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Time Pieces: A Whistle-Stop Tour through Ancient India
'There are many missing pieces in the jigsaw puzzle that is ancient India, but those we have yield a rich tapestry.'The oldest surviving love graffiti on a cave wall immortalizing an intimate bond in the third century BCE; charred seeds and chewed animal bones that provide evidence of a peoples' food obsessions; architectural minutiae that point to the alarming regression of a civilization's potty habits; intriguing sculptures that reveal myriad facets of the human-animal relationship... In Time Pieces, award-winning historian Nayanjot Lahiri whimsically sifts through intricate clues left behind by the early inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent - in plaques and inscriptions, fragments of jewellery, bones and tools, poetry, art and pottery - to reveal to us our ancient land in all its variety, splendour, complexity and contradictions.Sparkling with wit and reflective of a scholar's keen and curious energy, this delightful volume seamlessly connects the past to the present and a civilization to the world beyond.
- GenresHistoryIndiaNonfiction
184 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 25, 2018
13 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
Nayanjot Lahiri
20 books37 followersNayanjot Lahiri is a historian and archaeologist of ancient India and a professor of history at Ashoka University. She was previously on the faculty of the department of history at the University of Delhi
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 25, 2020
In the Environment chapter of her book Time Pieces: A Whistle-Stop Tour of Ancient India, Nayanjot Lahiri makes a confession: that she (perhaps like many of us?) grew up with a childhood notion that ancient habitations were anchored around rivers. The Euphrates-Tigris, the Nile, and the Indus: the cradles of civilization, the ‘obvious and natural bases for human settlement’, as Lahiri puts it. She goes on to add, however, that now she thinks differently: ‘I feel tentatively aware of the dangers of imposing such a pattern upon the flux of human existence’.
Two things are worth noting about this admission. One, that Lahiri’s was a fairly innocuous assumption, and not completely illogical. Two, that this is someone who has accepted that she may have been wrong in her assumption.
Contrast this with the wild claims that are today touted—and that too with startling self-confidence—as historical fact about ancient India by everybody from politicians to the man on the street. People in ancient India used aeroplanes. Plastic surgery and gene editing was practised, televisions were in use: not just wishful thinking, but dangerous wishful thinking, since it is grossly misleading. Especially to a gullible public, happy to believe that ancient India was some sort of utopia.
In Time Pieces, Lahiri aims to set the record straight. Through ten brief essays on some of the basic aspects of everyday life in ancient India, she attempts to explain what it really was to live in the Indian subcontinent in the time of Ashoka, in Harappa, during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, and so on. This is not a book which sets out to be anything like a text book: it does not discuss politics, it does not list dynasties or contain maps that show the extent of empires. The closest it comes to a timeline is in its first chapter, Journeys, in which Lahiri explains how and approximately when our ancestors first made their way from Africa, across the Middle East, and into the Indian subcontinent.
Instead, what Time Pieces does is to explore the areas few text books venture into. What people ate; how hygiene and sanitation was maintained. How and why people travelled, what was their relationship with their environment and with the inhabitants of other, neighbouring eco-systems. What art they created and why (if one can pin down a reason for art, other than for the sake of art itself). What was their concept of self, in terms of the individual as a person, not just as a member of a clan or a varna.
At less than ten pages per chapter (and that includes photos to illustrate and support several of the examples Lahiri provides), this is a slim book. It does not go deep into detail, but it covers the ground—and it piques the interest. There are tantalizing little nuggets of information that would make the average reader, not very conversant with ancient India, probably sit up and take notice. For instance, the fact that in the 3rd century BCE, a sculptor named Devadinna left a brief inscription on the wall of a cave in modern-day Chattisgarh, immortalizing his love for a devadasi named Sutanuka—making them, as Lahiri speculates, the ‘first couple’ of India.
Of course there are mentions of prominent figures: Ashok, Kautilya, Alexander and even the courtesan Amrapali among them, but the bulk of Time Pieces is peopled by the relatively nameless: the young women who were buried alongside goats in Baluchistan; the traders whose seals form among the most common markers of identity; the sculptor who carved monkey doctors in stone at Mathura.
Lahiri brings an astonishingly wide range of knowledge to this work. Not just about her own field, but about others as well. She quotes from world literature, discusses romantic (or salacious) graffiti from across the world, and draws parallels between ancient India and the rest of the world—and does all of it in an easy, conversational style that is very readable and often imbued with a sense of humour.
