Hinduwebsite - the History Section

For a long time, until India became independent and free from the colonial empire of the British, Indian history was interpreted by European scholars as they saw and understood the world according to their beliefs and value system. They superimposed upon the history of India their vision of the ancient world in which Europe was the center stage and Greece and Rome were the cradle of human civilization. For them the world history began with Stonehenge and ended with the second World War. If they made any reference to Egypt, India and China, it was in reference to some Western expedition, conquest or travel tales. The tradition continued with some thematic upgrades, even after Indian became independent in the hands of secular historians who either tried to gloss over the facts of history or painted them with their Marxist socialist beliefs and value system.

Lost in this construction of Indian history was the true character of ancient India and its contribution to the progress of human civilization and the development of religious knowledge and wisdom. Indian history is not yet fully free from the imagery they created and perpetuated and the way they subordinated its importance to that of Greece and Rome, which were comparatively smaller empires than their contemporary counterparts in India and China.

On the contrary, some even tried to interpret Indian history and its scriptures from psychoanalytical perspective, without any genuine evidence. For them absence of genuine historical evidence is an excuse to present their own version of pseudo intellectual fiction and subliminal impressions as genuine Indian history. Going by the recent archeological findings, early migration patterns, and genetic research, India might as well be the cradle of human civilization, a subject which not many in the western academia are willing to put up for even discussion. It is also possible that a lot of ancient history of India and its cultural antiquity is deeply buried  beneath the layers of sand in the deserts of Sahara and Thar, or sunk deep in the ocean beds of Arabian sea and Indian ocean or lost beneath the permafrost of Siberia or even the frozen continent. Some even allude to its connection with the lost civilizations such as Lemuria and Atlantis.

The following essays attempt to present Indian history from a different perspective, as seen and understood by a non-historian with a sound understanding of India's diversity and cultural ethos.