Book Review #98: The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History By Sanjeev Sanyal

Title: The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

Author: Sanjeev Sanyal

Publishers: Penguin India

Genre: Geo-political History/History/Maritime History

Pages: 374 (Paperback)

Source: Personal Copy

Being a regular reader of the history I was fascinated by this book by the author Sanjeev Sanyal. Having read his previous book "Land of the Seven Rivers" I was all eager to read this new book. In his previous book, he talked about the seven important rivers of India including the mighty Saraswati River. The Land of seven rivers was summed up in one line as “Seven Rivers (Sapth Sindhu), One Country, Five Millennia, Startling History”.

Asian histories have been rendered in a biased manner since time immemorial. As a famous saying that goes, until an animal has its own history, the history of the hunting will always glorify the hunter. If we take any history curriculum in Indian education system, we can read leaps and bounds of Mughul Empire, the British regime, the Sultanates and such similar accounts. 

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to read the histories of Cholas, Pandyas, Pallavas in greater detail and their glories have been limited to few pages here and there. This book, one of a kind in its genre, breaks that stupor and gives us a riveting account of how the Indian Ocean has shaped the human history. Indian Ocean is itself a big mystery. It holds many unresolved or undiscovered history that is hidden deep into its core. Author Sanjeev Sanyal tried to uncover this in this vast researched and well articulated book and succeeded in satiating his readers.

The book opens up by a fascinating tale of how the Pallava dynasty has traced an heir to their Kingdom when the erstwhile King, Parameshwara Verman II died in 731 CE. A delegation of Brahmin scholars, which travelled across the Indian Ocean to the far ends of Cambodia, and got back an heir that traced his roots to the Pallava dynasty from five long generations ago!! Thus, the reign of Nandi Verman II has started.

Hundreds of questions pop up as we read further through the book. For example:

Why did Vasco Da Gama worship in a Hindu temple when he set in India for the first time?

Why there are fossil remain of marine animals have been found in the Himalayas?

How come the Parsi community of India embraced the Guajrati culture so effortlessly?

How did the Sinhalese come to Sri Lanka?

What was the connection of the Sri Vijaya Empire with the Chinese?

How did the world’s second Mosque (King Cheraman Perumal) have been built in Kerala, India? What was the motive behind it?

How did Portuguese and Dutch have taken advantage in conquering parts of India?

How come we see oriental faces of engravings by Pallavas?

And so on…

The Ocean of Churn begins its journey even before the formation of the Indian Ocean. It talks about the super continent called Gondwana (This name is derived from the Gond tribe of the central India) that existed more than 270 million years ago and the mighty Saraswati River and how it dried up due to the tectonic plate shifts, how the Himalaya has been formed, and how the races have been migrated from India to outside world. This book traces the history through the Ocean way. How people set up its civilizations, how their trade hub got established, what was their commercial aspects, how they dealt with various traders inside and outside their territory and so on.

Sanjeev Sanyal views this history as Complex Adaptive System. Given his background in Economics, where he considers multiple factors act upon a system to determine the direction it takes. From Harrappan times, Indians have been trading with the world in many ways. Maritime trading is the major aspect during those times when land routes were hardly discovered. The powerful Chola king, Rajendra Chola made a naval attack on the Sri Vijaya Kingdom of Sumatra by 1025 is one such example. Chola Empire was one of the powerful empires in the entire South Asia region during that time. There were a major geo-political-economic alliances or rivalries between Indians, Chinese and the Sri Vijaya Kingdom.

Kerala being the hub of the maritime trade have witnessed a vast amount of geo-political-economic tradeoffs. As a testimony to those, even today in Kerala, we have the world’s second Mosque and India’s first mosque (Cheraman Perumal Mosque) built by the king Cherman Perumal by the orders of Mohammed the prophet himself in 629 AD. We also get to see the memorial of St. Thomas (doubting Thomas fame), a disciple of Jesus, who visited Kerala via sea route.

Overall, this book is a well researched one. It starts right from the origin of India Ocean due to the tectonic plate shifts and ends right at the transformation of Bombay to Mumbai with the reclamation of land over the Ocean. This book is full of rich details of all Kingdoms that throve around the Indian Ocean, Indian coastline, and several islands of the Indian Ocean that also had cultural trade ties with India and its Kingdoms.

