Gem in the Lotus: The Seeding of Indian Civilisation

by Abraham Eraly

This sweeping account of ancient India begins with the Indus Valley civilization, then moves on to the Vedic Aryan culture, the age of religious and philosophical ferment, the tenets of Jainism, the founding and consolidation of Buddhism, and Alexander the Great’s advance into India. It concludes with the Mauryan Empire, which, in the 3rd century BC, united an enormous area of the Indian subcontinent. As in The Mughal Throne, Abraham Eraly provides a superb portrait of Indian life and culture.

Genres: History, India, Nonfiction, Buddhism, Religion, Ancient History, Collections

484 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Abraham Eraly is an Indian writer. He has written many acclaimed books on Indian history.

Reviews

[Nisha Sadasivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dear Mr. Abraham,

The first half of the book was very interesting and entertaining. The second half let me down very badly.

Are you aware of the fact that India includes the peninsular region as well? I am not sure if they taught you this in school. Though you have included a lot of references from Sangam literature, you don't seem to realise that they are very much part of India, and not even a single chapter was dedicated to them. Shame on you. And something called NE also exists in India. Request you to look into the Indian map more closely. While you severely berate the yesteryear historians/ Brahmins for not mentioning Porus aka Purus in their literature, do you think you are any better? Think again. You aren't. Period.

Personally, I don't think leaving out Alexander from our history was a big deal. I don't believe the ambitions of a man who tried to conquer bits and pieces of land from Greece up to Himalayas, and declaring he had conquered the whole world, is not worthy of much when you think about it. Its just a small part of Eurasia after all.

This history book is severely lacking in maps, paintings and architectural details of the early Civilizations. Knock. Knock. Have you heard of any of these before?

I do not find any details on the scientific achievements on ancient Indians, there is more of religious mockery of Hinduism and Jainism, and a Buddhism that's blown out of proportion. Almost a quarter of the book dedicated to all kinds of non-sense mentioned in Arthasathra - by a Kautilya - now, who was this fellow? Nobody knows.

It was informative, no doubt, but you no doubt, need a more positive outlook at things.

I am not reading any of your other books. This is it.

[Tirath · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excruciatingly long read but also very enlightening. Puts to rest many of the myths that have surrounded ancient India (pre-500 AD)

Topics covered:
Indians' love for sex
Women used to be really horny back then
How cow meat was prevalent at least until the Maurya Kingdom
The evolution of preferences of Gods from Indra to Shiva, etc.
The Aryan influence in India and the Indus Valley Civilization
Idol worship came in quite late
The origins of Buddhism and its criticism.
Alexander's conquests in India
The disconnect between Chanakya (Kautilya) and Chandragupta Maurya - The 2 were plausibly never around each other
A long write-up on the Arthashastra and how it was implemented through the old kingdom
Possible reasons for Indian vegetarianism
And a lovely ending

- Brilliant Book
- Quite lenghty (Well, it is more than 2000 years' worth)

[Saju Pillai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eraly Abraham's book on the beginnings of Indian Civilization covering a vast time period from the IVC to the end of Asoka's rule is a must read for the layman interested in ancient Indian history. The earlier chapters about IVC & Vedic Aryans are especially readable. Eraly successfully tries to give the reader a sense of the social structures from the viewpoint of an average citizen of the time. His description of Vedic times is quite entertaining.

Sadly the book drags a little towards the ending, especially the chapters dedicated to Arthashastra are rather dry, but this cant be helped, given the nature of the source. I pity the tons of people who walk into bookstores & buy Arthashastra on a whim to gain some sort of insight or advantage in their managerial careers without realizing that the Arthashastra has more pages devoted to taxation than any other topic. Eraly tries to use the Arthashastra as a way to explain Mauryan government & society, but this is suspect; firstly Ashoka changed his mode of governance from the strict Arthashastra prescriptions to the Dharma based welfare model and secondly the Mauryan empire was so huge that each territory was more liable to follow it's local customs & traditions with only a token acknowledgement of Mauryan standardization.

The biggest flaw in this book is the lack of maps. This is surely a cost-cutting decision by the publisher; maps & diagrams cost ink. Readers are recommended to have access to online maps to look up cities, rivers & territories when needed.

Overall, a much recommended book.

[Surabhi Mahajan Mehra · Rating 4 out of 5]

They say the devil is in the details! Well details are what you get. It might be a long read but it is worth your time and effort.

