Probings into India's Distant Past: Myth, History and Belief

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This book covers the history of human civilisation as revealed in ancient Indian classical texts. In fact the author delineates the theory of Vishnu's "dashavatara" in this background. Moreover, it is the emergence of land and later life vegetation to animal kingdom to human beings from water which is analysed from the mythological churning of the Sea (Caspian Sea in this case) or "Samudramanthan" and how Kumbha has historical basis and the how the "Kalpwas" at Sangam of Prayag helps us understand the transition of history from the hoary past of mythology! It is thus a study of ancient Indian realm of knowledge and wisdom.

The chapter on Mahabharata paradigm gives us an example how to use ancient Indian history writing as F.E. Pargiter had done and understand how ancient historians did know about historicism and the concept of causation which the Euro-centric historians thought were their contribution in giving history a modern touch and scientific temper.

The concept of human evolution as shared human experience and man emerging from a common ancestry has been explored in reference to the two earliest civilisational states - Greek and Indian both with Aryan roots. The former can be read in history books, understood in the museums but in India it's a living and vibrant when the same Vedic hymns are being recited even today and the same incantations with same rituals gives a continuity to the ancient Indian tradition.

Heramb Chaturvedi (b. 1955) is a Retried Professor and Former Head of the Department of History, and Former Dean of Arts, University of Allahabad and served in the University since 1980. He did his B.A. and M.A. from University of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.

He is prolific writer of Hindi and English languages. He has so far over twenty books to his credit. He has received "Acharya Narendra Dev Award of Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan for his book Madhyakaleen Itihas ke Strot in 2003 and Madhyakaleen Bharat mein Rajya aur Rajniti in 2005. His book, Daastaan Mughal Mahilaon ki was included in the list of best Hindi books of B.B.C., London in 2013.

As I was writing research papers on Kumbh, Mahabharata, India-Central Asia links and Indo-Greeks, I had gone through much of the material now included in the present book. The three above-mentioned research-papers are much a part of the present book. However, while writing my book on Chaturvedis in 2017 and Kumbh in 2019, I got the opportunity to delve deep into the books, I had gone through and this rekindled my interest in early history of India. Moreover, understanding medieval Indian complex without going to the roots of evolution and tracing the genesis would hardly justify any serious research-thus, 1 had to fall back upon the early history to understand the process of socio- economic and cultural evolution in totality.

Having H.G. Well's, An Outline of History'; Will Durant's Civilization series especially Our Oriental Heritage and History of Greece', along with the six volumes of 'The Cultural Heritage of India', published by The Ram Krishna Mission, Institute of Culture, Calcutta, 1937 (reprint 1975) helped to understand the evolution of Indian history, society and culture. These are, in fact, most important to understand how the ideas were born and how they crystallized and, ultimately, how they helped form the India that we know.