India before Alexander: A New Chronology

by Raja Ram Mohan Roy

The chronology of Indian history rests on two sheet anchors. First sheet anchor is the identification of Sandrokottos of Greek accounts with Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of Mauryan dynasty. Sandrokottos was the contemporary of Alexander the Great. Second sheet anchor is the identification of Devanampriya Priyadarshi of inscriptions with Ashoka Maurya, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya. Devanampriya Priyadarshi mentions five Greek kings in his inscriptions, one of them being Antiyoka, who is currently identified with Antiochus II. Native historians claim that Sandrokottos should be identified with Chandragupta I of the Imperial Gupta dynasty. However, in over 175 years since the identification of Devanampriya Priyadarshi with Ashoka Maurya, a satisfactory alternative has not been found. In this pioneering book a new identification is proposed for Devanampriya Priyadarshi after presenting a comprehensive analysis of the source materials. This never before proposed identification of Devanampriya Priyadarshi with Kumaragupta I opens the door for developing a new chronological framework for Indian history.

200 pages, Paperback

Published November 25, 2015

Reviews

[Aditya Narayan]

Best chronological reconstruction of Indian history

I was skeptical about reading this book at first because of it's supposedly "heavy reliance on mythological texts"
But that is far from true, it is a fact based, expertly researched, balanced narrative of the most irrefutable,yet, chronology of Indian history.
True, some chapters and paragraphs in them seem totally unrealistic at first reading, a patient second look, will open up you to new realities
Can't wait to read the next book in this series!!!

[Pramod Vemuri]

Before reading, I decided to rate the book 3/5 at best only if it doesn't entertain flights of fancy a la Oak or Sanghi. I'm open to extraordinary claims, but only in face of extraordinary evidence. For instance, I strongly believe that Indic civilisation (sans vedas) are Harappan, especially the shramana tradition.

I give it a 4 because the book certainly made me reconsider the chronology of Indian timeline. If modern historians shake their heads in shame at the "fantasies" of the brahmin, chinese and jaina historians, the book certainly shows that modern chronology hits similar issues.

The author makes a strong case (to my lay non historian eyes) that modern history creates a vacuum of 600 years to accomodate for the Vedic migration, and overcrowding the succeeding 600 years due to conflicting records. By attacking the gaps than think up conspiracies, the author justly leaves room for a kuhnian revolution instead, which is what is more likely.

In the last chapter, as with most hindutva writers, the author makes the same trite claim that Gandhi was a british stooge (let alone that gandhism worked also for king and mandela) and that ahimsa was never part of our culture (because jainism apparently doesn't exist)

I put this book in same leagues as a documentary I watched on historicity of Moses (who is also similarly ruled fictitious by historians) and the book Higgs Fake (which is cynical about the ivory tower methodology of high energy physics) - it's definitely a fascinating read, even if it may be flawed.