Chapter 1 – The Harrapan World

Breaking of Waters
Accoring to author history of a manageable antiquity is sometimes said to start
with the Flood. Flushing away the obscurities of an old order, the Flood serves a
universal purpose in that it establishes its sole survivor as the founder of a new and
homogeneous society in which all share descent from a common ancestor. A new
beginning is signalled; a lot of begetting follows. According to the earliest of
several accounts, the Flood which afflicted India’s people was a natural
occurrence. Manu, Noah’s equivalent, survived it thanks to a simple act of
kindness.
Manu was washing hands one morning, a small fish came into his hands, the fish
begged protection saying ‘Rear me. I will save thee’. Manu kept it in a jar, and
later in a pond and then in the sea. One day fish forewarned Manuof frothcoming
flood, and advised to prepare a ship and enter into it when the flood came. When
the flood came Manu entered the ship and passed swiftly to yonder northern
mountain. The waters swept away all three heavens, and Manu alone was saved.
Such is the earliest version of the Flood as recorded in the Satapatha Brahmana.
The story of Manu and Flood served its purpose of intoducing a new progenitor of
the human race.
Some historians have dated the Flood very precisely to 3102BC, others have
declared it to be not the date of Flood but of the great Bharata war. Nevertheless,
3102 BC sticks in the historical gullet. Floods, though now associated more with
the eastern seaboard of the Indian subcontinent and Bangladesh, still annually
inundate vast areas of the Ganga and Indus basins. They have always done so. One
such Gangetic flood, dated by archaeologists to about 800 BC, destroyed the town
of Hastinapura which, after the great Bharata war, had become the capital of the
descendants of Arjuna, one of the war’s main protagonists.
In 1920 it was pure chance that Indian and British archaeologists, while
investigating later more visible ruins at Mohenjo-daro in Sind and at Harappa in
the Punjab, made the prehistoric discovery of the twentieth century. They called
their find the ‘Indus valley civilisation’.

Chapter Analysis
In the above chapter as per author history of manageable antiquity starts with
flood. Then author tells us the story of Manu who saved a fish just like Noah, and
the fish warns Manu of the flood and asks him to make a ship. Manu followed the
advice and made the which helped him escape through the flood to northern
mountains. Then the author decribes some more major floods which occurred
throughout history. He also mentioned the time when we discovered the visible
remains of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa.

Chapter 2 – Vedic Values

The Mythified Aryan

Questions tantamount to heresy amongst an earlier generation of historians are now
routinely raised as to who the arya were, where they came from, and even whether
they were really a distinct people. The author states Romila Thapar statement that
‘It is doubtful whether the term arya was ever used in an ethnic sense’. What she
calls the ‘Aryan problem’, or ‘myth’, is now to be regarded as ‘perhaps the biggest
red herring that was dragged across the path of India’s historians’. Like many
words, meaning of word ‘arya’ changed over the centuries and the original is now
hard to pin down. In English it is variously rendered as ‘pure’, ‘respectable’,
‘moral’, ‘noble’ or ‘wealthy’. By the time it had travelled to south India and thence
on to what is now Indonesia it had simply become a respectful term of address, like
‘Sahib’ or ‘Mister’. ‘Aryans’, on the other hand, as the generic title of a distinct
race of people to which this arya adjective exclusively applied, nowhere feature in
Sanskrit literature.
According to early theories India’s Aryans were therefore originally immigrants,
and to judge by their exploits as recorded in the Vedas, highly combative ones.
Aided and encouraged by deities like the fire-breathing Agni and the thunderbolt-
throwing Indra, the Aryan conquistadors were seen as having hurtled down the
passes from Afghanistan to career across the plains of the Panjab. Dealing death
and destruction from fleets of horse-drawn chariots, they subdued the indigenous
peoples and appropriated their herds. As dasa or dasyu, these indigenes or
aborigines were characterised as dark, flat-nosed, uncouth, incomprehensible and
generally inferior. The Aryans, on the other hand, were finer-featured, fairer, taller,
favoured above others in the excellence of their gods, their horses and their ritual
magic, and altogether a very superior people. An Aryanised society may be defined
as one in which primacy is accorded to a particular language (Sanskrit), to an
authoritative priesthood (brahmans) and to a hierarchical social structure (caste).
The origin of Aryans is still vague as different historians claim different theories as
per author.

