Fortified Cities Of Ancient India

Authored by one of the leading scholars of German Indology, “Fortified Cities in Ancient India” offers a comparative exploration of the development of towns and cities in ancient India. Based on in-depth textual and archeological research, Professor Dieter Schlingloff’s work presents for the first time the striking outcomes of intertwining data garnered from a wide range of sources. This volume scrutinizes much of the established knowledge on urban fortifications in South Asia, advancing new conceptions based on an authoritative, far-reaching study.

This book offers a definitive archaeological perspective on the history of early urban growth in India. It does this by looking at both the protohistoric and the early historic periods, coming down to about AD 300 and later. Geographically, it covers all the major areas of the subcontinent. The existing archaeological data have been synthesized to yield a comprehensive picture of the morphology of ancient sites and their place within what is currently known of their settlement perspectives. This book addresses itself to some of the cardinal issues of South Asian archaeology - the origin and decline of the Indus civilization; the issue of its merger in the main flow of India's later cultural development; the archaeological basis of its long chronology; aspects of Indus urbanism; the reasons for the growth of neolithic-chalcolithic inner India; and the patterns and problems of urban growth in the early historic period on the subcontinental scale. In each case the author's concern is with understanding the situation at the grassroots level within an essentially South Asian framework. The hypotheses offered in this book should lead to some major rethinking about the story of archaeological development in the subcontinent.

A sweeping, interdisciplinary history of the world’s third-largest river, a potent symbol across South Asia and the Hindu diaspora Originating in the Himalayas and flowing into the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges is India’s most important and sacred river. In this unprecedented work, historian Sudipta Sen tells the story of the Ganges, from the communities that arose on its banks to the merchants that navigated its waters, and the way it came to occupy center stage in the history and culture of the subcontinent. Sen begins his chronicle in prehistoric India, tracing the river’s first settlers, its myths of origin in the Hindu tradition, and its significance during the ascendancy of popular Buddhism. In the following centuries, Indian empires, Central Asian regimes, European merchants, the British Empire, and the Indian nation-state all shaped the identity and ecology of the river. Weaving together geography, environmental politics, and religious history, Sen offers in this lavishly illustrated volume a remarkable portrait of one of the world’s largest and most densely populated river basins.

About the Book: The collection of stories in this book presents to you a graphic retelling of the rise and fall of some ancient cities of India. Packed with mythological tales and historical anecdotes each story lets you re-discover ancient India in a new light. Written in light story-telling fashion, the book will make you time-travel to the past to many mythical and imperial cities in different historical eras. Scattered across ancient undivided India and the subcontinent, each story traces a city of the past and how its destiny had unfolded over time. The stories in this book also present battle-scars, deluges and changing political scenarios, as well as the peaceful co-habitation and wonderful spread of religions, learning and culture. Tales of legendary kings, fierce warfare, spiritual leaders, foreign chroniclers and world travellers make these ancient cities come alive in this collection.About the Author: A post-graduate in English Literature from Kolkata, Sayan is an occasional author and a FinTech corporate trainer by profession. An avid traveller and reader, Sayan's avocation is writing. Sayan has published two novels "Friendship Calling" in 2013 and "A Case of Connections" in 2016, both based on his true-life experiences. Sayan continues to write short stories on his blog and as guest writer on other blogs. Sayan has keen interest in Indian history and mythology and Ancient Cities of India is his first attempt at re-telling and writing based on history. Sayan can be reached on his email: [email protected] and Twitter @Sayan74.