Author personally visited several of these places that he mentions in his book. It shows what kind of painstaking research that he has put in this book. It is extremely informative and knowledge enhancing. As the author himself remarks at the end of the book “A systematic bias I have found in the existing literature is the preference given to the writers and sources from outside the continents.” This is evidently true, as we are fed with the histories that are written by mentally enslaved minds. It is time to look through a new perspective and stop looking towards the west for our recognition. India was and is an ancient lands with many millions years of history. Authors like Sanjeev Sanyal should be encouraged by reading these kinds of books.

My Rating:

5/5

Book Review #41: 99 Thoughts on Ganesha By Devdutt Pattanaik

We all love this elephant headed god, aren't we? He is by far the most loved and respected God throughout India. He is worshipped by each and every one without any religion hindrance. His stories would always fascinate anyone. Probably he is the cutest God that was loved by everyone regardless of the age or gender.

Pattanaik, by now, one of my favorite mythology story tellers, had done ample research before penning this book. His anecdotes are very impressive pertaining to the information he has provided in this book. Though it’s a short book spanning over 160 odd pages, it has everything to know about Lord Ganesha.

Even after having known so many tales and information about Ganesha. What makes this book unique is the extra mile that the author has gone to garn more interesting details and connecting the dots together. Who is Ganesha? What is his background? What makes him so special among the Indians and particularly Hindus? What are the tales behind Ganesha getting the elephant head? What occasion made Lord Shiva to behead Lord Ganesha? Why he has been referred as the obstacle remover? What’s the story behind people chanting Ganapati Bappa Morya? The questions never stop right? Well, if you are finding it hard to get all these information, then this book is the one stop solution to all your doubts. It is rich and resourceful to know about God Ganesha. I must admit that, I had come to know many tales which I never came across all these years.

Like his many other books, Pattanaik has juxtaposed the modern day rituals that can be directly linked to the mythological tales and symbolism with respect to Ganesha. I liked how he had narrated the details that go from India, Thailand till Mongolia. We all know the regular tale behind Ganesha’s elephant head. But Pattanaik has given us few other tales and folklore beliefs behind this story.

What I really liked about this book is, Ganesha that riding on a peacock. Peacock is called “Mor” in Hindi. Thus, it makes clear for the readers that, why people chant, “Ganapati Bappa Morya”. He also mentions about the race between Ganesha and his brother Kartikeya. This race was set up Narada Maharshi to see who has more wisdom and who can think profoundly. Well, Ganesha having a Mouse as his vehicle couldn’t race with his brother Kartikeya who had a flying peacock as his vehicle. So, Lord Ganesha decides to walk around his parents Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati symbolizing them as the whole universe, thus displaying the profound thought. This was a good takeaway from the book.

At the end of the book, author Pattanaik has given a list of popular Ganesha temples across the world. He explained the probable reasons behind why these temples marked as a prominent place of worship. He also explained the different names of Ganesha and its meaning. One such example is “VINAYAKA”, meaning one who was born without the help of a male companion (In Sanskrit VI means “without” and NAYAKA means “male person"). Thanks to the author for explaining something which I was not aware of. The explanation for the Ashta Vinayaka is a fantastic section from the book.

Pattanaik doesn’t forget to mention about the freedom fighter Lokamanya Balagangadhara Tilak who made Ganesha Chaturthi as a public festival. This particular movement has combined people from different walks of life, thereby giving the required momentum for the India’s Independence movement.

I recommend this book to every reader that wants to learn more about Lord Ganesha. May the blessings of Lord Ganesha bestow upon you.

“Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha!!”

My Rating:

5/5

Book Review #21: Breaking India: Western Intervention in Dravidian and Dailt Faultlines By Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan

There are few books that leaves its readers with dismay. Readers feel a sense of lost after reading this massively researched book. Spread across a mammoth 650+ odd pages, having end notes and glossary worth 80 pages and its bibliography extending to more than 50 pages, makes this book a massively researched book.

Breaking India, penned by the authors Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan is a myth shattering book. It exposes various facades of cultural malice veiled as a humanitarian agenda. This book documents 'what is known', 'what is unknown' and 'what is known and neglected by mass Indians over the centuries' about the danger that western interventions poses threat to our very cultural, spiritual and religious foundations of great Bharat. With majority of Indians (read as Hindus) believed that, their culture, heritage and great history and their SANATANA DHARMA will be preserved throughout many centuries undisturbed, must read this book in order to learn about the various atrocities and ill-motivated propagations that western offices carry out in India in the name of Social Service, Poor Upliftment and what not.

