Review: The Buddha and the Sahibs and Ashoka—The Search for India’s Lost Emperor

A review by my Uni batch mate,  Sunil Koswatta

Charles Allen has written two books on The Buddha and the Sahibs and Ashoka—The Search for India’s Lost Emperor.  The second book, written about a decade after the first one, is largely an expansion of the first.


Both are the stories of the “Orientalists” who discovered India’s lost history, the lost Emperor Ashoka, and the Buddha Dhamma that thrived in India during Ashoka’s time.  Their methods of discovery were crude, sometimes outright criminal by today’s standards.  However,there  were honest“sahibs” who dedicated their whole lives to science and discovery; conversely, there were opportunistic and greedy “sahibs” whose only objective was wealth.  Allen weaves his tale in a way to take the readers along with the discoverers while (mostly) permitting the readers to judge for themselves.

Among the most interesting are William “Oriental” Jones, who established the Asiatic Society of Bengal; James Prinsep, who deciphered Ashoka texts; George Turnour, who translated Mahawansa from Pali to English; Alexander Cunningham, who discovered many of the Buddhist pilgrimage sites; Dr. Waddell, who discovered Kapilavastu and Lumbini; and John Marshall, who finally introduced proper methods of archeological excavation.

Prinsep worked to decipher the lettering on the pillar known as the “Feroz Shah’s Lat” or “Delhi No 1” for four years.  His breakthrough came when he examined two dozen brief inscriptions of the same lettering at the Great Stupa at Sanchi.  Prinsep guessed that these short inscriptions could only be records of donations.  He was struck by the fact that almost all short transcripts ended with the same word with two characters: a snake-like squiggle and an inverted T followed by a single dot.

Here, he observed that the language was not Sanskrit but a vernacular modification of it, which had been fortunately preserved in Pali scriptures of Ceylon and Ava, a nineteenth century Burmese kingdom.Prinsep’sassistant with Pali was a Sinhalese named “Ratna Paula” (quite likely a corruption of the name “Rathanapala”).Both in Sanskrit and in Pali, the verb “to give” was “dana” and the noun “gift” or “donation” was “danaṁ” sharing the same Indo-European root as the Latin “donare” (to give) and “donus” (gift). This led to the recognition of the word “danaṁ,” teaching Prinsep the two letters, d and n of Brahmi 1. The snake-like squiggle represented the sound “da”, and the inverted T with the single dot the sound “naṁ.”

Too, Prinsep noticed that a single letter (like an inverted y) appeared frequently before or near the terminal word. Prinsep determined this letter to mean “of,” the equivalent of Pali “ssa,” based on his earlier investigations of the coins from Saurashtra.  If his hunch was correct, then the general structure of each sentence was something like “So-and-so of the gift.”Prinsep’s translation of one such Sanchi inscription is “Isa-palitasa-cha Samanasa-cha danaṁ” (The gift of Isa-Palita and of Samana.)

The opening sentence of Delhi No 1 had been observed to repeat itself again and again at the start of many sections or paragraphs of text in the pillar inscriptions and on the rock edicts.  This,Prinsep could now read as “Devanampiyapiyadasi raja hevaṁ aha.”  After conferring with Ratna Paula, Prinsep concluded that this opening phrase was best represented in English as “Thus spake King Piyadasi, Beloved of the Gods.”  Prinsep published his findings in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in April, 1837.

But who was the author of these extraordinary edicts?  Who wasPiyadasi?  Prinsep couldn’t find a Piyadasi in all Hindu genealogical tables that he consulted.  Only one possible candidate presented himself, one who had emerged from George Turnour’s translations of the Pali Chronicles of Ceylon: “King Devanampiatissa succeeded his father on the throne of Ceylon in the year of Buddha 236.  He induced Dharmasoka, a sovereign of the many kingdoms into which Dambadiva was divided, and whose capital was Pataliputta, to depute his son Mahinda and his daughter Sangamitta, with several other principal priests to Anuradhapura for the purpose of introducing the religion of Buddha.”

