Literature and Literary Ideas, Religious and Philosophical Systems: History of Ancient India (Vol-10)

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The multitude of major themes in the ancient Indian domains of literature, religion and philosophy makes it virtually impossible for a single volume to incorporate them, but here in the present volume some of the major issues have been clearly outlined with reference to their historical aspects. The essays on the major systems of Indian philosophy, history of Tamil literature, Bhakti movement in Tamil Nadu, and a well- defined study of aesthetics in Sanskrit literature are among the important highlights of this volume. The philosophical and literary discourse has been framed by a structural analysis of the Vedic literature and two firmly rooted narratives of the history of Pali literature. A brief but perceptive essay on the history of Hinduism adds additional lustre to this volume and is accompanied by notes on the archaeology of Hinduism and Buddhism. There is also a major essay on the textual connotation of Dharma in ancient India.

Dilip K Chakrabarti is emeritus professor of south Asian archaeology at Cambridge University.

India is presently undergoing a multidimensional renaissance. Tremendous political, social, economic and demographic changes are underway. In the last few years, there has been a great deal of interest the world over in rising India. People are curious what India's rise means to the world. More important, people want to understand what fresh ideas India brings to the high table. It is therefore essential that Indian scholars should explain India to the world. One way to do so effectively is to understand what true India is like. There is no proper appreciation of India's history and culture even among Indians, let alone the foreigners. I would like to quote from the foreword written by Shri Ajit Doval to the earlier volumes of this series: "One can never understand a society, civilization or a nation unless its past is understood and interpreted correctly. Both by design and default, India's past has been mutated, events arbitrarily selected disproportionate to their real historic import and interpreted to substantiate a preconceived hypotheses. When myth masquerades as reality, then reality becomes the casualty".

The themes of the present volume - literature, philosophy and religion-possess in the context of ancient India a vast magnitude and complexity. Each of these themes opens by itself a great panorama of human thoughts and behaviour and is worthy of filling up individual volumes on any of their aspects, however minor. In view of this magnitude and complexity, the present volume can try to provide only a glimpse into the ancient Indian world of literature, philosophy and religion.
Ratnabali Basu provides us with the basic documentation of the Vedic texts including their morphology and the range of their commentators. The essay is uncluttered by non- essentials; we are not concerned here with more than a hundred year old Vedic textual scholarship and all the inferences which went with it. It was important to follow the basic structures of these texts and this is the author emphasizes. One goes nowhere by trying to date them but in her brief essay on the age of the Vedas, the author helpfully outlines the frame within which attempts of this kind have been made.