Besides the history that Lahiri explains through the book, she also makes several important points. One, of course, is the exploding of many myths surrounding ancient India that seem to be in vogue today. From vegetarianism to sexual abstinence, she shows how a lot of what is considered synonymous with a ‘golden age’ of ancient India was actually not quite so all-pervasive. Often, there is a tongue in cheek reference to matters as they stand today: ‘…This great enthusiasm for sarcastic verse in which no one, from the divine to the human, is spared, has a lesson for India today where poking fun at anyone in the public domain, especially gods and goddesses, ruffles all kinds of feathers…’
Another important point is about the scientific way in which ancient history is unearthed (often literally). Lahiri’s explaining of how archaeology teams up with other sciences, such as geology, zoology, and chemistry, helps understand how so much can be inferred from what would seem so meagre.
If there is one hitch in the plethora of fascinating facts in Time Pieces, it is in that sometimes the brevity of a fact leaves it with several questions unanswered. For instance, the author mentions in passing the discovery of an ostrich-shell bead, an example of a tiny work of art. This, for the curious reader, raises questions: how did ostrich shells arrive in India? Was the subcontinent once home to ostriches? If so, when did they die out? Or could it have been that in the waves of hominins migrating from Africa, some brought along with them ostrich eggs?
For this reason alone—the facts that give rise to further questions—one would have liked this book to be longer. Despite that, though, it’s still an invaluable work for anybody interested in ancient India. It is highly informative, it is insightful, and it is entertaining: truly a satisfying whistle-stop tour of ancient India.
(From my review for Scroll: https://scroll.in/article/915449/this...)
Two things are worth noting about this admission. One, that Lahiri’s was a fairly innocuous assumption, and not completely illogical. Two, that this is someone who has accepted that she may have been wrong in her assumption.
Contrast this with the wild claims that are today touted—and that too with startling self-confidence—as historical fact about ancient India by everybody from politicians to the man on the street. People in ancient India used aeroplanes. Plastic surgery and gene editing was practised, televisions were in use: not just wishful thinking, but dangerous wishful thinking, since it is grossly misleading. Especially to a gullible public, happy to believe that ancient India was some sort of utopia.
In Time Pieces, Lahiri aims to set the record straight. Through ten brief essays on some of the basic aspects of everyday life in ancient India, she attempts to explain what it really was to live in the Indian subcontinent in the time of Ashoka, in Harappa, during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, and so on. This is not a book which sets out to be anything like a text book: it does not discuss politics, it does not list dynasties or contain maps that show the extent of empires. The closest it comes to a timeline is in its first chapter, Journeys, in which Lahiri explains how and approximately when our ancestors first made their way from Africa, across the Middle East, and into the Indian subcontinent.
Instead, what Time Pieces does is to explore the areas few text books venture into. What people ate; how hygiene and sanitation was maintained. How and why people travelled, what was their relationship with their environment and with the inhabitants of other, neighbouring eco-systems. What art they created and why (if one can pin down a reason for art, other than for the sake of art itself). What was their concept of self, in terms of the individual as a person, not just as a member of a clan or a varna.
At less than ten pages per chapter (and that includes photos to illustrate and support several of the examples Lahiri provides), this is a slim book. It does not go deep into detail, but it covers the ground—and it piques the interest. There are tantalizing little nuggets of information that would make the average reader, not very conversant with ancient India, probably sit up and take notice. For instance, the fact that in the 3rd century BCE, a sculptor named Devadinna left a brief inscription on the wall of a cave in modern-day Chattisgarh, immortalizing his love for a devadasi named Sutanuka—making them, as Lahiri speculates, the ‘first couple’ of India.
Of course there are mentions of prominent figures: Ashok, Kautilya, Alexander and even the courtesan Amrapali among them, but the bulk of Time Pieces is peopled by the relatively nameless: the young women who were buried alongside goats in Baluchistan; the traders whose seals form among the most common markers of identity; the sculptor who carved monkey doctors in stone at Mathura.
Lahiri brings an astonishingly wide range of knowledge to this work. Not just about her own field, but about others as well. She quotes from world literature, discusses romantic (or salacious) graffiti from across the world, and draws parallels between ancient India and the rest of the world—and does all of it in an easy, conversational style that is very readable and often imbued with a sense of humour.