In a letter sent to Prinsep on June 6th of 1837, Turnour excitedly revealed the identity of Piyadasi.   “I have made a most important discovery. You will find in the introduction to my Epitome that a valuable collection of Pali works was brought back to Ceylon from Siam, by George Nodaris, mudaliar in 1812. This collection of Pali texts included a copy of the Island Chronicle, the original chronicle from which the later Great Dynastic Chronicle took its earliest historical material, but a less corrupted version—and with crucial differences.  While casually turning the leaves of the manuscript I had hit upon an entirely new passage relating to the identity of Piyadasi … who, the grandson of Chandragupta, and own son of Bindusara, was at the time Viceroy of Ujjayani.”

King Devanmpriya Piyadasi of the Feroz Shar Lat inscription (Delhi 1) was not King Devanampiathissa of Lanka, as Prinsep had assumed. He was his Indian contemporary Ashoka Maurya.

After Prinsep’s death his work was continued.  Alexander Cunningham relied on the accounts of the Chinese pilgrims Faxian and Xuanzang to discover the Buddhist pilgrim sites.  Faxian’s Records of Buddhist Kingdoms was translated in 1836, and Xuanzang’s History of the Life of Xuanzang and His Travels in India was translated in 1853.  Faxian, who travelled to India in 400 CE, identified Ashoka as Wuyou Wang (The King Not Feeling Sorrow).  Faxian visited Sankisa, and Lumbini, and from Lumbini travelled south to cross the Ganges at the point he describes as “the confluence of the five rivers,” just upstream of the capital of the country of Maghada: Pataliputra.  Faxian describes Wuyou’s palace and his towering city walls and gates as being inlaid with sculpture-work.  About two hundred years later, when Xuanzang arrived, the Buddha Dhamma was in decline and the Pataliputra was all but abandoned.  Cunningham conducted his field surveys with copies of Faxian’s andXuanzang’s travels in his knapsack.  He tracked down almost all sites visited by the Chinese pilgrims, including Sravasti, Kosambi, Ayodya, Sankisa, Taxila, and Nalanda.

However, Cunningham assumed that Pataliputra must have been swept away by the changing course of the Ganges.  Dr. Waddell thought otherwise.  Taking together both Faxian and Xuanzang accounts,Waddell prepared a chart of Ashoka’s palaces and other chief monuments, and his chart led him over a railway line that marked the southern limits of “old” Patna, to a series of mounds known as Panch Pahari or the Five Brothers.  He wrote afterwards, “I was surprised to find most of the leading landmarks of Ashoka’s palaces, monasteries, and other monuments when reexamined so very obvious that I was able in the short space of one day to identify many of them beyond all doubt.”  Around the modern village Kumrahar, Waddell found various fragments of sculpture and other confirmatory details and learned from the villagers that whenever they sunk wells, they stuck massive wooden beams at a depth of about 20 feet beneath the ground.  Megasthenes, a Greek diplomat who stayed at Pataliputra for six months during the Emperor Chandragupta’s reign, had recorded that Pataliputra was surrounded by wooden walls.

As mentioned before, not all sahibs treated their objects respectfully.  James Campbell, the Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Akbari in Bombay Presidency in the 1890s, excavated several sites in Gujarat.  Among his early triumphs was finding a new Ashokan rock edict, which he had allowed to be taken to bits, mislaid, and lost. A relic subsequently identified by the accompanying inscription as a segment of Buddha’s alms bowl was thrown away.  He then moved on to tear apart the “Girnar Mound,” a large stupa a few miles south of the famous Girnar rock inscription.

In spite of some irresponsibility, all of these men contributed to the rediscovery of India’s past.  The books that tell their stories are excellent,  and in this reviewer’s judgment both belong in any Sri Lankan’s private library.

