There is a need to recover the Indian story based on archaeological fact and historical evidence, says historian William Dalrymple

Historian William Dalrymple emphasizes the need to uncover India's historical influence through archeological evidence and facts.

There is a whole story which remains untold about the influence of India and there is a need for more work to recover the Indian story based on archeological fact and historical evidence, said author and historian William Dalrymple.

Delivering a special lecture after the book launch “The Golden Road -- How Ancient India transformed the World”, William Dalrymple said : We need to recover the Indian story which has somehow got lost. We have to look very critically at the idea of the silk road, or the idea that China was actually in the centre of the world. I think we can make a much greater case for the influence of India,” he said.

“I am not saying this, as a sort of chest-thumping, sort of patriotic, sort of you know, India was the vishwaguru, this I am saying this as a simple straightforward matter of archeological fact, and historical evidence,” said Mr.Dalrymple.

Pointing to the extraordinary spread of three sets of ideas from India because of soft power, Mr.Dalrymple said Buddhism was arguably India’s most successful export. “The story of the spread of Buddhism is one of the most extraordinary stories, reaching as far as Japan, Siberia, Mongolia.” 

“The spread of Sanskrit, the language, the ideas of Hindu kingship and Hindu religion, which was often exported from this coast. Mamallapuram which at the time of Pallavas was a major port looking after South-East Asia, exporting ideas, arts, religion, poetry, dance. Traders left Mamallapuram every monsoon with the monsoon winds,” said Mr.Dalrymple. 

“Indian mathematics, astronomy, and Indian science, moved westwards. The Indian number system, zero, is now the nearest thing the human race has to universal language. Indian ideas, Indian religious insights, Indian science, Indian knowledge, Indian astronomy, Indian mathematics, are among the crucial foundations of the world. India is one of those countries, along with China and ancient Greece, which provided answers to the big questions that man asked himself in the early years of our history,” he said.

“The answers the Greeks provided to these questions are well known around the world. The Chinese answers to these questions are also well known, particularly thanks to this idea of the Silk Road which is such a prominent idea in our times, a very attractive idea of a single road crossing Asia, breaking down national silos. I think this has taken a lot of wind out of the sails today of understanding India’s place in the world,” he said.