Breaking India is not about political rabble rousing; it records the misery of a deeply aggrieved civilization of India that may in the future die a slow poisonous death. The ongoing christian evangelical missionary activities and its stronghold campaignings across the country has callously devalued and eventually devastated other ancient cultures and people. This book sparks an honest debate on the extent of human rights and other "DALIT EMPOWERMENT" projects.

This book constantly unmasks the various missionaries, US funded evangelical organizations and other internal rabid hindu haters. One such example I must have to mention, is about a person called Kancha Ilaiah an activist and a writer who wrote a book titled "Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra critique of Hindutva philosophy, culture and political economy", where he goes on ranting about Hindu cultures, and with a single sweep, he rejects all our ancient scriptures as the scriptures that propagates the violence.

Authors goes onto expose some of the grave realities of the western cooked-up stories of our India and its ancient culture. One such incident, where they try to separate the Dravidians a.k.a South Indians in the name of Myth Aryan invasion theory. They try to bring up the Tirukkuraal and try to portray the author of the Thirukkuraal Thiruvalluvar as a christian!!. Several evangelical organizations and its representatives have argued over many years on this issue, especially, Deivanayagam, a former Hindu and a converted christian who wrote many articles, books and so called research papers on these topics.

Authors has also exposed some of the evangelical organization's idea of depicting our ancient Indians dance forms such as Bharata Natyam by christianizing it. A well put up blog about this can be found here Christian Denigration of Indian. An art form of Bharat Natyam is depicted as a Yavoha dance form in the following LINK.

Authors had left no stone unturned in demasking these two faced chameleons. One more such example, which is happening in our very own kerala is "JESUS NAMASKAR". A lifted phenomenon from our ancient Yogic practice of Surya Namaskara. Several converted Christians have undoubtedly contributed to such stupid false stories. This section of the book leaves readers with much disappointment. How low one can go to propagate their religion in the name of Human Rights.? God Knows. Our Indians must not fall prey for these thugs and accept whatever they say. India is a land of sages, land of the divine. If this propagation continues, there is no option left but, to wait and watch as India Breaks.

Dravidian Christianity

In a blog written for Huffington Post religion section, Rajiv Malhotra stated various facts about this age old myth called Dravidians were the descendents of Christians. Rajiv emphasized in one of his blog about the european mischievous acts of making Sanskrit as an european originated language, showing Aryan's race have born and prospered in Europe first. On a similar note, Rajiv exposed this Dravidian Christianity. He writes that, 

"Dravidian race theory originated in 19th century European scholarship when colonial and evangelical interests used linguistics and ethnic studies to formulate imaginary histories and races. While European scholars were busy appropriating the Sanskrit classics as the heritage of Europeans, British linguists Francis Ellis and Alexander Campbell worked in India to theorize that the south Indian languages belong to a different family than the north Indian ones. Meanwhile, another colonial scholar, Brian Houghton Hodgson, was promoting the term "Tamulian" as a racial construct, describing the so-called aborigines of India as primitive and uncivilized compared to the "foreign Aryans." 

The narrative that author used is that St. Thomas, the apostle, visited south India and taught Christianity to the great sage, Thiruvalluvar, who was inspired by Christianity, but did not capture St. Thomas' message accurately. This is often portrayed in recently published paintings showing the sage sitting at the feet of St. Thomas, taking notes. Sanskrit is downgraded as a language created by St. Thomas to spread the Christian message to the uncivilized north Indian races.

At the "International Conference on the History of Early Christianity in India." The then senator, Hillary Clinton says:  

"I am confident that the breadth of resources presented during the conference will shed light on the impact of Christianity on medieval and classical India and its effects on the cultural and political climate of India..."

Overall, as far as I can see, the important message of Breaking India is: Do believe in your country, be a patriot, respect your dharmic values. Don't go behind westerners in the name of modern values. You must love India as a country, that has greater values than what most of us knew till date. 

This book sure its a wake up call for every Indian to think deeply and maturely about the future of India and stand up to these western threats, within and outside, so that we may allow our future generations to benefit from the foundation of our eternal sanatana dharma. As the famous Sanskrit verse goes, "Dharmo Rakshati; Rakshitaha" which means, "Protect Your Dharma; Dharma will protect you in-turn". Period.

My Rating:

5/5 (This book is beyond rating!!)