Daily Life in Ancient India: From 200 BC to 700 AD

In the 4 page Conclusion to this fascinating subject the author writes “The individualistic philosophy of Brahmanic India ......appeared to be in conflict with Indian life, which is peculiarly difficult for our Western mentality to comprehend – the fact that a great mass of humanity was distinguished solely by caste, lineage and clan.” Indeed.

My Indian contacts via my line of work all tell me different things about modern India. “It is all about religion” say some, others tell me that it is all about the love of pomp and ceremony and festivals, one other that it is about making money. And that can leave this reader, to paraphrase the quote above, in a peculiarly difficult position for my Western mentality to comprehend.

So based on my read of daily life from 200 BC to 700 AD is India today much different than its past? Based on the author using ancient texts and poems traveller accounts and various I suspect that all the religion, pomp and ceremony and festivals and money making is nothing new and an ingrained part of the thousands of years caste, lineage and clan system blended into an almighty complex mix that just bamboozles me.

There are three parts that give us “An introduction to Indian Life” followed by “Individual and Collective Existence” and finally “Royal and Aristocratic Existence.” We get a Conclusion, Bibliography, Chronological Table, Footnotes and Index and I found them all very useful indeed. There are 24 pages of photographs in the middle of the 344 pages, along with a map at the start. My copy does not say who the excellent translator is, but after a quick search I have come up with Simon Watson Taylor.
His wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Watson_Taylor_(surrealist)

Considering this was released in 1961 this was high quality research by author French Indologist Jeannine Auboyer. Her wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannine_Auboyer

She wrote in the Preface that she could only use the resources available at the time and that more would be added with more archaeological research etc. It would be an interesting to see how much further research has taken the modern Indologist.

With a book such as this there are always snippets that can be given to those that read reviews such as this but there were so many of interest that I will leave it at one and that was from the final 3 pages that were covered by a subchapter called Solemn and Imperial Rites. aśvamedha was a ritualistic horse sacrifice that was, “......rooted in protohistoric times, was essentially a symbolic performance which associated the entire population with the king offering a sacrifice” For more info I read the wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashvamedha

“Gayatri Pariwar since 1991 has organised performances of a “modern version” of the Ashvamedha where a statue is used in place of a real horse, according to Hinduism Today with a million participants in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh on April 16 to 20, 1994.[72] Such modern performances are Sattvika Yajnas where the animal is worshipped without killing it,[73] the religious motivation being prayer for overcoming enemies, the facilitation of child welfare and development, and clearance of debt,[74] entirely within the allegorical interpretation of the ritual, and with no actual sacrifice of any animal.” says the final paragraph on the Hindu Revivalism.

Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in India.