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| Author(s) : Allen, Charles |
| Publishers Price : £25.00 |
| Wisdom Price : £18.50(save 26%)
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| ISBN : 1408701960 | | EAN : 9781408701966 | | Cover : Hardback | | Pages : 460 | | Size : 242 x 164mm | | Publisher : Little, Brown | | Published : 2012 |
Category : Biography
Category 2 : India: Land and Culture
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Synopsis:
A gripping and highly readable new biography about the first man to rule the Indian subcontinent - Asia's lost Buddhist emperor, Ashoka.
Emperor Ashoka Maurya has a special place in history. At its height in around 250 BC, his empire stretched across the Indian subcontinent to Kandahar (now in Afghanistan) in the east, and as far north as the Himalayas. In his quest to govern by moral force alone, Ashoka turned Buddhism from a minor sect into a world religion, while setting up a new yardstick for government that had huge implications for Asia.
But his brave experiment ended in tragedy, and his name was cleansed from the record so effectively that he was forgotten for almost two thousand years. Only a few mysterious monuments and inscriptions survived, and the story of how these keystones to the past began to be discovreed by British Orientalists in the late eighteenth century, and their mysterious lettering deciphered, is every bit as remarkable as their author himself. Bit by bit, fragments of the Ashokan story were found and in the process India's ancient history was recovered.
In a wide-ranging, multi-layered journey of discovery that is as much about Britain's entanglement with India as it is about India's distant past, Charles Allen tells the story of the man who was arguably the greatest ruler India has ever known.
"A labour of love and notable scholarship, Charles Allen's Ashoka is a fitting testament to a forgotten epic of discovery...All who relish India's antiquity should read this book." John Keay.
"Brings to light the most extraordinary ruler in Indian history: an emperor who devoted his reign to peace, animal rights, and the pursuit of his subjects' happiness." Tom Holland, author.
"A thrilling book which reads like a mystery novel. Ashoka, whose story had been forgotten for a thousand years, was rediscovered by a fascinating collection of intrepid amateurs, who combined their daily work with much enterprise to dig, draw and decipher the hidden secrets of the when and whereabouts of India's first great king, whose chakra now adorns the Indian tricolur. Read this and you will see how absorbing history can be." Lord Meghnad Desai, author of Rediscovery of India. |
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