The recovery of India's immense history owes much to Western and particularly British researches; yet attempts to compress it often concentrate on the brief Imperial period. This up-to-date survey treats the latter as merely the penuitimate chapter in a story that begins in the 3rd millennium BC with the Indus Valley civilization. The influx of pastoral nomads - first in a long series of invasions from the north established the Vedic religion, whose assimilation of popular cults and formalization in Sanskrit writing and social castes supplied the cohesion which subsequent events - the Moghul incursions, the British Empire, the rise of modern India - did little to change. The enduring distinctiveness of India, its often bewildering "diversity of unity", emerges as a product of geographical simplicity and great historical complexity.
- ISBN10 050027164X
- ISBN13 9780500271643
- Publish Date 22 October 1979
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 July 2002
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Thames & Hudson Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 192
- Language English