Indic Books For Beginners
On this page, I present to you 3 books that will ease you into this journey of self discovery. For each book, I’ve selected a few quotes that will give you an idea about it’s content & writing style.
Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History by Veer Savarkar
”Hindu society in general felt no urgency of handing down to the later generations the anecdotes and legends of those heroic deeds.” Shri Savarkar writes. Clearly, this error was nagging at him, ‘coz he wrote a whole book to fix it.
To know who you are, you must know your history and not the school book history that is taught to turn us into useful idiots. This book is an incredibly written account of various points in our history when our ancestors fought back and won.
It is the history of India, told by an Indian. If you have teenage kids at home, give this to them. Not only will they grow up strongly rooted in their core Bhartiya indentity, it will also expand their vocabulary, for Shri. Savarkar, apart from being a thought leader, was also an excellent scholar & writer.
Selected Quotes from Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History
“…But as soon as Asoka adopted Buddhism, this security of the empire fell to pieces! Had Asoka abdicated from the imperial throne of Magadha when he adopted Buddhism as Lord Gautam Buddha himself forsook the Sakya nation before him, and had he travelled around as a bhikksu propagating the faith, the Indian empire might have been spared a great calamity and Asoka’s loyalty to Buddhism, too, would have been truly tested. But till his death Asoka could not bring himself to abdicate this imperial throne.”
“…Nevertheless even at this critical time the priests of the Temple of Somnath offered to shoulder the responsibility of protecting the sacred temple as best as they could. They called upon the surrounding Hindu population to run to their aid in the sacred cause of defending the temple and their religion, and thousands of Hindus from far off regions also, answered their call and ran to the rescue of the Temple of Somnath.”
“…For, in my opinion, the Marathas in general did not fight only for Maharashtra, nor for their household land or their fields. Their sole objective was to liberate Hindu religion and Hindu nation-of which Maharashtra was known to them to be only a part-from the yoke of Muslim domination and to establish all over India a sovereign Hindu power.”
How I Became A Hindu by Sitaram Goel
This book, written in a biographical style, is in reality an intellectual journey – not just of the writer but of every Indian who has evolved from being an indoctrined Marxist to a self-assured Sanatani. While there are amusing anecdotes and recollection of historical events, the main attraction of this book is the clarity of thought and ideas that Shri Goel possesses. He gives words to ideas that you might have thought of but couldn’t articulate.
Reading this book makes you feel like you’re sitting with a grandfatherly figure as he tells you tales and shares his immaculate wisdom. This is one of the books you wish were longer. Luckily for us, Sitaram ji wrote many other books as well.
Selected Quotes from How I Became A Hindu
“…The only other leader of whom I became increasingly aware was Pandit Nehru. There was quite a folklore afloat about him. He was reputed to be the only son of a fabulously rich man who lived in a palace at Allahabad, who got his clothes stitched in London and laundered in Paris, who had used high denomination currency notes as fuel for preparing tea when the viceroy paid him a visit, and who had blisters all over his tender skin when he put on khadi clothes for the first time.”
“…While delivering a lecture on Creation, the Father said that God in his wisdom and kindness had made all these fishes and animals and birds for man’s consumption. I immediately rose in revolt. I told him very emphatically that I was a vaishnava and a vegetarian and that I had absolutely no use for a God that bestowed upon man the right to kill and eat his other creatures simply because man happened to be stronger and more skilled. I added that in my opinion it was the duty of the strong and the more skilled to protect the weaker and the less wily.”
“…But the history I had read was hardly the history of Hindu society. It was the history of conquerors who had tormented the Hindus. I became curious about how Hindu society had survived so many assaults, for such prolonged periods, particularly from the Islamic invaders and the Christian missionaries. For, I had become aware that Hindu society was the only ancient society which had survived genocidal attacks from Islam and Christianity.”
The Land of Seven Rivers by Sanjeev Sanyal
It is a book that intertwines history with geography and narrates the story of India in an easy to grasp manner. The book shows us how geography impacted the development of our civilisation, especially in terms of culture, trade and prosperity. The writing is unpretentious & to the point and the book is an easy read.
Selected Quotes from The Land of Seven Rivers
“…Most interesting of all, the Rig Veda speaks repeatedly of a great river called the Saraswati. It is described as the greatest of rivers. Forty-five of the Rig Veda hymns shower praise on the Saraswati. No other river or geographical feature comes close in importance. The Ganga is barely mentioned twice and the Indus, although referred to as a mighty river, is not given the same reverence. In contrast, the Saraswati is called the mother of all rivers and ‘great among the great, the most impetuous of rivers’. It is even called the ‘inspirer of hymns’ suggesting that the Rig Veda was composed on its banks. The problem is that there is no living river in modern India that fits the description.”
“…Arjuna, the most dashing of the Pandav brothers, makes his way to remote Manipur during his years of exile. There he meets the warrior-princess Chitrangada. They fall in love and marry, albeit on the condition that Chitrangada would not have to follow Arjuna back to the Gangetic plains. Their son eventually becomes the king of Manipur and would participate in the Kurukshetra battle.”
“…Although Alexander’s invasion did not make much of a dent in the Indian heartland, it did trigger a chain of events that led to the founding of India’s first great empire, that of the Mauryas. The empire was created by two extraordinary characters: Chanakya (also called Kautilya) and his pupil Chandragupta Maurya. The Persian, Chinese and Macedonian Greek empires were created by princes and warriors. In contrast, Chanakya was a professor of Political Economy in Taxila.”