No Bad Hymns
Such speculation is justifiable because of the unsatisfactory nature of Vedic
literature as historical source material. The Rig Veda, earliest of the Vedic
compositions, comprises ten mandala or ‘cycles’ of ritual hymns and liturgical
directives. Although generally considered the most informative of the Vedic texts,
its clues as to the lifestyle, organisation and aspirations of the arya are ‘submerged
under a stupendous mass of dry and stereotyped hymnology dating back to the
Indo-Iranian era, and held as a close preserve by a number of priestly families
whose sole object in cherishing those hymns was to utilise them in their sacrificial
cult’.
Later Vedic collections (Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda ) reiterate and
supplement such verses from the Rig Veda, but they rarely illuminate them. As for
the Brahmanas and Upanisads, the latter explore the mystical and metaphysical
meaning of the Vedas and are important for the development of Indian philosophy,
but they contain little historical information, while the former, ‘an arid desert of
puerile speculation on ritual ceremonies’, again fail to measure up to Dr Ghosh’s
exacting standards. Elsewhere he calls them ‘filthy’, ‘repulsive’, ‘of interest only
to students of abnormal psychology’ and ‘of sickening prolixity’.

Pastoral Peoples
All this, scarcely adds up to a convincing picture of the Vedic world. Somehow
this primitive, or pre-modern, society of tribal herdsmen gradually learned about
arable arming, assimilated or repulsed neighbours, discovered new resources,
developed better technologies, adopted a settled life, organised itself into
functional groups, opened trade links, endorsed frontiers, built cities, and
eventually subscribed to the organised structures of authority which we associate
with statehood. It all took perhaps a thousand years, but as to the processes
involved and the determining factors, let alone the critical events, the sources are
silent. Reference to other pre-modern societies merely helps to clarify the norms
which may have characterised Vedic society, and perhaps to render it more
intelligible than does that ‘stupendous mass’ of Vedic hymns.

Chapter Analysis
In this the author talks about the origin of Aryans, when did they come and talks
about different speculations made by other historian on them. Here we read about
their appearance and culture. Later we read about vedic collections namely
Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. After getting a convincing
picture of the Vedic world, we further read about how the tribal herdsmen learned
about arable arming and how they discovered new resources, developed new
technologies, adopted a settled life, endorsed frontiers etc.

Chapter 3 – The Epic Age

From West to East

Unworthy of the Late Harappans and distributed too widely and too far east to be
credited to the arya of the Vedas, these copper hoards remain a mystery. They are
assumed to have been the property of itinerant smiths or traders who, for reasons
unknown, stashed away their wares some time before 1000 BC. But the trouble
with copper, or indeed iron, which first appears soon after this date, is that one can
never be sure that the form in which it survives is that in which it was first cast.
The harpoons and axes of this ‘copper hoard culture’ could have been made from
the melted-down pins and arrowheads of an earlier people, while the presence of
copper bars strongly suggests that the metal was already being widely traded.
Moreover, just as the copper hoards, whatever their original provenance, reveal
something about the uses, smelting techniques and distribution of copper, so these
literary hoards can reveal something about the changes at work within north Indian
society. It is also clear that society at the time, though now settled and familiar with
agriculture, was still clan-based. Kingship was subordinate to kinship and probably
amounted to no more than chieftainship-among-equals.