Sunil Koswatta

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sbarrkum

I am 3/4ths Sri Lankan (Jaffna) Tamil, 1/8th Sinhalese and 1/8th Irish; a proper mutt. Maternal: Grandfather a Govt Surveyor married my grandmother of Sinhalese/Irish descent from the deep south, in the early 1900’s. They lived in the deep South, are generally considered Sinhalese and look Eurasian (common among upper class Sinhalese). They were Anglicans (Church of England), became Evangelical Christians (AOG) in 1940's, and built the first Evangelical church in the South. Paternal: Sri Lanka (Jaffna Tamil). Paternal ancestors converted to Catholicism during Portuguese rule (1500's), went back to being Hindu and then became Methodists (and Anglicans) around 1850 (ggfather). They were Administrators and translators to the British, poets and writers in Tamil and English. Grandfathers sister was the first female Tamil novelist of modern times I was brought up as an Evangelical even attending Bible study till about the age of 13. Agnostic and later atheist. I studied in Sinhala, did a Bachelor in Chemistry and Physics in Sri Lanka. Then did Oceanography graduate stuff and research in the US. I am about 60 years old, no kids, widower. Sri Lankan citizen (no dual) and been back in SL since 2012. Live in small village near a National Park, run a very small budget guest house and try to do some agriculture that can survive the Elephants, monkeys and wild boar incursions. I am not really anonymous, a little digging and you can find my identity.

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Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago

Pretty interesting things, I may read more about that when I get some free time. Just to notice couple Serbian words in this review:

‘Ratna’ is a 100% Serbian word meaning ‘War’s’. ‘Ratna’ is a feminine gender, ‘Ratni’ is male. ‘Ratna dvipa’ (=war’s island; it is not ’gem island’ as some translates) is the name for Sri Lanka so as Serpska dvipa (Serbian island), i.e. Serendib.

‘dana’ is a Serbian word meaning ‘given’ (‘dana’ is f. gender, ‘dan’ is m. gender; Latin language evolved from much older Serbian)

Deva and Priya are also Serbian words. Priya was a goddess of love in old Serbian mythology, replicated much later by Greeks as Aphrodite and by Romans as Venus.

Btw. some of Indian actresses, Devika, Radhika, Priya(nka), also have Serbian names (Devika means Virgo i.e. young girl, Rad=work, Radhika=someone who likes to work, industrious)

VijayVan
5 years ago

To add to sbarrkum, ratna means gem in all Indic languages. The highest civilian award in India is Bharath Ratna and the highest in SL is Sri Lanka Ratna is for foreigners.

Adrian Ratnapala
Adrian Ratnapala
5 years ago

As other’s have pointed out “ratna” means gem, and in these contexts is a euphamism for the Buddhist religion.

But I expect there are a lot of words shared from Indo-European times between Slavic and Indic languages. And when some of my Sinhalese relatives give their children made-up names, they often sound Russian to me.

Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago
Reply to  sbarrkum

Thanks, Sereno,

I can accept this. I wrote before that Ratna dvipa (i.e. Ratna island) is on the mouth of Sava to Danube, close to downtown of Belgrade. Considering that Serendib was a part of Aryan territory and a sea route for silk export to Europe until large Hindu migration in 504BC, that was a possible connection. In addition, Dana is old and modern Serbian female name. The male version is Danko. It is also one of surviving Irish names (they had identical names until 1284 when E. Longshanks prohibited them) such as Dana Scully, Dana Rohrabacher (male name).

Karan
Karan
5 years ago

Brilliant. I did not know that Brahmi was deciphered using the Pali scriptures preserved in Theravada Buddhism. The last frontier is now the Indus script. I am convinced that some phrases/deity names have already been deciphered by Mahadevan primarily using Old Tamil literature and comparative Dravidian/Sanskrit etymology.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago

Outstanding. The work of the old Asia hands in reconstructing Indian history using Pali, and then, Brahmi, is to be appreciated. Those that protest the colonizers, should also appreciate the work of colonizers in rescuing the history of India.

