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10 Greatest Indians

don_corleone840

By don_corleone840
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Muloghonto Mentor

Muloghonto

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Or maybe should I start with the "story of civilization" by Will Durant?
Its not very relevant. Durant was a product of his times and thus felt that civilization originated in egypt/mesopotamia and spread elsewhere. Fact is, civilization developed independently at many locations. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2
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coffee_rules Grand Master

coffee_rules

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This is my personal advice: Try seeing all (or almost all) history as inter-related and do not focus only on a specific period of history or a specific region. Because human beings do not live in a void. Its not like the Achaemenid Persians didn't know who was king of Magadh, its not like the traders from Ganges valley had no idea who Daryavahush was. History is a 4-d mosaic, with often the cultural and financial aspects of inter-related histories massively overlooked in 'classical history', which is basically a history of politics only. It is an incomplete and often a very dangerous viewpoint to see history in isolation. If you are interested in the history of Indian subcontinent, i would suggest reading (wiki is inaccurate sometimes but a good easy start) the conjoined histories of the Iranian plateau ( Greater Iran) as well because often what happened in Iran/Afghanistan influenced India and vice versa. I will make a special mention that once you advance through the basics of ancient indian history, you also read Roman history because Indian and Roman histories are intricately related. We were to Roman empire what America was to the world in the cold war period- the top producer, exporter and conduit for knowledge and finance. It is no surprise that the rise and fall of the Roman Empire played a huge effect on the rise and fall of Indian empires and the political landscape of India. Once you read and realize the level of inter-dependence of the Indo-Roman empires, particularly the Kushan-Roman Empire, Gupta-Roman Empire, Satavahana-Roman Empire and Vakataka-Roman empire, the inter-related fates of these empires become very obvious. Both were very dependent on each other. India supplied Rome with most of its luxuries and a surprising amount of its basics (e.g.: every Roman senator wore a cotton toga. Cotton was exclusively grown and exported in that era from India only. Roman empire was massively rich in silver, a currency commodity India was very poor in and thus one could say that India played a critical role in shoring up the luxuries and many basic amenities that made Roman Empire possible while Roman Empire provided the silver that made Indian commerce possible).
There is so much of undocumented history, it is mind-boggling. Trade among civilizations esp Indian and EuroMidEastern is something highly unaccounted. That is how knowledge among humans spread. We can so many common words in some languages in these distant regions, it has to be explained by some exchanges which was not documented obviously. I came across this in wiki which I never knew:
Roman and Greek traders frequented the*ancient Tamil country, present daySouthern India*and*Sri Lanka, securing trade with the seafaring*Tamil*states of thePandyan,*Chola*and*Chera*dynasties and*establishing trading settlements*which secured trade with South Asia by the*Greco-Roman world*since the time of thePtolemaic dynasty[3]*a few decades before the start of the*Common Era*and remained long after the fall of the*Western Roman Empire.[4]*As recorded by*Strabo,Emperor Augustus*of*Rome*received at*Antioch*an ambassador from a South Indian King called*Pandyan of Dramira. The country of the Pandyas, Pandi Mandala, was described as*Pandyan Mediterranea*in the*Periplus*and*Modura Regia Pandyan*by Ptolemy.[5]*They also outlasted*Byzantium's loss of the ports of*Egypt*and the*Red Sea[6]*(ca. 639-645 CE) under the pressure of the*Muslim conquests. Sometime after the sundering of communications between the Axum and*Eastern Roman Empire*in the 7th century, the Christian*kingdom of Axum*fell into a slow decline, fading into obscurity in western sources. It survived, despite pressure from Islamic forces, until the 11th century, when it was reconfigured in a dynastic squabble.
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Sachin=GOD Newbie

Sachin=GOD

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Its not very relevant. Durant was a product of his times and thus felt that civilization originated in egypt/mesopotamia and spread elsewhere. Fact is, civilization developed independently at many locations. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2
Okay. Will start with the books you recommended.
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Muloghonto Mentor

Muloghonto

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It is not known to many that raja raja' date=' apart from building temples was secular - He was instrumental in promoting buddhism in India and Sril lanka :). Most of the documentation of it was burnt along with the library in Sri lanka since the scriptures were in Tamil.[/quote'] You mean melted down ? Cholas didn't do scriptures for their important stuff. They made copper-plate inscriptions that they kept in giant rings that look like King Kong's keychain.
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Muloghonto Mentor

Muloghonto

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You might also be interested in the works of Koenraad Elst.
Elst's works are very intreaguing. IMO, the implications of his work, that IVC would most likely have been a form of Indo-Iranian language or even actually, the PIE language that unites Indic, Iranic and all European languages (barring Basque,Hungarian,Finnish and Estonian) is compelling. IMO, the alternate theory of Konraad Elst, that Indo-Europeans originate from the region spanning Eastern & Northern Afghanistan to somewhere in the upper Gangetic plains, down to almost Gujrat-Maharashtra border is quite compelling. There is compelling evidence of the Vedas actual composition being 4000-3500 BC because this is the period where the Saraswati actually was a mighty river (albeit rain fed) and urbanization hadn't yet occurred in the indus-saraswati-ganges regions.
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jalebi_bhai Rising Star

jalebi_bhai

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Don't know could people consider person like ambedkar great . He discriminated on the basis of caste. He didn't care if a poor Brahmin dies cause of hunger. Reservation will surely leads to civil war in future .
Ambedkar didn't want reservations. He wanted a separate electorate for lower castes. Listen to the below: ZJs-BJoSzbo I don't know how well it would've worked (I have major doubts), but he didn't want reservations. He believed in equal opportunity, which is how things should be. PS: Simply love Ambedkar's use of the term artificial respirations.
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zen Grand Master

zen

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Don't know could people consider person like ambedkar great . He discriminated on the basis of caste. He didn't care if a poor Brahmin dies cause of hunger. Reservation will surely leads to civil war in future .
"Dogs and Indians are not allowed" .... Now imagine Indians doing the something similar to a section of its population. Caste system has discriminated against a section of the society for 1000s of years .... For the modern India, it was necessary to develop this section. Without special privilages, it would have been like asking a handicap to run a race against fully fit person
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