Message

Summary

I met Dr Balaji Sadasivan in connection with our collective effort to reestablish an Asian international university at Nalanda, the site of perhaps the oldest university in the world. I could see that the erudite, soft-spoken doctor and foreign affairs expert harboured a fascination for history, especially the elements of South Asian culture that flowed to Southeast Asia to be creatively adapted in new ways. I did not know then that he was writing his own account of that history for the children of the vast Indian Diaspora. When Ambassador Kesavapany, Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), brought to my attention the existence of his manuscript, we could only be grateful that he had more or less completed it before his sad, untimely death. The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, must be congratulated for providing the finishing touches and further embellishing the work with pictures and maps.

Dr Balaji Sadasivan's book displays his eye for vivid detail and his ability to choose the most compelling anecdotes to illuminate larger historical themes. His skills as a story-teller will enable him to reach the younger generation of readers. This book is not boring! The stunning urban culture of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the enlightenment of Gautama Buddha, the dhamma of Asoka, the light of knowledge dispersed from Nalanda, the naval expeditions of the Cholas, are all depicted with great insight in the form of a stylish and eloquent narrative.

Had he been with us for a bit longer, I would have tried to persuade Dr Balaji Sadasivan of the grandeur of the Indo-Islamic cultural ecumene that was forged in the subcontinent during the last millennium under the patronage of regional Muslim Sultans and the great Mughal emperors who invited non-Muslims to be partners in building that magnificent edifice. Nineteenth-century colonial accounts of the role of Islam in India had often privileged myth over history and emphasized the destructive rather than constructive dimensions of the rule by Muslim sovereigns.

One example will suffice to illustrate this point. Dr Balaji Sadasivan tells us that Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General of India, at the time of the First Anglo-Afghan War “accepted the legend” that the gates of Mahmud of Ghazni's tomb had been looted from the temple in Somnath.