The Golden Road How Ancient India Transformed the World William Dalrymple

FROM THE AWARD-WINNING, BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND CO-HOST OF THE CHART-TOPPING EMPIRE PODCAST – A REVOLUTIONARY NEW HISTORY OF THE DIFFUSION OF INDIAN IDEAS'A master storyteller'Sunday TimesIndia is the forgotten heart of the ancient worldFor a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific.William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India's oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it.Praise for William Dalrymple and The Anarchy'A superb historian with a visceral understanding of India'The Times'Magnificently readable, deeply researched and richly atmospheric'Francis Wheen, Mail on Sunday Half-title Page Dedication Title Page Table of Contents Introduction The Indosphere 1 A Gale of Stillness 2 India: ‘The Sink of the World’s Most Precious Metals’ 3 The Great King, King of Kings, Son of God 4 The Sea of Jewels: Exploring the Great Library of Nalanda 5 The Fifth Concubine 6 The Diaspora of the Gods 7 In the Lands of Gold 8 ‘He Who is Protected by the Sun’ 9 The Treasury of the Books of Wisdom 10 Fruits of the Science of Numbers Notes Bibliography Golden Road Glossary Acknowledgements Index Image Credits A Note on the Author Plate Section Copyright Page