History of India: Ancient, Medieval and Modern History (Set of 3 Volumes)
About The Book (Volume I)
The volume has sixteen chapters. The first traces man’s progress through the entire phase of evolution down to the period of Indu's city life. The second and third explore theological risings: Vedic, Buddhist, and Jain and their impact on people. The fourth discovers people’s life during the epic period. The phase of pure history begins with the Mauryan period. The fifth chapter explores the rise of the Mauryan Empire, and the Sixth and the seventh present a fine and sensitive sketch of other significant dynasties of Indian and non-Indian origins ruling the subcontinent for about six hundred years after the Mauryan rule. The eighth, ninth, part of twelfth, and thirteenth relate to the history of the great Guptas, a full chapter devoted to King Harsh. The tenth relates to the history of three major dynasties, Pallavas, early and late Chalukyas, and Rashtrakutas, and the eleventh, more or less to the cultural, religious, and social aspects of life in Deccan. The part of the twelfth chapter, other than devoted to Gupta rule, gives details of the travels of the Chinese scholar Hiuen Tsang. Based on his travel accounts paints a picture of life in India in those days, their religious followings in particular. It also explores the life and thought of the Brahmanical thinker Shankaracharya, and some significant social and political issues facing contemporary society. Chapters fourteen fifteen and the last sixteen deal with dynasties founded n sectarian lines and ht history of various regions in the south, Orissa and Bengal in Particular.
About the Book (Volume II)
Volume two explores the history of the period after 647 AD, the year of the death of Harshavarhdana, the last of the Great Gupta kings. Within six-seven decades of his death, the Arabs succeeded in occupying Sindh and Multan: the beginning of the era of Islamic occupation of Indian territories. A few early Rajput kingdoms checked. This presence of Islamic powers on Indian land continued even after the great Mughal Empire disintegrated and finally collapsed giving way to regional powers.
Volume two has devoted a chapter each for the six Great Mughals, Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan, and Aurangzeb. With two more chapters, one, dealing with the later Mughals, that is, those succeeding Aurangzeb- the waning phase of the great empire, and the other, its final disintegration, the history of Mughal rule extends into eight chapters. The initial chapters deal with the invasions of Arabs and Turks. A chapter, or two, alludes also to local Rajput powers but split and unorganized they were hardly a defense against these invading Turks. Prithviraj Chauhan, the last Hindu ruler of Delhi, faced a series f Turkish invasions and thwarted them every time but was betrayed by kin he was finally overthrown and killed in 1192 AD giving way to Islamic dynasties, Ibrahim Lodi, was overthrown and killed by Babur, the Mughal, Empire came into being and with this there began another glorious era of Indian history to end only with its disintegration.
About the Book (Volume III)
Volume three is broadly the history of modern India which is usually considered to begin with the emergence of European powers and Europe’s influence in everything, culture, lifestyle, education-system, art, and architecture and is hence more a subject-related concept, not so much the time-defined. More than the dates the volume is concerned about the spirit of an event. Least framed into periodicity it intrudes into the medieval era by centuries beginning with European navigators, such as Vasco de Gama, landing at Calicut in 1948 AD. By 1500 or 1510 AD, the Europeans had begun settling on the Indian subcontinent. The volume links the beginning of modern Indian soil and concludes it India’s attainment of freedom, the establishment of democratic rule, and the installation of a people’s Law, ‘The constitution of India’.
The first five chapters relate to the presence of various European settlers, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British on Indian soil, aspects such as French-British rivalry for supremacy, the British gaining the upper hand, the establishment of British power, expansion of their dominions and the British policy of 1818 towards Indian states. It has its next two chapters on the revolute of 1857, one from the British point of view, and the other, from India. The rest of the volume is devoted to enumerating the aspirations of the Indian people, their struggle for independence, and finally their attainment of freedom and formation of the people’s government.