The Mahabharatha Versus The Ramayana

The Ramayana, second of the great Sanskrit epics, has been subjected to the same
sort of revision processes as the Mahabharata. The Ramayana’s story is, however,
simpler than the Mahabharata’s and its purpose is clearer. No one under Lord
Rama’s sway would swap a king for ten harlots, let alone for a thousand
slaughterhouses. A condensed version of the story is told in the Mahabharata, but it
would appear to be an interpolation. It is certainly no proof that the characters in
the Ramayana preceded those in the Mahabharata. The opposite seems more
probable, in that Lord Rama’s capital of Ayodhya lay astride the Uttarapatha and
five hundred kilometres east of the Kuru/Pandavas’ Hastinapura. That, in its final
form, the Ramayana is definitely later than the Mahabharata is shown by the
prominence given to regions which are unheard of in the latter.
The Dvapara Yug, the ‘Third Age’ of Hindu cosmology, came to a close as
Pandavas slew Kauravas in the great Bharata holocaust at Kurukshetra, ‘the field
of the Kuru’; thereafter the dreaded Kali Yug, the still current ‘Black Age’, began.
Although the battle does not mark the end of the epic, the impression gained is that
the Mahabharata is essentially retrospective. It celebrates a vanishing past and may
be read as the swansong of an old order in which the primacy of clan kinship, and
the martial ethic associated with it, is being slowly laid to rest. In the eighteen-day
battle nearly all the Kauravas, plus a whole generation of Pandavas, are wiped out.
Yudhisthira, ostensibly the principal victor, surveys the carnage and is overcome
with remorse; the rivalry and conflicts endemic in the clan system are repudiated;
with the intention of returning to the forest, Yudhisthira asks his followers to
accept his abdication. Krishna will have none of it: the ruler must rule just as the
warrior must fight; release depends on following one’s dharma, not indulging
one’s grief. Reluctantly Yudhisthira concurs, performing the royal sacrifices of
rajasuya and aswamedha. But regrets continue, and when Krishna himself dies, it is
as if the last remaining pillar of the old order has been removed. All five Pandavas,
plus their shared wife Draupadi, can then gratefully withdraw from public life to
wander off into the Himalayas.
By way of contrast, the Ramayana may be considered as decidedly forward-
looking. When Rama eventually regains his capital, it is not to indulge in remorse
or even to reafirm Vedic values but to usher in a dazzling utopia of order, justice
and prosperity under his personal rule. The resultant Rama-rajya (or Ram-raj in
Hindi, ‘the rule of Rama’) quickly became, and is still, the Indian political ideal,
invoked by countless dynasts and pledged by countless politicians, secularist as
well as Hindu nationalist.

Monarchies And Republics

Legitimising monarchical rule, in India as in south-east Asia, was the Ramayana’s
prime function. But in both places its use for this purpose was dictated as much by
current challenges as by residual loyalties to a past order. In north India of the mid-
first millennium BC other experiments in the organising of a state were already
well underway. Monarchical authority was not, it seems, essential to state-
formation. Nor was its absolutism, as heavily promoted by its brahman supporters,
congenial to all. Other sources suggest dissent and bear copious testimony to
alternative state systems with very different constitutions.
The textual sources concerned are all either Buddhist or Jain. For the lives and
teachings of the great founding fathers of Buddhism and Jainism quickly inspired a
host of didactic and narrative compositions which supplement and sometimes
contradict orthodox sources like the Puranas. Moreover, both men were born into
distinguished clans which belonged not to kingdoms modelled on Rama’s
Ayodhya but to one of these alternative, non-monarchical state systems. Jain and
Buddhist versions of the Ramayana story, or of episodes within it, thus show a
rather different emphasis. These alternative state systems have been variously
interpreted as oligarchical, republican or even democratic.
City And Caste
India’s second urbanisation may be attributed partly to this process of state-
formation and to the institutions it engendered, and partly to the surplus generated
by the new agricultural regime pioneered in the east. Only from c600 BC that
archaeology lends any weight to their optimistic imagery. Earthen ramparts of
about this period have been uncovered at Ujjain, Varanasi and Kaushambi. These
ramparts have ‘civic dimensions and must have enclosed real cities’. 11 Other sites
like that of Sravasti, the post-Ayodhya capital of Koshala, and Rajgir, the Magadha
capital, seem soon to have followed suit. Nothing comparable is found in the city
sites of the Gangetic basin; even kiln-fired brickwork, the Harappans’ speciality,
does not reappear until the last centuries BC. Buildings, including state edifices
and royal residences, were evidently of timber and mud. The first Buddhist stupas
were of just such perishable materials, although it was precisely these sacred
structures which would be amongst the earliest to be clad, then gloriously
cloistered, in stone.
Basically the Vedas and the epics portray the concerns, and celebrate the exploits,
of a society consisting almost entirely of well-born clansmen. Known as ksatriya
and rajanya, these warrior families acknowledged a chief with whom they shared a
common ancestor. The chief was their raja, a term rich in potential for
misunderstanding in that it later came to mean a king in the monarchical states and
an elector, or a participant in government, in the republics. To these two castes was
appended a third, possibly to differentiate clansmen of less distinguished descent
who had forsaken their warrior past for agriculture and other wealth-generating
pursuits. Vaisya, the term used to describe this caste, derives from vis, which
originally meant the entire tribal community. Shudras who worked as servants
were the last and at the bottom of heirarchy. These then were the four earliest
castes, and a much-quoted passage from the latest mandala of the Rig Veda clearly
shows their relative status.
Chapter Analysis
In this chapter we first read of the copper hoards who still remain a mystery, but
they are believed to be have been the property of itinerant smiths or traders. These
literary hoards can reveal something about the changes at work within north Indian
society.
Then we read about the Mahabharatha and Ramayana and how they have been
subjected to same revision process and how Ramayana’s story is more clear. Then
author also tells us how Ramayana might be later then Mahabharatha. Then we
read in detail the story of Mahabharatha and Ramayana and its importance in
today’s date.
Then we read about cities and caste in that time. What were the structure of cities
and it was speculated from the remains founded. Then we read about caste system
and their heirarchy and the tasks performed by them. As per hierarchy Brahmins
were on the top then kshatriyas who were warriors, then Vaishyas who who did
agriculture and at the bottom of table were Shudras who worked as servants.

