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Dinesh

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Posted: 11 Jul 2023

Taken: 11 Jul 2023

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A Concise History of •
MODERN INDIA •

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Plate 1.2

Plate 1.2
Ashoka Pillar, Ferozshah Kotla, Delhi
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Central to this history was the momentous discovery of the past, through shared ‘Aryan’ linguistic ties, that linked India with Britain itself. As Jones wrote, between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin there existed ‘a stronger affinity than could possibly have existed by accident’; hence all three had ‘to have sprung from some common source’. Thus there came into view the widely dispersed family related languages, known as Indo-European, that had spread outwards from Central Asia in prehistoric times. More generally, by their studies Jones en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jones_(philologist) and his successors made of ‘Hinduism’ a great religion and repository of ancient wisdom, while India itself was given a glorious past comparable of that of Greece and Rome. Archeological discoveries in the first decades of the nineteenth century reinforced this conviction of India’s ancient greatness; the decipherment of the Brahmi script, for instance, revealed that India has enjoyed a long period of Buddhist predominance under such rulers as those of the Mauryan dynasty. The history of the pillar shown in plate 1.2 is instructive. As indicated in chapter 1, the fourteenth-century sultan Feroz Shah erected it at his court. But he had no idea what the column signified or who had carved it. Only after the discoveries of the early nineteenth century was this pillar, with other like it across northern India, associated with the hitherto unknown Buddhist emperor Ashoka Maurya (c 268-33 BC). Ahoka’s rule was subsequently imagined as an era of amity and non-violence, and in the twentieth century was celebrated by Gandhian nationalists. ~ Page 63

A Concise History of MODERN INDIA
11 months ago. Edited 11 months ago.

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