[Manu · Rating 3 out of 5]

History is not usually kind on its readers, and changing that is probably the biggest advantage this book has to offer. The author makes history accessible through a largely simple narrative and writing style. While he has taught history, I don't think he is a historian. Thus it isn't based on what one might call 'original research' but more an aggregation of sources. Indeed, the book cites a large number of sources for the information it gives.
The 'seeding' begins long before humans arrived on the scene, when plate tectonics created the land mass that is now called the Indian subcontinent. The geological results - the Himalayas that act as a barrier, the fertility of the land etc - have had huge implications on how the civilisation in this part of the world has evolved.
The book moves on to the Indus Valley civilisation, the influx of the Aryans and the Rig Vedic times, the later Vedic times, and in the process, touching upon quite a few popular misconceptions. This entire shift is obviously significant from a civilisational and cultural point of view, but it is also interesting to see the theatre of action shift from the Indus to the Ganga. The societal and cultural milieu is also explained well, using the texts of the time - the Vedas and Upanishads.
Religion and philosophy flourished even more as society became prosperous and a great amount of details on the life and times of Buddha and Mahavira are covered. In fact, the title of the book is based on the former. Once again, there is some very interesting information on Buddha's life pre and post enlightenment, his stance on caste and women, all of which differ from popular conceptions, I'd say.
As cities formed and humans became even more organised as a society, there were structural changes culturally and politically - caste system, the move to monarchy and so on. The invasion of Alexander created the environment for the formation of the Mauryan empire, and between Ashoka's edicts and the Arthashastra, we get an excellent view of civilisational and societal changes. To be noted that the action has now moved further east from the Gangetic plains. Both the Arthashastra and the changing nature of Ashoka's reign make for very interesting material, though I did find the focus on the former a little too drawn out.
The final portion of the book is to do with the outsiders' (largely Greek) perspectives of India, courtesy their visits - Strabo, Megasthenes Diodorus. It's fascinating to see the interpretations when the chronicler is confined by geography and constrained by language.
If you can let a few generalisations pass, this makes for a wonderful primer on Indian history.

[Ayan Dutta · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book this is ! Starts with geology of the Indian subcontinent and then moves on to till the end of Ashoka’s rule . But unlike other history books the author uses various sources , private lives , alternate chronicles to weave a story .

This book covers a detailed exposition of the Vedas, Upanishads, Buddhist Scriptures & the Arthashastra . Definitely worth a second read .

[E.T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book on Indian history upto the end of Ashoka's reign. Each era Indus-valley, Vedic, post-Vedic, Buddha, Mauryas, Ashoka have been covered in sufficient detail. The sections on Indus-valley and Vedic eras were a delight to read. Felt that Kautilya's Artha-Shastra unnecessarily occupied 100 pages and that part was dry.

[Praveen Kishore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucidly, vividly and engagingly written history of ancient India, the first volume out of six, written by Abraham Eraly. It is very engaging and entertaining while also providing deeper and broader insight of India's ancient past, from Harappan civilisation till Mauryan empire.
A must read for every one!

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I should have read instead of Religions of Early India: A Cultural History. Who knew? If only there was a review website that could have explained it to me. It's more concerned with religion in its historical context and less with the gaseous metaphysics of ancient sages -- though at the same time it does a better job than "Religions of Early India" at explaining what the Upanishads, for example, were about. Likewise much better at describing what's known of the Indus Valley Civilization, though some of Eraly's opinions have the ring of someone making too much of the evidence: "The lack of creative elan in arts and crafts in the Indus Civilization was a symptom of its greater malaise of the desiccation of spirit." Or, on a different topic, the bland assertion that "modern linguists trace all the 4,000 or so languages in the world today to a single parent language, which originated in some unknown remote past and was last spoken some 12,000 or 15,000 years ago." I'm no linguist, but is anyone actually saying that? I thought Merritt Ruhlen's The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue and similar works were outliers, partly because most linguists don't think the subject can be usefully investigated.

Still, high marks for the section on the IVC; the outlines of Jainism and Buddhism, which explain much better than "Religions of Early India" does how they differ from each other; and the account of Alexander the Great's adventures in the subcontinent, told entirely from the Greek point of view since no one on the Indian side recorded them. The book ends with a long summary of Kautilya's "Arthasastra," a minutely detailed guide to the proper organization and operation of a kingdom, which Eraly uses to describe the Mauryan empire from palace to village (although from what little I've read, its authorship and history are a lot more complicated than he makes them out to be). Finally, as a vegetarian but not a Buddhist, I was intrigued by the excerpt from the "Milinda-panha" recounting that Buddha's favorite food was "tender boar's flesh," the consumption of a bad batch of which killed him. Did everyone know this except me? What else haven't I been told?

