"Forgotten Civilizations: The Rediscovery of India’s Lost History" by Rupa Gupta and Gautam Gupta

The following review is also published in Deccan Herald, on 23 January 2022 [edited].

The Briton, the Buddha and the Bhagavat-Geeta

The British rule in India has invited abundant research on examining the relationship between the coloniser and the colonised. While volumes of studies have invested their aims in the criticism of the British ideology (political, social, economic and cultural), there are a few works that have critically examined the same from the vantage point of contributors of the West. Forgotten Civilizations: The Rediscovery of India's Lost History is one such work that has shed light on the contributions made by British colonial officers to the historical and cultural heritage of the Indian subcontinent. The book is a well-articulated compilation of fifteen narratives that stand out as interesting exceptions accounting the history of cultural symbols, ancient scripts and ornate architecture. The co-authors, Rupa Gupta and Gautam Gupta, have brought together interdisciplinary perspectives on the British colonial rule in India.

Art of Reading and Translation Forgotten Civilizations focuses on the translations of many texts that bear testimony to the spread of India's glory. The immersive reading of the ancient texts which were mostly written in Sanskrit proved to see resemblances in Greek and Latin. In William Jones's words, the antiquity of Sanskrit language "is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either". The study of the old texts, to mention a few - William Jones's translation of Kalidasa's Shakuntala (Sacontalá or The Fatal Ring), Jayadeva's Geet Govind, Hitopadesa and Manusmriti (seven volumes); The Bhagavat-Geeta, Or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon in Eighteen Lectures translated by Sir Charles Wilkins; Nathaniel Halhed's translation of Upanisad and Mahabharata (unfinished translation); and Mitākṣarā  and Dāyabhāga (legal commentaries on Hindu laws of inheritance) translated by Henry Colebrooke - have all invited the West to look at the subcontinent as one of the oldest civilisations. These works stand as exceptions for they have not only contributed to restoring India's literature but also as independent discourses that have consciously prevented the European prejudices from seeping into their works.

Restoring the Architecture in Bricks and Words While on the one hand there were texts attracting serious reading and unbiased interpretations and translations; on the other hand, was the study of buildings and monuments. The tales of James Prinsep, Thomas and William Daniells, James Fergusson, Sir Alexander Cunningham and Sir John Hubert Marshall usually surface in introducing the subcontinent as one of the oldest civilisations, rich in history, science and culture. The extensive ink-sketches of ancient buildings, temples, mosques and minarets have added weightage to the fact that India's cultural heritage was built by minds that expressed tradition and individual talent. James Prinsep's Benares Illustrated is an apt example, where a collection of seventeen of his drawings introduced Benares to the Western world making the holy city garner its recognition and fame across the globe. The credit of decoding the long-forgotten scripts of Brahmi and Kharoshti (ancient writing systems) also goes to Prinsep. Similarly, Fergusson attempted to learn India's past through "the imperishable records in the rocks, or on sculptures and carvings", which gave him more details of monuments and the faith and feelings that they represented. Some colonial explorers did make appeals to the colonial government requesting their intervention in restoring and protecting the heritage buildings of India. This gave much exposure to the ornate structures and thus began the recognition and appreciation of Indian art.

Study of Buddhism Brain Hodgson, an English officer, is known to have been a collector of original documents on Buddhism that had up to that time been ever gathered. His supply of materials to the Asiatic Society of Bengal proved to be beneficial to scholars and helped them in their investigations and research on the study of Buddhism. Famous works such as The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal by Dr. Rajendra Lal Mitra and Introduction à l’histoire du Bouddhisme Indien (“Legends of Indian Buddhism”) by Eugène Burnouf were based on the manuscripts presented by Hodgson. The contribution of Hodgson demands thorough appreciation as a collector and as an author. He was the largest and the most munificent collector of ancient texts and vernacular tracts that have served as a vital source for research matter to his contemporaries and for the future researchers. Quite interestingly, Forgotten Civilizations provides snippets on how colonial officers like Hodgson proposed the establishment of vernacular colleges for local schoolmasters. This, however, was not implemented and Macaulay’s arguments influenced the government to choose English as a medium for education. 

The writers have situated the study mainly in the eighteenth century, drawing on sociology, history and political science that has aided in examining the important social and cultural events that took place in the set time frame. The book is a comprehensive account of those important few who were responsible for popularising oriental studies in Europe and helped restructure perceptions about India to the rest of the world. The structure of the book appeals to the general readers and the lucid writing style in narrating the history grips the attention of the readers.