Besides the history that Lahiri explains through the book, she also makes several important points. One, of course, is the exploding of many myths surrounding ancient India that seem to be in vogue today. From vegetarianism to sexual abstinence, she shows how a lot of what is considered synonymous with a ‘golden age’ of ancient India was actually not quite so all-pervasive. Often, there is a tongue in cheek reference to matters as they stand today: ‘…This great enthusiasm for sarcastic verse in which no one, from the divine to the human, is spared, has a lesson for India today where poking fun at anyone in the public domain, especially gods and goddesses, ruffles all kinds of feathers…’
Another important point is about the scientific way in which ancient history is unearthed (often literally). Lahiri’s explaining of how archaeology teams up with other sciences, such as geology, zoology, and chemistry, helps understand how so much can be inferred from what would seem so meagre.
If there is one hitch in the plethora of fascinating facts in Time Pieces, it is in that sometimes the brevity of a fact leaves it with several questions unanswered. For instance, the author mentions in passing the discovery of an ostrich-shell bead, an example of a tiny work of art. This, for the curious reader, raises questions: how did ostrich shells arrive in India? Was the subcontinent once home to ostriches? If so, when did they die out? Or could it have been that in the waves of hominins migrating from Africa, some brought along with them ostrich eggs?
For this reason alone—the facts that give rise to further questions—one would have liked this book to be longer. Despite that, though, it’s still an invaluable work for anybody interested in ancient India. It is highly informative, it is insightful, and it is entertaining: truly a satisfying whistle-stop tour of ancient India.
(From my review for Scroll: https://scroll.in/article/915449/this...)
March 19, 2019
Time Pieces is unlike any other history book and it does not talk about the rise and fall of rulers and empires of Ancient India. Instead, Dr. Lahiri takes through a tour of ancient India, through the eyes of things that are everyday. In 10 neat chapters, titled as follows – Journeys, Art, Hygiene, Food, Environment, Love, Laughter, Identity, Death and Afterlife, she tries to give the readers, a snapshot of how the common people of India lived, what they ate, who they loved, how did they define identities and their beliefs of deaths and afterlife. While she does touch upon a the edicts of the great kings, including Ashoka, she uses them to shed light on the daily lives of the masses, to give the readers some idea of the lives and times of Ancient India instead of the usual focus on the great dynasties and their empires. Instead she tells the readers about the massacre of the local population by Alexander’s forces, when they invaded India, the prehistoric art in the Bhimbetka caves, the yearning of an ancient couple, Sutanuka, a Devadasi and Devadinna, a sculptor and of court jesters who could be dispense caustic judgments on the ruling kings, under the guise of a joke! We come across, poets, painters, court dancers, politicians, merchants and a host of characters that inhabited ancient India and we get a small insight on how they lived and what they loved!
The book is not academic and is not a tome. It is less than 200 pages and is exactly what the title claims to be – a Whistle Stop. Dr. Lahiri, shares insightful nuggets, on some selected aspects on India and no more and no less. While she sources all kinds of academic first source research, the narrative is more of a raconteur rather than a historian, with wide references from literature to music to drive home her point, without stooping to such weird allegories as India as a pizza base and her people her toppings (I DID read this and I AM rolling my eyes). She makes history come alive and throb with the vibrancy of life, which is a running thread in history of a land more than 5000 years old. And yet, without managing to sound didactic or pedagogic, she forces you to think and open your mind – Alexander’s invasion to India is always a milestone in Indian History as it set the ball rolling for the rise of the first of the mightiest dynasties of India – The Maurayan Empire. It was also a well documented part of Indian history, as one of the Greek ambassador’s to the first Emperor’s court, Selucid left a detailed account of the life and times. However, Dr. Lahiri is the first historian to point the amateur reader, to a lesser known aspect of Alexander’s invasion – massacre of men and women and children in Multan, then northwestern India and now modern Pakistan, on a scale, that would be termed in modern day as genocide. She speaks about identity and stories of women, often lesser known in such works as Therigatha, where court dancers, mothers and queens come alive with their narratives of loves, lives and deaths. The book is replete with with interesting information as to why Indian Buddha’s do not smile, to descriptions of food, that defined power and largess and things which are often overlooked in more serious tomes, more so because there is just so much to write and also because, the details of daily life of Indian between 5000 BCE to 1000 AD is rather touch to decipher. This brings me to what I consider, the most important feature of the book – this could not have been a easy book to write, even for such an accomplished Historian as Dr. Lahiri simply because narratives about everyday life in India is far and few. We have the Buddhist texts and a lot of religious texts, but to glean out the earthy secular facts from the more metaphysical – philosophical texts cannot be an easy task. Yet it is accomplished and beautifully so! The book is a must read for anyone interested in India, History or both!