Iravatham Mahadevan was a civil servant and had no degree in linguistics or epigraphy. He retired from IAS as a director of handlooms, and started his tamil inscriptions translation as a hobby. While his interpretation of Tamil Brahmi script as the text “Corpus of the Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions” is appreciated, he made a huge leap of faith in extending it to IVC. The work of Rao, —-, Mahadevan in science is believed to be the closest archival account of his research, but even that work indicates a closeness to Sumer, rather than Tamil. Thus, the work of IM is not comparable to the work by the old Asiatic scholars of using Pali (derived off Sanskrit) in understanding the Brahmi script. Right off the bat, there are recorded 4 million plus transcriptions of Pali in Brahmic script just in Archaelogical script alone. In contrast, there are 4000 inscriptions in 400 different symbols, signs excavated in IVC.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

Can’t blame IM for the paucity of inscriptions from IVC, he tried his best with imagination and modelling. Caveat emptor.

Karan
Karan
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

“he made a huge leap of faith in extending it to IVC. ”

I do not see any huge leap in faith in extending Dravidian to the language of the IVC. Genetics, archeology, and linguistics have virtually proven this now. Not to mention the clear genetic link between the Indus script and megalithic graffiti.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Brahui-a-Dravidian-language-spoken-in-Pakistan

“Iravatham Mahadevan was a civil servant and had no degree in linguistics or epigraphy”

This is irrelevant. He has contributed far more to Indian history than most trained epigraphists and historians.

His interpretations of Nilkanthan (Siva) and Murugan (Muura Deva of the Rig Veda) in the Indus script are highly plausible, especially when looking at the survivals in both Dravidian and Sanskrit literature . There are too many independent survivals to merely dismiss as coincidences.

There are even some things he has missed in his papers which further support his interpretations. E.g. the description of the Muura Devas having bent necks in the Rig Veda.

I encourage anyone interested in the Indus script to read through and work and make their own mind:

http://rmrl.in/?page_id=1044

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

“Both are the stories of the “Orientalists” who discovered India’s lost history, the lost Emperor Ashoka, and the Buddha Dhamma that thrived in India during Ashoka’s time. ”

I think that;s its a misconception that either during Buddha or after him “Buddhism” sort of thrived in India. Most converts of Buddhism (just like Jainism) happened to be upper caste (unlike today) and they were always a minority in India. The two regions where they seem to have been majority is Punjab and Bengal,. One reason why Buddhism “seemed” majority is it was far more organized than Hinduism with a specific figure, Viharas,texts and grants from various Kings. Thats why as soon as the patronage dried up the religion also suffered. The vast majority in India practiced all form of worship something which is today grouped as “Hinduism” specially after 8th century(Adi Shanakra) it got a structure and all.

AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Buddhism (especially Mahayana) were seen as sects within Sanathana Dharma. So yes Buddhism thrived. But most Buddhists also were heavily influenced by or belonged to other Sanathana Dharma streams.

Exclusivity is a modern concept.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

This is true in some sense, and not true in another. The earlier versions of Buddhism and Jainism were not religions in the real sense, but ascetism. If you were to be a buddhist or a Jain, one became a monk or ascetic, and as such, was not a possible prescription for people who have to work for a living. The royalty paid for viharas and sanctuaries, but there was no land or monetary compensation attached with religion. As such, it is not clear if there was a huge Buddhist or Jain religious populations. Nor is it clear that a large Hindu population existed, until after the 3-5 century AD, when the ideas of temples, construction of the temples, and the use of temple as a cultural center grew [1]. Associating the growth of the Hindu religion to a codification by Adi Shankara, is a bit difficult to comprehend, as it took several hundred years to understand the Dvaita/Advaita principles. Nor can it be assumed that religious growth depended on this, as Hinduism is more a religion of the people not the elite.

