India Discovered: The Recovery of a Lost Civilization

India Discovered: The Recovery of a Lost Civilization
John Keay

Two hundred years ago, India was seen as a place with little history and less culture.Today it is revered for a notable prehistory, a magnificent classical age and a cultural tradition unique in both character and continuity. How this extraordinary change in perception came about is the subject of this fascinating book.The story, here reconstructed for the first time, is one of painstaking scholarship primed by a succession of sensational discoveries. The excitement of unearthing a city twice as old as Rome, the realization that the Buddha was not a god but a historical figure, the glories of a literature as rich as anything known in Europe, the drama of encountering a veritable Sistine chapel deep in the jungle, and the sheer delight of categorizing ‘the most glorious galaxy of monuments in the world’ fell, for the most part, to men who were officials of the British Raj. Their response to the unfamiliar – the explicitly sexual statuary, the incomprehensible scripts, the enigmatic architecture – and the revelations which resulted, revolutionized ideas not just about India but about civilization as a white man’s prerogative.A companion volume by the author of the highly praised India: A History and The Great Arc.

INDIA

DISCOVERED

The Recovery of a Lost Civilization

JOHN KEAY

Copyright (#ulink_9f581f75-7103-520b-84d8-36e3ca7aa605)

HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain in 1981

First published in paperback by William Collins 1988

Copyright © John Keay 1981

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007123001

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007399642

Version: 2015-06-17

Contents

Cover (#u0c322784-e8d4-5e75-beda-14af7f1b862e)

Title Page (#u519f3cc6-1e97-5757-864f-108eb6025953)

Copyright (#u066dcf99-365c-58ec-bae9-bb748a111544)

List of Illustrations (#u7f3b175f-d230-50de-8a1a-4a5c0a296f81)

Introduction (#u639064cb-43c3-554a-a5b1-bbf346876532)

CHAPTER ONE This Wonderful Country (#u66514f8b-250a-5748-ab39-b6df4c685c6a)

CHAPTER TWO An Inquisitive Englishman (#u80dc90db-cae5-514e-b9ae-64339435c5a2)

CHAPTER THREE Thus Spake Ashoka (#ud37d61f9-fc76-57ac-9c3d-f82c21f50aa4)

CHAPTER FOUR Black and Time-Stained Rocks (#u3ed5ca19-1872-5451-b9ee-ef7466aba992)

CHAPTER FIVE The Legacy of Pout (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX The Old Campaigner (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN Buddha in a Toga (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT A Little Warmer than Necessary (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE Wild in Human Faith and Warm in Human Feeling (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN A Subject of Frequent Remark (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN Hiding Behind the Elgin Marbles (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE Some Primitive Vigour (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN New Observations and Discoveries (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN An Idolatrous Affection (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Stupendous Fabric of Nature (#litres_trial_promo)

KEEP READING (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note To Third Edition (#litres_trial_promo)

Sources and Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Chronology 1765–1927 (#litres_trial_promo)

The Great Arc (#litres_trial_promo)

India: A History (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

List of Illustrations (#ulink_37635dc7-fa0a-5e8c-80cf-176055408db3)

1. Aurangzeb’s mosque above Panchganga.

2. James Prinsep with Hindu pandits, Sanskrit College, Benares.