Chapter 4 – Out Of The Myth Smoke

Where The West Meets East

On the frontier of the Achaemenids’ Indian satrapy lay the city of Taxila
(Takashila). It was not agriculturally disadvantaged, although in the absence of
major irrigation schemes the Punjab was scarcely the land of wheat, sugarcane and
canals which it is today. Taxila owed its early urbanisation more to its
economically strategic location. Here, by way of rugged trails like that of the
Khyber from Afghanistan, passed all trade – horses, gold, precious stones and
luxury textiles – between the Achaemenid world and the emerging Gangetic states.
The city prospered as did the satrapy. Amongst Taxila’s imports from the west
came the Aramaic script, which may have been the first script to be used in India
since that of the Harappans. In the Ramayana it is claimed that Taxila was founded
by one of Lord Rama’s nephews; in the Mahabharata it is said that it was actually
at Taxila that the story of the great Bharata war was first told. The place was highly
regarded throughout northern India. Students went there to learn the purest
Sanskrit. Kautilya, whose Arthasastra is the classic Indian treatise on statecraft, is
said to have been born there in the third century BC. It was also in Taxila that, in
the previous century, Panini compiled a grammar more comprehensive and
scientific than any dreamed of by Greek grammarians.
The March Of Magadha
Amongst the kings who patronised the new teaching were Prasenajit, king of
Koshala, and Magadha’s Bimbisara. In the Koshalan capital of Sravasti the Buddha
delivered numerous discourses and, since his own Sakya republic had been overrun
by Koshala and remained under its suzerainty, he may have felt some allegiance to
Prasenajit. But it was Bimbisara’s patronage that would prove crucial. When the
Buddha died immediately afterwards, it was in the Magadhan capital of Rajagriha
that the first Buddhist council was convened. Magadha’s economic expansion
provided a social ambience particularly favourable to Buddhism. In the wake of
Magadha’s political expansion Buddhism would prevail over most of the other
heterodox sects and spread throughout the subcontinent. Meanwhile, Bimbisara
had predeceased the Buddha. His long reign came to an end when Ajatashatru, one
of his sons, either seized the throne and starved his father to death or was
nominated his successor so that the aged Bimbisara, having renounced the throne,
could starve himself to death. Both practices appear to have been standard. But
Ajatashatru’s elevation was not uncontested. He was soon involved in warfare with
both Koshala and a powerful coalition of republics headed by the Licchavis. The
trouble with Koshala seems to have arisen over a piece of land in the vicinity of
Varanasi. It had passed to Bimbisara as the dowry of his Koshalan bride. When she
died of grief over Bimbisara’s death, Prasenajit of Koshala, her father, revoked the
grant of this land and resumed control of it. Ajatashatru endeavoured to retake it
but seems at first to have been defeated. Ajatashatru had overrun Koshala, which
promptly disappears from the record.
Between Ajatashatru’s death and the accession of Chandragupta Maurya in c320
BC the sources speak mainly of court intrigues and murders. Evidently the throne
changed hands frequently, perhaps with more than one incumbent claiming to
occupy it at the same time. Eventually it was secured by Mahapadma Nanda, the
son of a barber and therefore not only a usurper but also a low-caste sudra.
According to the orthodox Puranas, he invoked his caste status to conduct a
vendetta against all ksatriyas. He is the first to be described as a ‘one-umbrella
sovereign’, a concept closely related to the Buddhist idea of a pan-Indian
cakravartin or ‘world ruler’. The Nanda family undeniably commanded the most
formidable standing army yet seen in India. It was certainly enough to strike alarm
in stout Greek hearts.