[Nahian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gem in the Lotus is as astonishing book on the foundations of the Indian civilisation. Starting off with the formation of the continent and first negrito and proto Australian human settlements many tens of thousands of years ago.

We then enter the astonishingly fabulous Indus Valley civilisation in modern day Pakistan roughly 7,000 BC. This was a remarkable city at the forefront of the civilised world and in many ways is more advanced than even modern day cities in Pakistan and India. In fact, India would not return to this level of sophisticated for thousands of years.

However after this the book starts to become a little tiresome, though not of its own fault. Indian history is mainly recorded through religious texts. Firstly from the Vedic period and later Rig Veda and then the more famous groups such as Jains and Buddhists. While the story of the woman hating, incredibly good looking and ‘middle path’ preaching philosopher Prince Siddhartha is indeed fascinating this middle section of the book does unfortunately turn into rather dry reading with many religious texts. The author does try to separate fact from fiction however as with all of ancient Indian history this can be difficult to do.

The book then swiftly picks back up with the fascinating and beguiling Alexander the Great. His invasion into India is one of the world’s most famous and influential events that changed the course of the entire civilised world excluding China. The invasion into India then introduces many fascinating characters such as King Porus and Chandragupta Maurya who would of course go on to found the Mauryan empire, the world’s greatest empire of its age.

The book then rounds off with Kautilya’s administrative practices within the Mauryan empire and Greek writings on India.

Overall this is a brilliant book for anyone who is interested in the founding of India. Explaining the roots of many cultures such as Buddhism or Hinduism or the infamous caste system.

[Sai Nair · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent primer for the study of early Indian civilization dating back to 2100 BC. There are only few books which have dealt with an extensive subject matter on Indus Valley people. I have read 'Early Indias' by Tony Joseph and David Reich's 'Who we Are' both of which are good recent books with exhaustive details of genetic research but I prefer the writings of Eraly more. It's the genius of Eraly's writings that time-travels you to the late Bronze Age India. Eraly is perhaps curious about the same things that I am. Who were the people who lived in Indus Valley Civilization ? How did they live ? What did they eat ? How can an egalitarian society like Indus suddenly vanish with hardly any traces of it left in the form of scriptures or other artifacts ? and most importantly, How are they connected to the present Indian population ?

The book also covers the Indo-Aryan migration, the Vedic population, their trials and tribulations, the era during the upanishads and the forgotten ancient emperor of India, 'Asoka' who was revived only recently in the 19th century.

[Adithya Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

My motivation to read this was to gain an entry into Indian history from the Indus valley time till ~400 AD. There are 2 things that a history book should deliver- be comprehensive and be readable. It did a brilliant job at the former, the latter it struggled with at stages.
Abraham Eraly is probably the most scientific Indian historian of the last century. The book is controversial in many occasions, but never unscientific. It systematically disentangles the notion that elderly Indians have- one that ancient India was a paradise. Eraly uses scriptures from India and the world to estimate what life really was like then, and is very humble in accepting when something he claims is less assured.
The book drags at 60% and 83%, skim through the sections on Buddha and the Arthashastra.
Read this 500 page monstrosity if you're curious and scientifically inclined about history- or maybe just to realise how much better Indian society is in the present day. Good read- not many books have the depths that the Gem in the Lotus possesses.

[Arshpreet Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction to Ancient Indian History, comprising the Indus Valley Civilization (3300 BCE - 1300 BCE), the Vedic Period (1500 BCE - 500 BCE), and the Mauryan Empire (322 BCE - 185 BCE), as well as the early days of the Middle Kingdoms (Mahajanapadas). Despite some anachronistic comments by the author, and value judgements that might sound odd for someone accustomed to historians of the nouvelle-histoire generation, this is a pleasant and overarching read, swaying through major events, schools of thought, and contemporary literature (the Vedas, Buddhist and Jain scriptures, and the Arthashastra, for instance). As for any other history book, it should be read carefully and critically, taking into account its context and intention: the author has attempted to counterbalance rigorous scholarship with a ludic writing; with success, in my opinion. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

[Pranhita · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book definitely had my attention more. The author has taken into account quite a few sources, and I liked how they accompanied any conclusions drawn by historians (especially Indus Valley Civilization) with explanations as to why. For someone who doesn't understand these things, it was quite refreshing to read.