[1] Manu V. Devaadevan “A Pre-history of Hinduism”

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

“Nor is it clear that a large Hindu population existed, until after the 3-5 century AD, when the ideas of temples, construction of the temples, and the use of temple as a cultural center grew”

I would disagree a bit , The Guptas at least in North India clearly were “Hindus” in that sense, with temples, Garuda and Sanskrit. They were as “Hindu” as they come. And this was even before the Bhakti movement. On Adi Shankara i agree to the certain extent as to he gave structure to the “others” rather than “religious growth ” . No ruler he converted really got into “Dvaita/Advaita” principles. He just sort of agreed that he was not Budhhist/Jain. The recognition of the “other” as Hinduism ex post facto makes them the majority in regions where we might think that Buddhism was the majority.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Gupta Empire = 320-550 AD;

AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Did Shankaracharya ever criticize Buddha?

Shankaracharya’s Guru’s Guru was Gaudapada. He wrote Mandukya Karika (which I have not read). The fourth of the four chapters is Alatasanti Prakarana–which is similar to Mahayana Buddhism. Alatasanti Prakarana praised Buddha.

Discursive descriptions of Samadhi (and states beyond) are difficult to understand for people who are not deeply mystical. Why are these descriptions not consistent with each other?

Deep Bhatnagar
Deep Bhatnagar
5 years ago

I have already addressed the issue of Indic Identities before yet here it comes again…. so here is my response –

How identity formation happened – {A short guide – Muslim rule compelled Indians towards rigid identities.}
https://www.academia.edu/2399492/Doxography_and_Boundary-Formation_in_Late_Medieval_India

In ancient India the only division was about teachers, their interpretations of famous tales & ideas they formed – Brahmans {Vedic religion or Hinduism} and Shramanas {Precursor for Buddhism & Jainism} and no mention of religious identities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Rock_Edicts#Limited_Buddhist_character_of_the_Major_Rock_Edicts

———————————————————————-

Hindutvavadis do justify themselves through scriptures for lots of bullshit but the reason of how they came to be need some explanation regarding international religious politics since colonization.

International Abrahamic world order {Predominantly Islamic Or Christian} described Indians first with religious labels & thus forced them to describe themselves into religious identity thereby forced the boundaries of religious identity i.e. Hinduism {Hence for sometime there was this idea of ‘How colonial masters invented Hinduism’} & after India’s independence the blind spots of world created a vacuum where Hindus felt nobody is representing them honestly which allowed the space for Hindu fundamentalists to move into resulting in formation of ‘Hindutva’ or ‘Hindu fundamentalism’ which we are observing now.

Search about – Religious conversion debate & India

https://www.academia.edu/35568138/Pollock_and_Weber_preprint
Same paper behind paywall – https://mws.quotus.org/article/MWS/2017/2/6
Note –
In closing the pair of chapters (13 and 14) that compare the vernacular millennium in Europe and South Asia, Pollock raises the question whether the presence of Islam may have, in one or other context, been the spur to the creation of new, more regionally based identities expressed in the new
vernaculars. Was Pirenne correct to claim that “without Mohammad there would have been no Charlemagne” (p. 489) ? In the case of Europe he concludes that the earliest vernacularization (of English, under King Alfred) owed nothing to pressure or examples from Islamic states whether in Spain, North Africa, or the Middle East, but that in other cases (French, Occitan, Castilian; later Magyar) this was or may well have been a significant factor. In the South Asian case, he is reduced, within the space of three pages (pp. 491 – 4), to calling multiple times for more research, especially on the interactions between Sanskrit, vernacular, and Muslim and non-Muslim genres. It is striking that in LGWM Pollock is much more cautious about ascribing vernacularization in the subcontinent to the impact of Islam as a political force than he was in his analysis of the Ramayana as a political tract (Pollock 1993a: esp. 286 –7).

Or check the books like – The Nay Science: A History of German Indology

Snake Charmer
Snake Charmer
5 years ago

To give credit where it is due, India owes a lot to these early orientalists, who rediscovered ancient India’s glorious past from the long forgotten pages of history . In the medieval times the cultural memory of ancient India was completely lost. There was no recollection of great emperors like Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka. Mughal historians wrote a lot of history, but their history started with Timur and ended with the current ruling emperor from the House of Timur. Indians should be grateful to these scholars who painstakingly deciphers ancient scripts, restored dilapidated ancient architectures and reconstructed chronology of ancient dynasties.

