Vimarsh - The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple

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On November 25, the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) organized a Vimarsh on the book ‘The Golden Road: How Ancient India transformed the world' by Mr. William Dalrymple, a renowned historian, writer, broadcaster, curator and journalist. He is a Co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival and a regular contributor to the New Yorker, Guardian and other prestigious international magazines and journals.

Dr. Arvind Gupta, Director, VIF, delivered the opening remarks in which he briefly talked about the book ‘The Golden Road.’ Dr. Gupta mentioned that the book successfully highlights the role played by Ancient India in the transformation of the world. India was known for churning out astrologers, scientists, mathematicians, merchants, sculptors, monks and missionaries who took various strands of Indic religious thought, devotion, cultural practices, science, and knowledge out of the Indian subcontinent and transmitted it to the rest of the known world. Unfortunately, the colonial historians and the left-liberal historians of post-independent India deliberately undermined India’s role in shaping the ancient world. The book also traces how Indian influence had reached far-off lands like the Roman Empire and East Asia.

Dr. Gupta said the book highlights India’s often forgotten position as a crucial economic fulcrum and civilizational engine of the ancient and early medieval worlds. India was one of the main motors of global trade through which India’s culture reached distant shores. India was well connected with the East, West and North through maritime and land routes through which pilgrims and traders travelled uninterrupted for centuries, taking Indian philosophical and cultural ideas to foreign lands. The imprint of Hinduism and Buddhism in Southeast Asia is visible even today. The Chinese concept of the Silk Road has overshadowed these historical facts. The book elaborates on the story of the spread of Indian cultural and religious influence to Tibet, Central Asia, Afghanistan, China, Japan and Southeast Asia etc.

Mr. William Dalrymple started his talk by highlighting the deliberate marginalization of India’s ancient achievements and its role in global history. India, like ancient Greece and China, addressed profound philosophical and scientific questions. However, while the contributions of the Greek intellectuals were widely propagated during colonial rule, Indian mathematicians and scholars, such as Brahmagupta and Aryabhata, remain largely unknown outside India, overshadowed by figures like Pythagoras and Archimedes.

This marginalization of India is depicted in the Chinese historical narrative called the Silk Road. Mr. Dalrymple also criticizes exhibitions at prestigious institutions like the British Museum and British Library for omitting India from their depictions of ancient trade routes. Maps in these exhibits black out Indian territories, ignoring Indian cities and ports despite their central role in global commerce. Instead, the narrative emphasizes China, bolstered by the British colonial agenda to undermine India’s cultural and intellectual legacy.

India’s absence from the Silk Road narrative is historically inaccurate, as there is a plethora of evidence that depicts the robust Indo-Roman trade linkages. India’s exclusion is particularly egregious given its documented role in ancient trade. Roman coin hoards are found abundantly in India, especially in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengal, and Gujarat. The first Roman coins (Augustus Coins) were discovered in India in the 1750s in Madras (Chennai). Historical accounts, from Pliny and Strabo, describe the extensive import of goods like spices and silk from India in the Roman period. Pliny even laments Rome’s economic drain due to its luxury imports from India. Pliny criticizes the Roman elite for their indulgence in Indian imports. Meanwhile, there is no archaeological evidence of direct trade between Rome and China, rendering the Silk Road’s portrayal of their connection mythical and derived from Chinese propaganda.

Mr. Dalrymple talked about Ancient India’s three major exports: the Indic religions, namely Buddhism and Hinduism; Sanskrit and its literature; and scientific and mathematical knowledge. These contributions not only shaped Southeast Asia but also reached the Arab world and from there it came in contact with Europe. Among these, Buddhism's journey is particularly fascinating. Buddhism emerged in the mid-5th century BCE, but it remained largely invisible for 200 years until the reign of Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE. With the help of Ashoka’s pillar edicts and missionary initiatives, Buddhism reached far and wide, extending as far west as modern Libya.

Ashoka's children, Mahendra and Sanghamitra, played pivotal roles in establishing Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Buddhism also reached Gandhara and Bactria, and eastward into China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. Buddhism also permeated Southeast Asia, reaching Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and even the Philippines. Recent archaeological findings, such as the discovery of Buddhist artifacts at Berenike on Egypt's Red Sea coast and a Buddha head in Istanbul, demonstrate that Buddhism also reached the Roman Empire.

Alongside Buddhist teachings came a comprehensive cultural package, including Pali and Sanskrit literature, Indian art, cosmological concepts, and philosophies like karma. This remarkable dissemination highlighted India’s soft power and cultural influence across Asia in an extraordinarily short period. Indian epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata were embraced and adapted across cultures, enriching the local languages and traditions. Scientific and mathematical advancements, such as the concept of zero, also travelled westward, first influencing the Arab world and later Europe. The spread of Indian thought, literature, and science epitomizes a unique cultural phenomenon in which a single civilization profoundly shaped diverse regions over centuries.