The Macedonian Intrusion

Alexander’s great achievement was not invading India but getting there. A military
expedition against the Achaemenid empire, originally planned by his father,
became more like a geographical exploration as the men from Macedonia
triumphantly probed regions hitherto undreamed of Anatolia. To protect his
southern flank before invading Persia, Alexander then swept down through
Phoenicia to claim Egypt and Libya. Alexander was now master of all that had
comprised the largest empire the world had yet seen – all, that is, except for its
easternmost provinces, including Gandhara and ‘India’. Although Indian troops
still served in the Achaemenid forces, it seems that Gandhara and ‘India’ had
probably slipped from direct Achaemenid rule some time in the mid-fourth century
BC. In 329 BC he pushed north-east into Arachosia and then crossed in succession
the snows of the Hindu Kush, the swirling Oxus river and the parched scrubland of
Sogdia. He then laid claim to the Achaemenids’ central Asian frontier on the
distant Jaxartes beyond Samarkand. It was not till late 327 BC that, returned to the
vicinity of Kabul, he was ready with a force of fifty thousand to cross India’s
north-west frontier. Alexander was always straining after more’ and more was
precisely what India offered.
Indian defectors from the Achaemenid forces primed his interest and paved the
way; local malcontents promised support and provided elephants; judicious
potentates sought his friendship. ‘The first recorded instance of an Indian king
proving a traitor to his country’ was the ambiguous Ambhi of Taxila. At the time
Taxilan territory extended modestly from the Indus to the Jhelum. Beyond,
occupying the next sliver of the Panjab between the Jhelum and the Chenab, the
kingdom of ‘Porus’ lay across the invaders’ line of march. Alexander had
summoned him, along with other local rulers, to meet him and render tribute. Porus
welcomed a meeting, adding casually that an appropriate venue would be the field
of battle. The battle that followed was anything but a formality. Porus’ chariots
slithered uncontrollably in the mud and his archers could find no purchase for their
massive bows, one end of which had to be planted in the ground. Yet the Indian
forces, though outnumbered as more of the enemy crossed the river, fought
valiantly. Porus, wounded but still conspicuously fighting from the largest of the
elephants, was captured. ‘How did he expect to be treated?’ asked Alexander. ‘As
befits a king,’ he famously replied. Alexander responded magnanimously,
reinstating him as king and subsequently augmenting his territories.
The Macedonians moved on, continuing east and south across the grain of the
Panjab river system. Then, near Amritsar, they reached the Beas, fourth of the
Panj-ab, the ‘five rivers’. He sensed mutiny among the soldiers and even after his
speech to soldiers there was no effect. In the end Alexander had no choice but to
announce a withdrawal. To round off his conquests, complete his explorations, and
disguise his failure, Alexander opted to return by sailing down the Jhelum and the
Indus to the ocean.
Chapter Analysis
In this chapter the author tells us about the city of Taxila which owed its
urbanisation more to its strategic location. It was major trade city which traded in
nearly everything. Taxila was wealthy which attracted artisans and scholars as well
as merchants to it. Taxila was highly regarded throughout northern India. Students
went there to learn Sanskrit.
Then we read about Magadha’s Bimbisara who patronised the new teaching along
with Prasenajit, king of Koshala. After Bidhhas’s death it was Bimbisara’s
Magadha which made good its claim to most of his hotly contested relics and
immediately after that in Magadha’s capital Rajagriha that the first Buddhist
council was convened. Bimbisara’s long reign comes to an end when Ajatshatru,
one of his sons, seized his throne. Then we read about the wars waged by
Ajatashatru and mainly his war against Khosla over a piece of land in Varanasi. He
won the war against Khosla. After Ajatashatrus’s reign we read of Mahapadma
Nanda who rose to power and being a shudra he invoked his status to conduct a
vendetta against all ksatriya.
Then we get to read about Alexander who was on his way to invade India. After
reaching India Porus lay across the invaders line of march. We also get an insight
as what type of man Porus was in this chapter. Alexander and Porus fought on the
banks of Jhelum. Porus and his forces fought bravely but were eventually defeated.
Porus was captured by Alexander and was asked how he should be treated, Porus
replied by saying ‘As befits a king’. Alexander responded magnanimously
reinstating him as king and subsequently augmenting his territories. Later due to
mutiny Alexander had to withdraw from his conquest and he died two years later
he died of hepatoma.

Chapter 5 - Gloria Maurya

The Greatest Of The Kings

According to Plutarch, Alexander had actually met the man who would usurp the
Magadhan throne. His name was ‘Sandrokottos’ (Chandragupta) and in 326 BC he
was in Taxila, perhaps studying and already enjoying Taxilan sanctuary as he
prepared to rebel against Nanda authority. Chandragupta overthrowed Nanda and
claimed the throne. Kautilya, the brahman to whom the work is credited, was the
instigator, operative, ideologist and chief minister of the Chandragupta.
Chandragupta Maurya’s origins were probably undistinguished, At some point in
his youth the self-possessed Chandragupta was adopted as a promising candidate
for future glory by Kautilya. He was a devious and disgruntled brahman who had
been slighted at the Nanda court. Kautilya sought his revenge by exploiting the
unpopularity of the Nandas.
After his death Bindusara ruled for twenty-five years and was probably at least into
his late fifties when he died. Ashoka, evidently one of several sons, therefore had
the opportunity to become closely involved in imperial affairs during his father’s
reign. His first appointment seems to have been to Taxila, where he successfully
dealt with a revolt against the local Mauryan administration and then he was sent
to Ujjain as governor and remained there till his father’s death. That Ashoka was
not his father’s chosen successor and that there was indeed a succession struggle is
certain. It helps to account for the four-year gap between Bindusara’s death and
Ashoka’s enthronement. Eight years after his enthronement, so in c260 BC, there
occurred the only campaign that can certainly be attributed to the Mauryas, one
which was nevertheless the outstanding event of the reign and the turning point in
the life of the emperor. Ashoka conquered, or reconquered, Kalinga. On
conquering Kalinga the Beloved of the Gods felt remorse, for , when an
independent country is conquered, the slaughter , death and deportation of the
people is extremely grievous to the Beloved of the Gods and weighs heavily on his
mind. After the battle of kalinga Ashoka stooped fighting and started spreading
buddhism.
Few rulers have summed up their life’s work in a single word, but that was
obviously how Ashoka wanted it. He did not wish to be remembered for conquests,
prosperity or majesty but only for dhamma. Dhamma is equated with ‘mercy,
charity, truthfulness and purity’. In English it is variously rendered as ‘piety’,
‘duty’, ‘good conduct’ or ‘decency’.
Chapter Analysis
In this chapter we read of time when Alexander met Chandragupta who was
planning to overthrow Nanda. Ashok eventually managed to overthrow Nanda and
crowned himself as king with help and guidance of Kautilya. Later after
Chandragupta’s death we study of Bimbisara who succeded him and became the
new emperor. After Bimbisara’s death his son Ashok is crowned as king after
some struggle. Then we read of the Kalinga war which was Ashok’s most
important war. After seeing the slaughter, death and remorse of people Ashok
stopped fighting and decided not be remembered for conquests, prosperity or
majesty but only for dhamma.

Chapter 6 – Gupta Gold

The Arms Of Guptas

A Chandragupta had founded the Mauryan empire in c320; just so did a
Chandragupta found the Gupta dynasty in c320. It could be confusing. But the first
date was, of course, BC, the second AD. The founder of the Gupta dynasty is
therefore designated as Chandra-Gupta I – which naturally brings to mind the
Mauryan Chandragupta. Of earlier Guptas before Chandra-Gupta I, a Sri Gupta
and a Ghatotkacha Gupta are listed in inscriptions. The former would be
remembered solely for having endowed a place of worship in Bihar for Chinese
Buddhists. Chandra-Gupta I was Ghatotkacha’s son, he is regarded as founder of
the dynasty partly because he assumed a new title. The new title was
Maharajadhiraja, ‘great raja of rajas’. Chandra-Gupta I was the first of his line to
feature on coins. According to the Puranas, his territory stretched along the Ganga
from Magadha to Prayaga. Magadha had come to him as a marriage settlement.
Kumaradevi, his chief queen, was a Licchavi and so a descendant of one of those
7707 Licchavi knights-raja. The Licchavis had a distinguished pedigree which was
doubtless highly desirable to unknowns like the Guptas. But the importance the
Guptas attached to this union was of an altogether higher order. There are even
coins showing king and queen together, they bear, as well as the king’s name, that
of ‘Kumaradevi Licchavayah’. Certainly it is probable that the Guptas and the
Licchavis ruled adjacent territories ‘and that the two kingdoms were united under
Chandra-Gupta I by his marriage with Kumaradevi’.
Only under their son Samudra-Gupta does the dynasty emerge from obscurity.
Once again this is mostly thanks to the survival of a single inscription. The
inscription is probably the most famous in all India. Written in a script known as
Gupta Brahmi, and composed in classical Sanskrit verse and prose. He is thought
to have succeeded as maharajadhiraja, or been so nominated by his father. The the
first campaign seems to have taken Samudra-Gupta west where, with the strength
of his arm, he ‘uprooted’ kingdoms in the Bareilly and Mathura regions of what is
now Uttar Pradesh and in neighbouring Rajasthan. Next he headed south down the
eastern seaboard and, perhaps in the course of several campaigns, elbowed aside a
dozen more rivals. He turned back only after capturing Vishnugopa, the Pallava
king of Kanchipuram. Now indisputably ‘the unconquered conqueror of
unconquered kings’, Samudra-Gupta stood on the threshold of a pan-Indian
empire. Other favourite epithets describe him as ‘conqueror of the four quarters of
the earth’ and ‘a god dwelling on earth’. Samudra-Gupta’s immediate successors
maintained his elevated status and continued his policies. A sixth-century drama
tells of a Rama-Gupta who is thought to have briefly succeeded Samudra-Gupta
and who attempted to ‘uproot’ the Western Satraps in Malwa. The attempt went
badly wrong. Rama-Gupta was defeated and, when he tried to disengage, he was
informed that the price of escape would be the surrender of his queen. Rama-
Gupta, hopelessly unworthy of such a desirable consort, conceded defeat and
agreed to hand her over.
Rama Gupta was killed and succeded by Chandra-Gupta II. Chandra-Gupta II, like
his predecessor Samudra-Gupta and his successor Kumara-Gupta, reigned for
about forty years. After the death of Skanda-Gupta in c467, his nephew Budha-
Gupta, then another nephew, his son and then his grandson continued to claim
world dominion well into the sixth century. But their reigns were mostly brief and
it is clear that by 510 other Guptas, who may or may not have been related to them,
operated as independent rulers within the core area of the erstwhile empire. In that
year the Huns, led by a formidable leader called Toramana, were again on the
move. They overran Kashmir and the Panjab and defeated a Gupta army near
Gwalior , thus extending their rule to Malwa. In the face of such disarray, even the
fiction of the Guptas’ universal sovereignty was unsustainable and their golden
reputation fades from the history.
Chapter Analysis
In this chapter we read about how the Gupta empire was founded by Chandragupta
and how it became a majestic empire. We read of Samudra-gupta ascension to
throne and how he made the Gupta empire the undisputable. Then Rama-Gupta
who also maintained the supremacy of Gupta empire. Then we read about the reign
of Rama Gupta who lost the battle and had to give up his queen as part of
surrender. Later Rama Gupta was killed and succeded by Chandra-Gupta II. He
reigned for 40 years. And later we read how the demise of Gupta Empire came
eventually and how their golden reputation faded from history.
 Conclusion

It combines narrative pace and skill with social, economic and cultural
analysis. Five millennia of the sub-continent's history are interpreted by
one of our finest writers on India and the Far East.Older, richer and more
distinctive than almost any other, India's culture furnishes all that the
historian could wish for in the way of continuity and diversity. A History
is a probing and provocative chronicle of five thousand years of South
Asian history, from the first Harrapan settlements on the banks of the
Indus River to the recent nuclear-arms race. In a tour de force of
narrative history, Keay blends together insights from a variety of
scholarly fields and weaves them together to chart the evolution of the
rich tapestry of cultures, religions, and peoples that makes up the
modern nations of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. He talks about
Harrapan age then to vedic and even gives insight into the epics. We
read of early civilizations and society to great empires. We even get a
glimpse of how Mauryan empire came to rise with nanda’s fall, and later
of Gupta empire. Authoritative and eminently readable, India: A History
is a compelling epic portrait of one of the world's oldest and most richly
diverse civilizations.