Pageant of India

About this book

(From dust cover.) In this book the famous auther of "Bengal Lancer" provides something which is very much needed: a summary of India's history and contribution of culture from the earliest times to the present day. It is not a text book or an outline: " I want," says the author in his preface , to make something that lives and moves, if only for a short time. My aim has been to give my fellow countryman, who have somewhat neglected India ever since Charles II leased Bombay to London merchants for £10 a year, a pageant of India as I see it, a continuity, not an analaysis or a list of dates. "Continuity there is , when you stand back from the picture and see it in its right perspective. Hindu and Moslem cultures met at the top. Akbar's Gate of Victory a Fatehpur Sikiri and the ornate Dravidian temples of South India both proclaim Ramakrishna's saying that 'Truth is one: sages call it by different names.' Nor are theses cultures merely of the past ... If you live and work with Indians in India you will not think the mases are tired of life." The pageant of Indian history, from the arrival of the Aryans to disturb the prehistoric people who raised a flurishing civiization in the Indus Valley five thousand years ago; the life and teachings of Buddha and their influence upon Indian history and thought; the descent of Alexander in his shinning white armour; the personalities of the great kings, Chandragupta and Asoka; the conquest by the great Moghuls, and sons of Tamurlane; the exploits of Akbar and Baber; the intrigues of Arunggzeb; the riseof the Mahrattas; and, alast, the coming of the Europeans, are told by Major Yeats-Brown in a pictuesque and vivid style, drawing lightly upon his great knowledge of Hindu history and litrature and his familiarity with the religious impulses, ending with a summary of the work and problems of the British Raj and a concluding chapter on the future. This edition that I read was published in 1943. Having read this book it could have been a prediction of what has happended in the history of India continent from the second world war on . Modern politicians should read this book it would give them a better understanding of Pakistan and Afghanistan not just India.