Skip to main content

Ancient Cities of India


Book Review

Going back to the historical roots of mythological places can be a fascinating exercise for lovers of both mythology and history. Sayan Bhattacharya has done an eminent job in his e-book, Ancient Cities of India, bringing us both the history and mythology of some of the prominent cities mentioned in our great epics.

   The book begins with the disclaimer that it is not “a wholly authenticated version of mythology and history as it is merely a compilation of information from various sources and re-telling of historical events…” It is not possible for anyone to provide “wholly authenticated” history of the places that existed a few thousand years ago. One has to work with whatever archaeological evidences available and historical references made by later travellers and writers.

   Bhattacharya brings alive the ancient cities as they existed during the times of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. He narrates how the names of many of these cities underwent evolution as time passed. For example, the name of Lahore is traced back to Lav, son of Lord Rama. “By the end of his reign, Lord Rama and his family were credited with establishing many cities and towns as they kept visiting various parts of their kingdom,” says the book. “One such city was Lavpur, in the basin of the Jhelum River, credited to Lav, son of Lord Rama, as the founder. Lavpur grew in its settlements with Brahmins comprising the majority of its population. There was a temple erected and devoted to Lav in the city, which stands even today empty inside the Lahore fort as the Lav temple.”

   The author then goes on to show how the later Rajput settlers pronounced Lav as Loh and the city came to be called Lohkot, kot referring to the fort built by the settlers. Later settlers during the Vedic period changed the name to Lohawar, awar being the corrupted form of the Sanskrit word for fort (awarna).

  Bhattacharya has taken much care to bring available historical evidences wherever required. Though Krishna’s Dwaraka was submerged by the ocean, the ruins of the city found in the Bay of Cambay may be the ancient Dwaraka, according to Indian archaeologist S S Rao.

   Quite many of the ancient cities described in the book were eventually marauded by Muslim invaders. Many of them are not even in India today. Bhattacharya’s book presents cities which are now in Pakistan and Afghanistan, regions which fall in the Great Indian subcontinent that the Hindutva adherents long to reclaim. The disclaimer at the beginning of the book states that “Neither the author nor this work (eBook and the original blog-posts on the subject) does in any way intend to hurt, damage or counter any religious, patriotic or nationalist beliefs and sentiments of any of its readers or the public at large.” The tone of the book does not in any way contradict the disclaimer. But the present day revanchists in the country may find enough fuel in the book if they wish to.

   The book can be good reference material for those who genuinely wish to know the history of the cities mentioned in India’s great epics. It can also teach us why it is not a good idea to maraud cities that mark a particular civilisation. Cities belong to history and those who wish to create a new history should rather create new cities than demolish existing ones especially in times when demolitions will be recorded for posterities.

   Towards the end of the book, the author devotes one chapter to the Chinese traveller Xuanzang (Hieuen Tsang) who was impressed by the magnanimity of the contemporary Indian King Harsha towards all religions and people. “History does not present another example of a king who gave away his wealth so freely to the believers and the needy, as did this king…” Bhattacharya quotes Xuanzang. Maybe our present day leaders can draw a lesson from the ancient Harsha.

The book is available for free download here.


Top post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers

Comments

  1. Jyotirmoy SarkarJune 2, 2018 at 10:54 PM

    Good to know about the book,have downloaded it, will read for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. pushpendra dwivediJune 3, 2018 at 6:20 PM

    interesting historical informative post sharing

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sayan BhattacharyaJune 4, 2018 at 3:47 AM

    Thank you Tomichan for your detailed review and positive comments on my eBook. I am humbled at your appreciation of my work.. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...
121 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...
9 comments
Read more

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...
61 comments
Read more

A Lesson from Little Prince

I joined the #WriteAPageADay challenge of Blogchatter , as I mentioned earlier in another post. I haven’t succeeded in writing a page every day, though. But as long as you manage to write a minimum of 10,000 words in the month of Feb, Blogchatter is contented. I woke up this morning feeling rather vacant in the head, which happens sometimes. Whenever that happens to me but I do want to get on with what I should, I fall back on a book that has inspired me. One such book is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince . I have wished time and again to meet Little Prince in person as the narrator of his story did. We might have interesting conversations like the ones that exist in the novel. If a sheep eats shrubs, will he also eat flowers? That is one of the questions raised by Little Prince [LP]. “A sheep eats whatever he meets,” the narrator answers. “Even flowers that have thorns?” LP is interested in the rose he has on his tiny planet. When he is told that the sheep will eat f...
8 comments
Read more