Mr. Dalrymple said that the trade of the ancient world revolved around India. A significant portion of the Roman revenue came from taxes on trade through Red Sea ports, which were dependent on the goods coming in from India. Indian goods like ivory, pepper, and spices were traded for Roman items such as glassware and luxury goods, emphasizing the economic interdependence of the regions. Excavations in places like Pompeii in Italy and Bagram in Afghanistan reveal this trading interdependence. At the height of Indo-Roman trade relations, a new school of art emerged in the Gandhara region influenced by Greco-Roman styles. The early depictions of Buddha in Gandhara art bear a striking resemblance to Apollo. This shared imagery reflects how interconnected these ancient civilizations were through trade and ideas.

In the field of education, Nalanda, in present-day Bihar, was a hub of learning in the 7th century CE, attracting scholars from China, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and Korea. The Chinese monk Xuanzang studied at Nalanda for 20 years, collected Buddhist texts, and brought them back to China, further cementing the academic and cultural ties between India and China. The university structure in Nalanda inspired the Islamic madrasas, which later influenced the design of Western universities.

The cultural connections between India and Southeast Asia developed in the early centuries of the Common Era with their focus on trade, religion, and architecture. With the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE, there was a cessation of gold coming in from the Romans. This made the merchants from the south of India to redirect their efforts towards Southeast Asia. The Tamil trading guilds established trade routes with Southeast Asia and facilitated the spread of Indian cultural and religious influences. Their inscriptions are found across Southeast Asia, highlighting their dominance in regional trade. This era also saw the construction of Hindu and Buddhist temples in ancient trading settlements. The architectural and cultural influence of India is exemplified by structures like Borobudur in Java, the world's largest Buddhist monument, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the largest Vishnu temple globally. These monuments reflect a blend of Indian architectural styles and local innovation, creating a unique Southeast Asian identity.

The development of the Indian numeral system, including the concept of zero, was a transformative invention in the history of the world. This system facilitated advanced calculations and became a universal language of mathematics. Archaeological evidence, such as inscriptions from Cambodia, demonstrates the early adoption of Indian numerals in Southeast Asia. These original Indian numerals were called the Brahmi numerals, which were later adopted by different cultures around the world and indigenized. The Brahmi numerals from India started spreading westward to the Muslim world. Ja’far ibn Yahya, a Persian vizier from Baghdad in the 8th century CE, played a crucial role in the transfer of this knowledge coming from India. Ja’far belonged to a family that converted to Islam from Buddhism. He translated Sanskrit texts, including works by Aryabhata and Brahmagupta that talked about the Indian numerals, into Arabic. These developments contributed to the emergence of the Islamic Golden Age.

The speaker mentions Al-Khwarizmi, a scholar from the Khwarazm region, who translated Indian texts into Arabic. His work synthesized Indian mathematics and Greek geometry, resulting in the "Compendious Book of Calculation by Completion and Balancing," known as Al-Jabr, which became the root word for algebra. His contributions also coined the term "algorithm." The spread of this knowledge is traced from Baghdad to Spain via North Africa, where Christian scholars discovered the practicality of the Indian numeral system.

A pivotal moment occurred in Pisa, Italy, in the 12th century CE when Fibonacci, having learned the Arabic numeral system, wrote Liber Abaci. This book explained the benefits of the system over Roman numerals and introduced concepts such as interest rates and double-entry bookkeeping, revolutionizing trade and banking in Europe. Fibonacci’s work caught the attention of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, leading to widespread acceptance of these mathematical methods.

The Renaissance also benefitted from these mathematical breakthroughs. Artists like Piero della Francesca used new techniques to develop linear perspective in art, and his ideas influenced contemporaries like Leonardo da Vinci. These developments not only spurred the banking and artistic revolutions of the Renaissance but also laid the groundwork for European corporations and colonial enterprises, including the East India Company.

Finally, Mr. Dalrymple acknowledged the interconnectedness of global knowledge systems, tracing the "relay race" of ideas from India to Europe via the Muslim world. It is ironic that the European domination of India was enabled by mathematical advancements originating in India. So, the Western world should recognize and appreciate the historical contributions of Indian mathematics and its profound influence on the world because without it the West would not have been in a position to exploit and colonize the rest of the world.

Mr. Raghvendra Singh, while talking about the book, emphasized popularizing the term ‘Golden Road’ over the Chinese term ‘Silk Road.’ More research needs to be done in the field of India’s cross-cultural connections with Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Arab world and the Roman Empire. Sanskrit played a crucial role in recording and transmitting developments in science, mathematics and astronomy around the world. The session was then open for discussion, followed by closing remarks by Dr Arvind Gupta.