About the Book

A RANGE OF TEXTS AND IDEAS ACROSS TIME THAT TOGETHER GIVE US THE ESSENCE OF INDIAN THOUGHT AND WISDOM.
India is a civilisation of moulik soch—the power of original thought. This faculty has been the bedrock on which the Indian people have survived and flourished since the dawn of time. Other ancient civilisations, such as the Greek, Roman, Persian, Assyrian and even classical Chinese, have long since ceased to exist. What makes our civilisation different is a certain ability for cerebral interrogation, discovery and renewal that has bestowed the great stream of Indian ideas with antiquity, continuity, diversity, assimilation and peaks of refinement.
This compendium, or anthology, seeks to capture some of the magnitude of this vast ideational canvas. Its breadth covers a period of 7,000 years at the very least, from the Rigveda, dated circa 3500 to 3000 BCE, to the philosopher Osho, closer to the present. The subjects it includes range from philosophy, metaphysics, religion, values, politics, economics, arts, literature, poetry and aesthetics to social change and renewal. The geographical sweep is as wide, covering the whole of Bharatvarsha, from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, and Dwarka to Puri and the Northeast.
From the ancient Nasadiya Sukta to twentieth-century discussions about caste and nation, this is an anthology of Indian philosophical and political thought that deserves a place on every bookshelf. Wise and diverse, reflective and provocative, each of the pieces in this collection, be it Sanskrit verse, Urdu poetry or a speech in Parliament, belongs to the canon of intellectual thought that defines Indianness.

About the Author

Pavan K. Varma is a writer-diplomat and was, till recently, an MP in the Rajya Sabha. He was earlier advisor to the chief minister of Bihar, with the rank of cabinet minister.
He has been India’s Ambassador in several countries, also director of the Nehru Centre in London, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, and press secretary to the President of India. Author of over a dozen successful books, Pavan K. Varma was conferred an honorary doctoral degree for his contribution to the fields of diplomacy, literature, culture and aesthetics by the University of Indianapolis in 2005. He was also conferred the Druk Thuksey, Bhutan’s highest civilian award, in 2012.