Reddit reviews The Wonder That Was India

1. KA Nilkanth Shashtri
   
   
   A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar - Amazon Link
   
   
   The Illustrated History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar - Amazon Link
   
   
   Foreign Notices Of South India - Google Archives
   
   
   
2. A S Altekar
   
   
   Rashtrakutas And Their Times - Google Archives
   
   
   
3. AL Basham
   The Wonder That Was India: 1
   
   
   You can read this book for free on Anybooks app.
   
   
   Edit your post and add all these links.

There's the reading list in the side-bar, but that doesn't really have secondary books on Hinduism.

There's Gavin Flood's An Introduction to Hinduism. I haven't read it yet, but it's the only thing I got off the top of my head. If you want, I can look through the copy I found on the sidewalk and tell you about it.

But Flood seems to have a pretty good pedigree. But I don't know if he's a Hindu. I would also recommend Eknath Easwaran's translation of the Bhagavad Gita. I have it, and his intro goes into Hindu concepts. This book also seem well-received, though I don't have it.

There's a public domain book called The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India. There's also The Wonder that was India, which is good. And apparently the same guy wrote The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism.

Most Indian history books talk about Hinduism, so maybe the Cambridge History of India?

OP, I would suggest spending the next one year of your life dedicating yourself to learning about India. I do not mean superficial learning about empty customs and rituals - I mean actually learning about the history of India over the last 5000 years.

I hate, hate, hate to use quotes from Westerners who have studied India (because it goes to show that we take pride when Westerners say something good about India) - but because you have such a huge inferiority complex about your race and wish you were White, I shall resort to using these examples.

>1. If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow – in some parts a very paradise on earth – I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most full developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant – I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life – again I should point to India. - Max Muller

>2. J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist and director of the Manhattan Project, learned Sanskrit in 1933 and read the Bhagavad Gita in the original form, citing it later as one of the most influential books to shape his philosophy of life. Upon witnessing the world's first nuclear test in 1945, he later said he had thought of the quotation "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds", verse 32 from chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita.

>3. In the introduction to The World as Will and Representation, written in 1818, Arthur Schopenhauer stated that "the access to [the Vedas], opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones, because I believe that the influence of the Sanscrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century".

>4. In 1789 Jones published a translation of Kālidāsa's The Recognition of Sakuntala. The translation captured the admiration of many, notably Goethe, who expressed his admiration for the Sanskrit play Shakuntala. Goethe went on to borrow a device from the play for his Faust, Part One.


Spend the next one year reading about how rich your culture is. I don't mean Bollywood culture - you don't need to learn anything about that - read about History, Philosophy, the various art forms. I know India is a messed up place in many, many ways but things will improve. Every country/region goes through ups and downs. You think the US is going to be a great country 300 years from now? There was a time when the Greeks were a mighty nation and now they are reduced to nothing. There was a time when the Arabs contributed a lot to mathematics and art - now they don't have that kind if culture.

You are never going to have true self-confidence if you don't feel proud about your origins. You are lucky that you are from India - because there are many things you can find about India's glorious past to feel pride in.

I recommend this book to get started - 'The Wonder That Was India'

http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-That-India-A-L-Basham/dp/033043909X

You will see how in the Indus Valley there was actual town planning - this was when most of Europe was a complete mess. I agree that we shouldn't just find comfort in the past and the present is most important. The present day India is a complete, complete, complete mess. But how can we expect to get out of the mess if the youth do not even have self-confidence about their heritage? In the case of Indians, we need to teach our children about our glorious past so that they feel pride and then are able to dream big and change the country.

I don't know what your story is and whether or not your parents ever discussed Indian History with you beyond the British rule. Anyway, you are an adult now and live in a country where you have access to excellent public libraries. Go and immerse yourself in some serious study. You will come out a different person.


EDIT 1 - Regarding women : Just have self-confidence and try to be a good human being. Don't give a damn about what another person thinks of you, and this quality will attract women.

The woder that was India - https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-That-Was-India/dp/033043909X

The wonder that was India by a l basham.

here is an amazon link.

It's unfortunately hard to find good books on Indian history that do justice to its cultural diversity and philosophy. Most western perspectives bring all Hindu beliefs under the banner of 'Hinduism', for example, which warps one's viewpoint when comparing it to Abrahamic faiths. Indian perspectives tend to suffer from a puerile jingoism centered around the idea that India is the oldest surviving civilization in the world.

Having said that, here's a set of books I found fairly well balanced:

• The wonder that was India - A. L. Basham: If you're going to read just the one book, let it be this one. Covers Indian history until the Mughal period.
  
  
• The wonder that was India (Vol 2) - S. A. A. Rizvi: Covers India from the Mughal period to the British occupation.
  
  
• Gem in the lotus - Abraham Eraly: One of the better books on Indian history I have read, focusing largely on Buddhism and its impact. In my opinion, a must read. While I haven't read them, I suspect Eraly's other books to be equally worth reading.