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Kushal Srivastava
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October 2, 2011
Women in ancient India roamed the streets with naked breasts. Take that, modern world!
One cannot refrain from considering any work on Indian culture and history under the scanner of famed "Orientalism" as told to us by Edward Said, if the work is from an Western author. AL Basham though seems doesn't quite fill the bill of an orientalist. This is a work of very high quality and very deep research for which the author learned nearly all the ancient Indian languages and all of its ancient literature. The work is polymathic in it's outlook and covers nearly all known aspects of the Indian civilization from its geography, its literature, governance, religion, philosophy to science and even coinage.
Indian culture and its civilization are amongst the oldest in the world and perhaps one of few which are still intact in pretty much the same form as when they were created. This continuity is surprising and in the book Basham has tried to find out the reasons behind it.
We are given a quick tour of the Harappa culture and possible reasons for its decline (attack? Natural decline?) according to the author Harappans may have settled down in the South India and could have been the Dasas referred to in literature, the Brahmi script is also probably a derivative of the Harappan script but nothing can be claimed with certainty.
The Indian society as it stands today is certainly the amalgamation of Aryans who probably came from somewhere near the modern day Iran and the natives. It is this culture of the Aryans which has been transferred almost undiluted through centuries. Slowly the Aryans dominated the entire sub continent and every inch of India soon had their footprints.
There is a lot of information on the Indian religions though not necessarily structured. We come to know that the Aryan religion was in the beginning a sacrificial cult which was later transformed into a devotional cult or the modern day hinduism. All the religions in India have been influenced by each other upto the coming of Muslims. The coming of Buddhism and Jainism brought the non violence and vegetarian aspect into the Indian religions. Almost all of the Indian literature has been religious and even if some were secular like Mahabharata or Ramayana they have been transformed into religious works by later writers. Basham is clearly not much impressed by the ideas expressed in literature of the period, according to him, the literature is mostly either religious or gnomic. What has impressed him is the amazingly and almost supernatural grasp of the language ancient Indian poets have shown.
Where else in the world would you find a beauty like this
Dadado dudda-dud-dadi
Dadado duda-di-da-doh
Dud-dadam dadade dudde
Dad'-adada-dado 'da-dah
Translation: The giver of gifts, the giver of grief to his foes, the bestower of purity, whose arm destroys the giver of grief, the destroyer of demons, bestower of bounty on generous and miser alike, raised his weapon against the foe.
This work is essential for anyone who is interested in knowing the Indian history. It is a brilliant reference material, even if some sections feel dated.
Appendices at the end give information on Indian science and maths but is hardly of the same detail as religion or governance. But the importance of mathematics is highlighted in the fact that author calls the unknown mathematician who gave the world the zero as the second most important son of India after Buddha.
Oh and according to Basham, the gypsies are of Indian origin, so next time you see Brad Pitt in Snatch remember he is just Rajnikant in disguise.
history india
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Dmitri
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October 24, 2022
This is a clearly written introduction to ancient India before the Muslim conquest of the 13th century. Arthur Llewellyn Basham's father was a British journalist who served in the Indian Army during WWI. His son became a scholar of Indian history and religion, teaching at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and mentoring R. S. Sharma and Romila Thapar. Published in 1954, Basham avoided much of the esoteric density of contemporary European indologists such as Zimmer and Kramrisch.
As others have noted, this is essentially an undergraduate level textbook. Basham's literary inclination allows it at times to transcend the usual tedium implied. The reader is first taken through a quick chronology of the Indus Valley civilization, Aryan/Vedic period, advent of Buddhism, Greek invasion, Mauryan and Gupta empires, and the Chalukya and Chola dynasties. The larger remainder of the book is arranged thematically into the political, social, religious, technological and artistic spheres.
I appreciated the fast paced historical narrative but wanted more detail in this section, which comprises less than a fifth of the 500 page text. The topical chapters are by contrast a bit drawn out, but they can be digested separately according to your personal interests. It is a typical dilemma in history surveys whether to integrate this material by time period or to extract it by subject matter. The latter approach errs on the side of brevity which works well with the book's introductory nature.
Unfortunately the book suffers from dubious racial theories that were prevalent in the mid 20th century. Aryan invasion or migration theories are still debated on the merits of linguistic or DNA evidence, but Basham's analysis of skin color, lip, nose and head morphology at times smacks of phrenology, or worse. Basham was a student of Sanskrit, so his observations from the Vedas and Brahmanas do not come second hand. Nevertheless they are seen through the lens of conquest and colony.
Inevitably this is a dated work since so much has been discovered in the past 65 years. The generalized approach of the book doesn't exacerbate this fault however. For a more specialized and updated focus, Thapar's "Early India" and Sharma's "Ancient Past" may be both good options. The relatively small selection of recent English books on ancient Indian history is peculiar. There are many other academic monographs available but good material for the general reader is hard to come by.
