Sunday, August 09, 2009

Some India-related books

I have often wondered about the fact that many of the areas associated with India and Hinduism are in Pakistan and Afghanistan, for example, Gandhari may be from Peshawar area, Panini from near Swat Valley, originial Kambhoja is in Afghanistan, the Mohenjodaro-Harappa civilization might have stated from Mehrgarh... Alice Albinia started dreaming about Rig Veda in Delhi and her engrossing account "Empires of the Sind" describes her travels along the Sind, then in to Afghanistan, later to Ladakh and Tibet up to the souce of Sind. I read it recently after a Book recommendation from Fatima Bhutto. It is not a coneventional history book but there is lot of history, its influences on the present, conflicts of nations and perils of development. Along the way, there is some day dreaming about where Rig Veda was written which is not too covincing. There is no discussions of the 'fact' that devas and dasa were interchanged for Iranian aryans and Indo Aryans; this later is discussed briefly in John Keay's "India: a History". But Alice Albinia has some additional information about trade between Harappa and Manda in Kashmir. Pankaj Mishra travelled some of the same territory in his "Temptations of the West" and his account will complement Albinia's account of the current conflicts. Another history book that I found interesting is Burton Stein' posthumous book prepared for publication for by Sanjay Subrahmanyam and others.
There are some heavy tomes like "Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia", edited by Sheldon Pollock, and "The Language of the Gods in the World of Men" by Sheldon Pollock which I read after a suggestion from Paruchuri Sreenivas. Somebody recently gave me a copy of "Classical Indian Metaphysics" by Stephen Phillips which looks readable. Indian history seems to be still unfolding and I hope to get some glimpses of it.

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