The book is not academic and is not a tome. It is less than 200 pages and is exactly what the title claims to be – a Whistle Stop. Dr. Lahiri, shares insightful nuggets, on some selected aspects on India and no more and no less. While she sources all kinds of academic first source research, the narrative is more of a raconteur rather than a historian, with wide references from literature to music to drive home her point, without stooping to such weird allegories as India as a pizza base and her people her toppings (I DID read this and I AM rolling my eyes). She makes history come alive and throb with the vibrancy of life, which is a running thread in history of a land more than 5000 years old. And yet, without managing to sound didactic or pedagogic, she forces you to think and open your mind – Alexander’s invasion to India is always a milestone in Indian History as it set the ball rolling for the rise of the first of the mightiest dynasties of India – The Maurayan Empire. It was also a well documented part of Indian history, as one of the Greek ambassador’s to the first Emperor’s court, Selucid left a detailed account of the life and times. However, Dr. Lahiri is the first historian to point the amateur reader, to a lesser known aspect of Alexander’s invasion – massacre of men and women and children in Multan, then northwestern India and now modern Pakistan, on a scale, that would be termed in modern day as genocide. She speaks about identity and stories of women, often lesser known in such works as Therigatha, where court dancers, mothers and queens come alive with their narratives of loves, lives and deaths. The book is replete with with interesting information as to why Indian Buddha’s do not smile, to descriptions of food, that defined power and largess and things which are often overlooked in more serious tomes, more so because there is just so much to write and also because, the details of daily life of Indian between 5000 BCE to 1000 AD is rather touch to decipher. This brings me to what I consider, the most important feature of the book – this could not have been a easy book to write, even for such an accomplished Historian as Dr. Lahiri simply because narratives about everyday life in India is far and few. We have the Buddhist texts and a lot of religious texts, but to glean out the earthy secular facts from the more metaphysical – philosophical texts cannot be an easy task. Yet it is accomplished and beautifully so! The book is a must read for anyone interested in India, History or both!
May 4, 2019
A wonderful book that exposes the reader to the various facets of ancient Indian history ranging from art, food, environment, love, identity and death to the afterlife.
The layout of the book is such that it does not just give facts, but an insight into the way and life of those times. An erudite work and a certainly novel approach to narrative history.
The layout of the book is such that it does not just give facts, but an insight into the way and life of those times. An erudite work and a certainly novel approach to narrative history.
February 2, 2020
Having been Professor Lahiri's student, a lot of the ideas were familiar to me. Nevertheless, an excellent introduction to those who wish to dabble in the giant world that is Ancient India: especially if you keep an open mind.
March 24, 2019
Decent book but not enough for a history lover.
July 3, 2024
A very fun way to look at world history through the lenses of subjects that have always been relevant to humans - https://www.anuradhagoyal.com/time-pi...
February 4, 2026
Interesting essays on various themes of life, like art, hygiene, food, love, laughter, etc., in ancient India. Here, ancient doesn’t connote the first or second millennium BCE. But it relates to 1.5 to 2 million years BCE! She, however, relates the transformations that happened as time progressed closer to our medieval period. With some archaeological evidence and some imagination, she presents aspects of the human story in short essays. For example, archaeological evidence shows that hominins have reached northwest India around 2 million years ago from East Africa, and they went down up to Tamil Nadu. Thus, she contends that there is absolutely no doubt that the first inhabitants of India were from East Africa, and this story of origins is obscured by the mythmaking of the fair-skinned Aryan invasion pushing dark-skinned Dasyus into the peninsular India. This is contrary to the popular perception of the Aryan invasion theory.
Evidence shows that every region of the ancient world was made up of a mix of largely discrete village and urban formations within loosely connected trading and, sometimes, warring principalities. In that sense, ancient India was not an ancient nation(!), and within the geographical area, the diversity is more obvious than the unifying elements.
Her interpretations of Mohenjo-Daro & Harappan excavations with respect to hygiene, civic life, and Ashokan inscriptions with regard to religion & spirituality, and ancient literature with regard to love, laughter & afterlife are insightful. She says that the early history of humankind is the story of us becoming human. While we may have become human, how humane we are is still an open question!