Without the British rule, Indians would still have revived the knowledge of their ancient history on their own, but the process would have been longer, and what is worse, it would have been wrecked by the inevitable political, religious and casteist agendas. Since the British really didn’t have a dog in this fight (to borrow a modern phrase), they were by and large a neutral and dispassionate observers of Indian past.

Deep Bhatnagar
Deep Bhatnagar
5 years ago
Reply to  Snake Charmer

// Since the British really didn’t have a dog in this fight (to borrow a modern phrase), they were by and large a neutral and dispassionate observers of Indian past. //

Then what is Orientalism ? Why is there so much of research in that is termed as decolonization {since we all know that it is an impossible task at this juncture} ? See every side has agendas & their biases do get into these endeavors hence till date there is no scholar who has written Indic history on Indian terms i.e. invoking the same identities that Indians invoked in the periods of identity transformation due to forces like Islamic empires & colonizers.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Snake Charmer

Their only dog was make/expand/maintain the empire. Almost all Indologists till mid 19th century were salaried servants of the empire or came to harvest the heathen souls.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

“Harvest the heathen souls” – excellent Hindu internet talking point, as usual.

In order for someone to study something, they need a job from a university or government. So the Orientals took a government job, came to India, studied archaeology, telugu literature, tribes and established these fields. In addition, by creating ASI, the universities in India, the present day government structure, they created the means of studying everything Indian. Would you prefer they be like Belgians and do nothing?

Whatever the usual suspects say about the British government (or the Mughal government) they are the forefathers of the present Indian political, economic and social structure. No amount of holding your nose up will make this go away.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

/British government (or the Mughal government) they are the forefathers of the present Indian political, economic and social structure./

Very true. The purpose of the E.I.Company and British gov was rent seeking in India and their structures were suited for that. Free India by carrying on with the same structures has stultified the economic and social development of India .

Xerxes the Magian
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

+1

Deep Bhatnagar
Deep Bhatnagar
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

// In order for someone to study something, they need a job from a university or government. So the Orientals took a government job, came to India, studied archaeology, telugu literature, tribes and established these fields. In addition, by creating ASI, the universities in India, the present day government structure, they created the means of studying everything Indian. Would you prefer they be like Belgians and do nothing? //

You are mixing results vis a vis objective.

—————————————————————————-

There were various objectives {differs from person to person & region to region} but 3 major ones are –

1. To control the region for exploitation via ethnographic studies for divide and rule policy and to justify imperialism as ‘civilizing missions’.

For e.g. of civilizing mission do see this talk ‘Thugge Banditry And The British’ – “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxaXISP_Kg8”

2. To prove superiority of the West, White race etc. – Orientalism & Eurocentrism played an important role as blind-spots of Academic biases in the modern world.

E.g. – Look at maths, Science etc. & lack of acknowledgement of non-European sources which formed the backbone of modern Science.

Making Western people ‘Secular’ via deism – https://www.academia.edu/34695452/From_Christian_Apologetics_to_Deism_Libertine_Readings_of_Hinduism_1650_1730
& we all know how Islam took root into Indian subcontinent in the form of Sufism, all because of Indic traditions intrinsic diversity which never allows a single view to become the central belief.

Book – The Nay Science: A History of German Indology

3. The third reason was that they themselves were obsessed to trace history of their origins {this obsession of still continues & was one of the major factor for ‘David Reich’ to use DNA for historical tracing of various populations}.

This was the reason that lead to Romantacized Orientalist Eastern accounts, Indo-mania, Fascism & Indo-phobia too {to some extent}.

So when you say,
// Whatever the usual suspects say about the British government (or the Mughal government) they are the forefathers of the present Indian political, economic and social structure. No amount of holding your nose up will make this go away. //

You are basically giving into these orientalist narratives & while Mughals and Britishers might have wrote the modern accounts of Indian history but it is traceable to ancient periods with well developed Political, economic & social structures. E.g. Arthashastra & various regional epigraphical sources.