I question some of their word/sentence choices at times. Also, I would have liked to see a more thorough discussion on the origin of caste, which was covered very briefly.

Overall, it's a pretty neat book.

[Rahul Khanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really engaging book. After a long hiatus a book cmes which realy nourishes my mind. It feels like soft massage to my mind. This books starts from Harappan civilisation and ends at death of Ashoka. There is very nice quotable line describing the fall of Mauryan empire- 'Spengler is probably right: Empires, like living organisms, are subject to old age and decay. They too have a life span.

[Karan Thakur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the best book I have read on pre historic India! Superbly researched and a pleasure to read! Highly recommended.

[Madhuker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book... Good flow maintained throughout.

[Saurabh Odak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an academically thorough yet highly readable book on ancient India. The era really comes to life as the cultures, religions, philosophies, institutions, and stories of the Indus Valley, Vedic, and Mauryan civilisations are explored and critically engaged with, pieced together from the fog of history and the patchwork of what scanty sources remain, ranging from 3000+ year old religious hymns to fabled Greek accounts of Alexander the Great's conquests, to Ashoka's pillars. The sections on religion and philosophy were highlights for me - it is a cliché but India's greatest contribution to history is definitely its religions and philosophies - and ancient texts are quoted at length to let their rigour and beauty speak for itself, followed by Abraham Eraly's cerebral, if idiosyncratic and iconoclastic analyses.

Mr. Eraly was definitely a product of his era, being a somewhat grumpy old secular leftist born 14 years before independence with a western education. This is reflected in some biased if understandable prejudices; as evidenced by the book's cover and title, Eraly is much more inclined to Buddhism over Hinduism, and sees the post-Upanishadic, Buddhist-influenced, culturally and politically heterogeneous era of 500 BCE - 500 CE as India's golden age (akin to western classical antiquity) wedged between the relative barbarism of the Vedic era and the medieval "dark ages" of an India characterised by feudal casteism, religious fundamentalism, and foreign domination. I find this a sympathetic view, however it is presented in a somewhat simplistic and exaggerated manner. Eraly also exhibits a reliance on outdated sources or translations from the colonial era, and doesn't use footnotes, however he does mention the sources and authors he relies on, and has a bibliography at the end, and he has an undeniably exhaustive knowledge that is not ignorant of the most important developments of modern historical and archeological scholarship. The chapters on the minutiae of the Mauryan state were also a bit dry and I skimmed a lot of them. However these criticisms are all nitpicks of an otherwise thoroughly gripping work of history that I gobbled up in 2 weeks. It is almost certain to stimulate and supplement the reader's interest in India's history and culture.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Description

This sweeping account of ancient India begins with the Indus Valley civilization, then moves on to the Vedic Aryan culture, the age of religious and philosophical ferment, the tenets of Jainism, the founding and consolidation of Buddhism, and Alexander the Great’s advance into India. It concludes with the Mauryan Empire, which, in the 3rd century BC, united an enormous area of the Indian subcontinent. As in The Mughal Throne, Abraham Eraly provides a superb portrait of Indian life and culture.

[Nishank Agrawal · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book detailing the history of ancient India from the times of Indus valley civilization until the rule of Emperor Asoka. Most interesting chapters are the ones devoted to the development of vedic literature and philosophy and the one on Kautilyan state as mentioned in the Athashastra. The Chapters on parallel religion movement of Jainism and Budhism are also helpful, but too much of Budhism make these a bit boring beyond a point. Overall a recommended reading for those interested in Indian history.

[Derek Stock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book paints an expansive picture of the full history of India while taking time detailing the life of Buddha. It was very interesting and really made me reflect on the meaning of scientific thought within a spiritual path. I did think that it took a lot of liberties bridging facts with theories of Indian history and scripture. But either way, I got a lot out of it and would recommend it to anyone interested in science and eastern philosophy.

[Michael Slusher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough and detailed history of India and its major religions. I would have rated it 4.5 stars if possible because it became hard to place the events and histories in chronological relation to each other. The date information was all there, but a graphic or two showing a timeline would have been immeasurably helpful.

[Art Wangchu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do appreciate the parts of Sramena. The stories between Gosala, Mahavira, and Buddha are pretty interesting, while the part about Buddha is especially moving. Literature is always more vivid than excavation.

[Shubhra]

reading

[Aditya · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent primer for someone curious about roots... addresses a lot of myths in the process too