You require sensitivity to mentally teleport yourself into the times gone by to understand the lives of those times, to appreciate their artistic creations with the limitations they had in their skills and conceptions. Ms. Lahiri has a historian’s eye for detail. One wonders, how is it that many of us cannot appreciate the sculpted figures on a temple wall or the efforts gone in to building a great monument? One reason could be that many of us lack the curiosity for the past; more importantly, we lack a sense of history.
Many of the assertions of Ms. Lahiri may be contentious and open for scrutiny as they are her interpretations. But she made the essays interesting, and apparently, she has no agenda or a narrative to defend. Still, history is all about interpretation. One can only try to be less sentimental and more sceptical and be open to the findings.
Evidence shows that every region of the ancient world was made up of a mix of largely discrete village and urban formations within loosely connected trading and, sometimes, warring principalities. In that sense, ancient India was not an ancient nation(!), and within the geographical area, the diversity is more obvious than the unifying elements.
Her interpretations of Mohenjo-Daro & Harappan excavations with respect to hygiene, civic life, and Ashokan inscriptions with regard to religion & spirituality, and ancient literature with regard to love, laughter & afterlife are insightful. She says that the early history of humankind is the story of us becoming human. While we may have become human, how humane we are is still an open question!
You require sensitivity to mentally teleport yourself into the times gone by to understand the lives of those times, to appreciate their artistic creations with the limitations they had in their skills and conceptions. Ms. Lahiri has a historian’s eye for detail. One wonders, how is it that many of us cannot appreciate the sculpted figures on a temple wall or the efforts gone in to building a great monument? One reason could be that many of us lack the curiosity for the past; more importantly, we lack a sense of history.
Many of the assertions of Ms. Lahiri may be contentious and open for scrutiny as they are her interpretations. But she made the essays interesting, and apparently, she has no agenda or a narrative to defend. Still, history is all about interpretation. One can only try to be less sentimental and more sceptical and be open to the findings.
May 17, 2019
Its not like any other book on ancient history. It reads almost like a conversation, a storytelling . The book reveals fascinating aspects of ancient culture including things like hygiene, food , love, laughter - aspects which the conventional history books most definitely miss.
An absolutely brilliant theme and very well written . Hope to see an illustrated version with many more pics someday .
An absolutely brilliant theme and very well written . Hope to see an illustrated version with many more pics someday .
August 11, 2020
I recommend this book without reservation! A must read - a history book with a difference. Spanning the wide swathe of Ancient Indian history, Time Pieces is an engrossing set of essays that examines different facets of life and death in Ancient India. From meditations on death rites, to art, to civilization, among other things, this is a must read for anyone who professes an interest in Indian history.
January 12, 2023
I am trying to get beyond an obsession with European history so this is my first foray into the history of the Indian subcontinent. I enjoyed the topical organization that introduced earlier eras in Indian civilization but I realize that before I go any further I'm going to need a basic understanding of Buddhism and, eventually, Hinduism. It is soaked into the culture like Christianity in the West, so back to the books for me.
May 25, 2020
It's always a bit challenging to read an English language book written by an Indian author. Every page has some complex English word which requires a dictionary to decipher. This breaks the flow and joy of reading.
Coming to the book , it's a collection of foot notes of various aspects of life in ancient India. Not well organised and not an easy read.
Coming to the book , it's a collection of foot notes of various aspects of life in ancient India. Not well organised and not an easy read.
April 26, 2020
In every sense of the word the book is a whirlwind tour of what is considered ancient India.
For a lay reader like me who is interested in ancient Indian history , this book is a entertaining way of letting me know of who , what and where I should look for more information.
For a lay reader like me who is interested in ancient Indian history , this book is a entertaining way of letting me know of who , what and where I should look for more information.
March 25, 2023
Had sooooo much fun reading this. I learnt so much, and Lahiri does a great job of painting vignettes of certain topics in Indian history. Explains so much about how we are, and why we are the way we are. Love.
December 27, 2023
quite interesting in terms of the way the themes have been categorised, and probably a great intro to ancient history for a layoperson. but personally perhaps a pass, since it superficially covers things I have studied in detail as an ancient Indian history student.
December 21, 2024
A somewhat comical take on many facets of ancient India and how many events still have such echoes in our modern lives. This book made me think about the fratricide committed by Asoka before he became great and how the lives of women in ancient India was anything but free and fair.
April 13, 2019
An interesting "skimmed through" account of ancient India. The author has produced a good account of somewhat sparse material and what could have been a very "dry" subject.
September 26, 2022
Interesting, readable book with quite a few fascinating insights.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews