Incarnations : a history of India in fifty lives

721 Pages·2016·29.85 MB·English

by  Khilnani

Sunil Khilnani
INCARNATIONS
India in 50 Lives
Contents
Fifty Lives: Birthplaces map
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1 · The Buddha: Waking India Up
2 · Mahavira: Soldier of Non-violence
3 · Panini: Catching the Ocean in a Cow’s Hoofprint
4 · Kautilya: The Ring of Power
5 · Ashoka: Power as Persuasion
6 · Charaka: On Not Violating Good Judgement
7 · Aryabhata: The Boat of Intellect
8 · Adi Shankara: A God without Qualities
9 · Rajaraja Chola: Cosmos, Temple and Territory
10 · Basava: A Voice in the Air
11 · Amir Khusrau: The Parrot of India
12 · Kabir: ‘Hey, you!’
13 · Guru Nanak: The Discipline of Deeds
14 · Krishnadevaraya: ‘Kingship is Strange’
15 · Mirabai: I Go the Other Way
16 · Akbar: The World and the Bridge
17 · Malik Ambar: The Dark-fated One
18 · Dara Shikoh: The Meeting-place of the Two Oceans
19 · Shivaji: Dreaming Big
20 · Nainsukh: Owner Transfixed by Goose
21 · William Jones: Enlightenment Mughal
22 · Rammohun Roy: ‘Humanity in General’
23 · Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi: Bad-ass Queen
24 · Jyotirao Phule: The Open Well
25 · Deen Dayal: Courtier with a Camera
26 · Birsa Munda: ‘Have you been to Chalkad?’
27 · Jamsetji Tata: Making India
28 · Vivekananda: Bring All Together
29 · Annie Besant: An Indian Tomtom
30 · Chidambaram Pillai: Swadeshi Steam
31 · Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Elbow of Genius
32 · Tagore: Unlocking Cages
33 · Visvesvaraya: Extracting Moonbeams from Cucumbers
34 · Periyar: Sniper of Sacred Cows
35 · Iqbal: Death for Falcons
36 · Amrita Sher–Gil: This is Me
37 · Subhas Chandra Bose: A Touch of the Abnormal
38 · Gandhi: ‘In the Palm of our Hands’
39 · Jinnah: The Chess Player
40 · Manto: The Unsentimentalist
41 · Ambedkar: Building Palaces on Dung Heaps
42 · Raj Kapoor: The Politics of Love
43 · Sheikh Abdullah: Chains of Gold
44 · V. K. Krishna Menon: Sombre Porcupine
45 · Subbulakshmi: Opening Rosebuds
46 · Indira Gandhi: The Centre of Everything
47 · Satyajit Ray: India without Elephants
48 · Charan Singh: A Common Cause
49 · M. F. Husain: ‘Hindustan is Free’
50 · Dhirubhai Ambani: Fins
References
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
For
Uma
Khemchand
Clinton
and for
Katherine
*
Incarnators all
Fifty Lives: Birthplaces
List of Illustrations
Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers will
be happy to correct in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their
attention.
The endpapers show a statue park in Hyderabad, 2015. Photos: Sunil Khilnani.
Buddha sculpture, cave 26, Ajanta, c. sixth century CE. Photo: The Art Archive.
Buddha fresco, cave 10, Ajanta, c. fifth century CE. Photo: DB Images/Alamy.
Vijay in the blue temple, Mumbai. Photo: Sunil Khilnani.
Shanti Panchal, The Jain Monks, 2008. Copyright © Shanti Panchal.
Jain cosmology, Rajasthan, eighteenth century. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Jain statue of Bahubali, or Gommata, c.983 CE, at Sravanabelagola, Karnataka.
Photo: ImageBroker/Alamy.
A page from an eighteenth-century copy of an appendix to the Ashtadhyayi.
Cambridge University Library (MS Add 2351 f. 10r). Reproduced by kind
permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
Front cover of Radhakrishnan Pillai, Corporate Chanakya, Jaico Publishing
House, 2010.
The manuscript of the Arthashastra, Oriental Research Institute, Mysore, 2014.
Photos: Sunil Khilnani.
Deen Dayal, photograph of the lion caryatids from the south gateway of the
Stupa at Sanchi (the image has been rotated by 90 degrees). From Sir Lepel
Griffin, Famous Monuments of Central India, 1886. Photo: Royal Collection
Trust / copyright © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015.
Rock inscribed with the fourteen edicts of Emperor Ashoka, Junagadh,
photographed c.1900. Photo: copyright © The British Library Board, Photo
430/38(27).
Indian Air Force pilot’s wings. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Diagram of the human body, Rajasthan, 18th century. National Museum of
India, New Delhi. Photo: Ronald and Sabrina Michaud/akg-images.
Advertisment for ayurvedic medicines, c.1900. Photo: Wellcome Library,
London
Jantar Mantar, Delhi, 1955. Photo: Three Lions/Getty Images.
Calculations to predict solar eclipses, from an undated Sanskrit manuscript.
Photo: Roland and Sabrina Michaud/akg-images.
Sankara on a tiger, undated wall painting, Karnataka. Photo: Roland and Sabrina
Michaud/akg-images.
Shiva Nataraja, bronze, Chola Dynasty, eleventh century. Dallas Museum of Art,
Texas, Gift of Mrs Eugene McDermott, the Hamon Charitable Foundation, and
an anonymous donor in honour of David T. Owsley, with additional funding
from The Cecil and Ida Green Foundation and the Cecil and Ida Green
Acquisition Fund, (2000.37). Photo: Bridgeman Images.
Mural said to show King Rajaraja Chola and Karuvur Thevar. Rajarajeshwara
temple, Tamil Nadu, eleventh century. Photo: © Benoy K. Behl.
Colossal statue of Basavanna at Basavakalyan, Karnakata. Photo: Dr Sunil
Deepak.
Silver amulet worn by the Lingayat sect of Karnataka, eighteenth/nineteenth
century. British Museum, London. © Trustees of the British Museum.
Frontispiece to a collection of poetry by Amir Khusrau Dhilavi. Safavid school,
Iran, 1609. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (W. 623 f.2a).
Kabir weaving at his loom with attendants, Mughal school, eighteenth century.
The British Museum, London. Photo: The Art Archive.