The many fields which developed in those periods are the foundations of various forms of studies which have proven to be useful in modern world but it was neither the invention of West nor of the the East rather it was an uneven interaction with exploitative objective that resulted in the formation of these institutions.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Deep Bhatnagar

All in Good Hindu nationalist form, but…

Why is David Reich quoted as ‘David Reich’?

Deep Bhatnagar
Deep Bhatnagar
5 years ago
Reply to  Deep Bhatnagar

// Why is David Reich quoted as ‘David Reich’? //

Because i came to know about this by listening to one of his talk out of many available on youtube where he mentions the history, Science {of beliefs & researches when he got involved in the project} & reasoning {i.e. in relation to his Jewish heritage} for pursuing this project.

What is Hindu nationalist in my post, plz. elaborate -_-

girmit
girmit
5 years ago
Reply to  Snake Charmer

The court historian Ferishta of the Bijapur Adil Shahis , writing in the early 1600’s , surveyed Indian history from its Vedic creation myths , an outline of the Mahabharata conflict, the scions of those actors and their claimed links to later dynasties. He refers to the invasion of India by Alexander and the consolidation of empire by Chandragupta Maurya. He omits Ashoka as far as I know. Later he ventures an origin hypothesis of the earliest rajputs. He writes extensively of pre-Islamic Indo-persian relations, though how credible it is I can’t say. Even as regards the history of Islam in india , (the book itself is “The rise of mahommedan power in india”), he begins with the Arab conquest of Sind.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Snake Charmer

Chandragupta and Kautilya are mentioned in Puranas as well as Jain and Buddhist books., many which were written after him,.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Snake Charmer

Chandragupta and Kautilya are mentioned in Puranas as well as Jain and Buddhist books., many which were written after him.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

Everyone had a dog in this fight, including the ethnicities/communities which were profiting from the British rule in India. The discovery of Ashoka (Chandragupta was never forgotten as he is mentioned in Puranas as well as Buddhist and Jain texts, written much later.) and his subsequent “greatness” has to do a lot with the Indian state appropriating his symbolism as sort of a neutral figure b/w the fight of hindus and muslims, after the partition.
Its similar to how discovery of IVC helped the Brits/Communist/muslims counter that India was invaded by the “Aryans” so what’s the big deal if we invaded it again. The progenitor of Dravidian-ism were also British.
Every discovery which could be used , was used to propagate a certain viewpoint. that India is not a nation but bunch of tribes/caste. So yeah not a “dispassionate observer”

Xerxes the Magian
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Was Ashoka a Shudra? Were India’s “best” dynasties Shudra-origin?

India has always been a far too insular Power historically and Indian rulers (foreign or domestic) fed themselves fat on the wealth of the Indo-Gangetic plain.

Arguably in defence of the “Muslim rulers” the British came from a hitherto unknown route (via the north east).

Despite the discussion on the Marathas; there is also the added question that if the British had not arrived would India have actually “modernised” as a Muslim country..

I’m trying to think of parallels but counter factual history is fraught with risk..

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Let us not forget “”David Reich”” who is minting money off Indian DNA

“”””Tony Joseph”””””” who is minting money of a Christian version of Early Indian History

and last but not least, the biggest dog of them all in the fight, Razib “””””””Khan””””” who is making nearly 43 $ a month off the patreon on Brown Punditry.

Deep Bhatnagar
Deep Bhatnagar
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

// Let us not forget “”David Reich”” who is minting money off Indian DNA

“”””Tony Joseph”””””” who is minting money of a Christian version of Early Indian History

and last but not least, the biggest dog of them all in the fight, Razib “””””””Khan””””” who is making nearly 43 $ a month off the patreon on Brown Punditry. //

Who are you replying to ? I never mentioned about monetary profit or loss i only discussed ideology, objective of actions and results.

Brown Pundits