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Arun Divakar
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October 20, 2016
While getting down from a train recently, a small post-it on the wall of the coach caught my attention. It was a quote from Stephen Covey – There are three constants in life…change, choice and principles. I do not know about principles but change and choice are always prevalent when you pause to think about life and also about history. If you were to take only a sample of Indian history (prior to the arrival of the Mughals) and examine it, the sheer number of dynasties and empires that passed through the Indian stage are mindboggling. No single person or enterprise escaped the stamp of change and as cliché would have it, time continued its inexorable march. A. L Basham’s work is a consolidation of the data and writings available at the time of its first publication on how rich a history India had prior to the arrival of the Muslim invaders. The timeline we are talking about is from the rise of the Indus valley civilization to the first arrival of the Mughals.
Reading the book was like a trip down memory lane. This feeling was not because I am fully well versed with Indian history but more because this is written in a style that reminded me of high school history classes. I harboured no special liking for this subject in school and to this day I have no idea how I managed to clear that paper. The dry and factual descriptions in the book brought me back to those soporific afternoon classes…sigh !
But I digress and so getting back – change is the most common factor in this book. The first big chapter in the book is a brief history on the dynasties that rose and fell across the length and breadth of the subcontinent in the eras gone by. In hindsight it all seems so fickle and tiny. The power plays, the decades of warfare, blood and glory, the opulence of the royal households are all now recorded for posterity only on files hosted on some database with the Government of India. There are still standing testimonies scattered across the vastness of this landscape with a personal favourite of mine being Hampi in Karnataka. The grandeur of the constructions and the sheer scale of it all made me marvel at the effort that would have gone in to create such a place. Then again a stroll to the magnificent Vijaya Vittala temple or gazing at the Narasimhamoorthy statue tells you how that glorious kingdom was ravaged by the invaders following the Battle of Talikota in 1565. This gets a mention of two lines in the book but having walked those streets, the past glory was still fresh on my mind. The most famous early empire of India of Ashoka has been all but forgotten now even though his is a very popular name in India. Thereby you get a rough picture of the scale of changes that the landscape has been witness to.
Don’t let this review make you believe that this is a depressing work about the seemingly momentary nature of history. On the contrary the writing style is purely dispassionate and dry. Basham is a competent chronicler who relies heavily on the available literature of his time as the base for his work. The chapters are broadly divided into art, politics, religion and theology, culture and social structure. Summed together they give an in depth understanding of the Indian subcontinent when the Mughals arrived on the scene. A lot of criticism is levelled against Basham for the glaring omissions and errors in the book but having being first published in 1954, this would have been pretty much obvious.
Recommended for its breadth and scope (and also for the unintentional nostalgia !).
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Tom
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June 17, 2013
A fine survey of Indian culture up to 15th century or so. It's rare that a semi-academic book 50 years old holds up at all, but this one seems quite useful. It gives the broad outlines of Indian history, politics, society, daily life, religions, arts, and literature in a mere 500 pages. The author knew perhaps a half dozen early Indian languages, and translates from them all, comfortably discuss numismatics and prosody, astronomy and sculpture. Very impressive.
I'm sure scholars of classical India could note hundreds of advances in the field since this book's publication. One could also criticize some of the author's assumptions (i.e., that Indian culture "went into decline" with the growing political dominance of Islamic groups in the 16th century, or that history is generalizable at all), but these would be cheap shots. For a 20th century British historian, Basham is remarkably anti-imperialist, avoiding the dominant "they need overlords" narrative of many of his English colleagues, and taking pains to point out the great achievements coming from all aspects of Indian society.
In short, this book is recommended to anyone who is generally curious about early and medieval Indian history, a relatively brief introduction for the intelligent non-expert.
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Maitrey
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January 21, 2013
Focuses mainly on Indian pre-islamic cultural and religious history (Basham's specialty I think is Buddhism). No good for a correct balanced view now as the book is outdated, but has nice snippets.
Recommended if you like Buddhism, the Vedas and Sanskrit. I personally liked it as you can be reasonably certain Basham is not bigoted. One drawback I see is Basham's over reliance on only written records which handicaps him in this period, quite a bit of the book reads like an English translation of the Arthashastra (he's not ready to speculate even when he himself repeatedly states that the Arthashastra maybe unreliable for actual "history on the ground").
history
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Shekar Subramanian
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August 26, 2019
First of all in this day and age, I don't see any value to this book because this book has been completely based on the premise the Aryan Invasion Theory and the Aryan-Dravidian Myth which have been completely falsified and debunked.
Through out this book you will find certain repetitive themes as follows:
1. Any possible achievement or positive development in India or Hinduism would be put off saying..."they say this happened but It is highly unlikely it could have happened"
2. Any major breakthrough or discoveries would be put off by saying..."It is highly unlike that the Aryans could have done it by themselves then surely they must have taken inspiration from the Greeks or Roman or Arabic or Persians"
3. Wherever possible Hinduism is frowned upon as the most orthodox, backward and downtrodden & how influences of Islam and Christianity were necessary for its revival into its present day form.
4. It becomes hilarious at one point where Basham tries to suggest how Muslim and British invasions did more good to India and Indians than harm.
5. Any school of thought or idea of the Hindus or Brahmans or Aryans will be termed as pessimistic asceticism and weird mysticism.
The only positives about the book is that basham has done a decent job in compiling the entire history in 500 odd pages.
There is typical british condescending and cold tone to the book and when I read book I can hear the master AL Basham saying to me, "O Come here! Let me introduce you to my sweet little India, Well there are some good things about her! But in the end she is not capable of doing anything on her own and see how I have improved her life considerably"
It is preposterous when I see how such people have been the given the titles of "notable historian and Indologist". This is what happens when the authority to write the history is given to those very forces which have plundered and looted you for centuries or their mouthpieces.
I have grown up listening to the old adage "History is always written by the winners", India always comes out as an anomaly.
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Kevan
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September 14, 2007
I've wanted to buy this book for the better part of 3 years and I finally got my hands on it. Haven't finished it yet, but from what I've read it thoroughly deserves its reputation as a classic, holding up well after 53 years.
In my experience with histories of India, you generally have two extremes: Ones written by Indian authors that so aggressively seek to discount earlier volumes' Western slant it comes across as "one-upsmanship", and the volumes written by Western authors that seek to apologize for earlier transgressions. A.L. Basham achieves a happy medium. Some of his language can be excused as indicative of the time in which he wrote the book, 7 years after the Partition, but otherwise he does a great job of covering Indian history up to the High Middle Ages with thoroughness and equanimity. His writing is also very engaging.
As the foreward in this new edition points out, the book stops "before the coming of the Muslims" because Basham didn't have any background in Persian, not as any sort of "statement" about that part of Indian history.
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Ashok Krishna
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September 19, 2017
Breathtakingly brilliant! ❤️
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Sumir Sharma
Author 20 books2 followers
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July 25, 2018
Basham's book is recommended for students and aspirants who prepare for Civil Services in India. It is presumed that those who work on that line, they might have read this book.
Secondly, he was the guide for PhD of Romila Thapar another renowned historian of Ancient India.
The book definitely gives a fresh look to Ancient India. Generally, you find very few books nicely written on the period of Ancient India. Some of the other books contain too many references to the facts and figures written in Sanskrit that it is not useful for every one. Secondly, the chapter making is different from other books. The contents fulfil the need of the students about whom it is referred above. On the whole, it is one of the popular books till this day.
On the other hand, the author had failed to suspend his racial bias while writing about Ancient India. Some of the commentators and reviewers have already raised some issues. A historian is not expected to be judgemental which interpreting. Alas, Basham made many judgemental remarks. While discussing Yogasutra, he sarcastically commented on the existence of Sushma Nadi. Similarly, while talking about Soma, one can guess that what can be a remark of a Western scholar. Therefore, while calling it one of the best books on ancient India for the students, I have given only three stars. It is best because one can find reference to answers to numerous Multiple Choice questions which appears in the examination in a single book. One can prepare a good note on Ancient literature on Buddhism from the contents provided in this book. That is the importance and value of the book. One can gather many references to numerous terms related to the society and those terms are not fully understood at present. However, this book is not a good source on the political history of India. For that, one needs to take help of other books.
One should not wonder if some of the reviewers and especially the Indian reviewers criticise it. From Kapil, to Gautam, to Patanjali, to Panini, to Aryabhata, to Sankaracharya to later times the people like Satyendra Bose, J Bose, Meghanath Jha, C. V. Raman, or for that purpose, Narain, a twenty nine year old young man whom the Western World knew as Vivekananda, the disciple of Ramakrishna on whom even Max Muller wrote a biography, to the present day intellectually awake Indians who fully understand the Western Philosophy, Basham made some amusing judgemental remarks. If someone gives him one star, I will not be surprised. But, I will like to respect the intellectual mind of any race, as it the heritage and culture of Indians like Varamahir who was ready to respect Romanav chart to correct the Solar chart, Basham definitely deserve the respect.
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Matt
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March 26, 2018
Even though Indian civilization has interacted with other civilizations over the millennia, there is still a mystery and allure about its history, culture, and religions that still fascinates. The Wonder That Was India by A.L. Basham is a classic interpretation of Indian culture that for over 60 years has been an introduction to the unique culture that covered a subcontinent up until the arrival of the Muslims.
Basham ordered the book by discipline first with history—both pre-recorded and recorded—followed by government, society, everyday life, religion, the arts, and finally language and literature. This allowed for a generally reader friendly book as Basham covered the history of the subcontinent and then used that background to show the societal and cultural developments. Throughout the book are numerous illustrations, drawings, and maps that showed the richness of the civilization. However, being over 60 years old some of the information is out of date and that is not all of the imperfections that future readers should know about. Basham’s writing style is somewhat dry in places and reading becomes as slog. And the illustrations while being spread throughout the book are not easy to find when referenced in the text.
However, even with this downside The Wonder That Was India is still a great introduction into Indian history. A.L. Basham’s enthusiasm is very evident as well as his expertise on the subject. I definitely recommend this book for dedicated history readers, but issue a word of warning to general readers.
2018-reads history
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