The Search of the Cradle of Civilization

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Summary: Fascinating: more than speculation , less than conclusive
Review: A fascinating read using Vedas, archeology, varied sources to make case against Aryan Invasion theory (conclusive), for very ancient continuous tradition predating Sumner (believable), and for connections between early Indus and later Ganges cultures (also believable).

Until the Indus script is broken and more archeological work done in the Thar we anxiously await further proofs and revisions. Very recent under water cities that likely are about 7000 years old will add to the story when explored. Exposes racial, cultural, disciplinary biases that have held back 'progress' in better understanding early civilization and its continuity in India.

This is far more than idle or imaginative speculation and well worth reading although traditional historians would appreciate more sources of evidence and may be uncomfortable with that which uses early Vedic texts.


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Summary: A FRESH and REVEALING LOOK AT SACRED INDIA!
Review: Although this monumental work may seem far from complete to some, it contains a lot of sound evidence and good insights into a more accurate and believble history of ancient India. The authors did cover a great deal in the space of this book and tied it all together in a consistent and integrated manner.

Although it may take a few more years of archeological digging and the translating of ancient works to further the clearer picture effectively begun by these authors. This book will be a sound basis for rethinking of the real history of this Holy land. They have made a great use of most 20th century (and earlier) discoveries and data to support their views. They did this with the courage to tread a new path of invesigation. This is a great improvement upon the long held myths that were concocted by European scholars who still thought their culture was the origin and geographical center of God's great creation. Many do not realize that the rest of the world was not caught up in flat earth ideas.

I don't think we have heard the last of these three authors, and look forward to any future work they may produce along these lines..

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Summary: The Indus Valley civilisation was made by Dravidians
Review: Anyone who looks at a person from Tamilnadu in the south and a person from Uttar Pradesh in the north can tell that 'India' is not made up of one racial type. 'Aryans' live in the north, the further north the more pure, and 'Dravidians' in the south, the further south the more pure blooded. There was an Aryan invasion, saying otherwise is merely reactionary nonsense, designed to undermine the achievements of the Dravidian people.

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Summary: Found it very useful
Review: I must first make it clear that the book neither presents a Hindu-centric view of history or claims to show that India is the cradle of mankind or that there have been no movements of people into India. It does, however, show -- using archaeological and literary evidence -- that the idea of the Aryans coming into India in the 2nd millennium BC is wrong. The skeletal records in India demonstrate that if there were large scale immigration into India, that must have occurred before 4500 BC (vide the findings of Professor Kennedy of Cornell).

The book does a fantastic job of bringing together evidence from a variety of sources to build its case. It is a very pleasant read, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to students and laypersons, as well as to scholars.

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Summary: Looking for the oldest civilization in the world
Review: In my search for better understanding the history of India or better yet, the search for the roots of vedic civilization this book has been my first stepping stone. This book is filled with facts and dates and its own interpretations that guide the reader through to discovering that Indic/vedic civilization is infact the oldest and largest populated civilization of the world, dating back to over 3000 B.C.

It debunks the theory of Aryan invasion. I am totally convinced that Aryans were not some European race that came down to India and suddenly started writing books, prose and vedas, and moved away from their nomadic & barbaric ways.

It has helped me towards the confirmation that Sumerian civilzation (currently the cradle of civilization) was a small 15000 village, as opposed to the Indic civilization at the same time being 300,000 ppl strong. A metropolis compared to Sumer.

Interesting and must read for anyone interested in getting their facts right about 3000 BC area. It is very relevant information to this day.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Outstanding piece of work! Authors use some of the latest archelogical findings to build a very tight case debunking the controversial Aryan invasion theory. As the authors enunciate wonderfully in this book, Indus Valley Civilization is easily the greatest civilization with their ultimate contribution: Vedas, the Pyramids of Spirit.

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Summary: THE RECLAIMING INDIA'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO GLOBAL CIVILIZATION
Review: This groundbreaking work could be considered as one of the 20th centuries-great contributions and scholarship on the history of humanities true historical progressions. The authors, Frawley, Kak, and Fuererstein have given us the cream of their accumulated erudition in this revealing study of Indian civilizations amazing gifts to the civilized world. It gives a refreshing and sound look at concepts that for too long have been incorrectly bent by the western mind views. This book will go far in helping to correct so many erroneous ideas about India and civilizations past in general, that have been in circulation far too long. It deals with many important matters concerning the flow of civilized knowledge and change, and symbology between India, the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa.

The reader will gain many new insights regarding who did what in the global picture over the last 10,000 years, an excellent resource for students doing oriental, historical and anthropological research. I found this book very concise and believable, written in a simple style that the average reader will appreciate as well.

Also recommended: Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda(x SRF Publishers), also supports many of the concepts put forth in this work and will extend your appreciation of India's contributions, especially in the spiritual area.

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Summary: A Pathbreaking Book
Review: This is a very interesting thesis, and one to reckon with, but one has to remain suspicious of the basic reasoning given the difficulty of correctly assessing the evidence as rival agendas work it over. The older view of the Aryan invasion certainly deserved a challenge, but the desire to Aryanize the Indus civilization suggests a wish to cover up the long suspected possibility that the great yogas have nothing to do with Vedism, or Indo-Europeans. And the idea of a Saraswati civilization on a larger scale than Sumer and Egypt is again not reliably demonstrated as yet. The whole of the Neolithic period was more advanced than we think, but nothing compared with the structural,if not purely cultural, scale of the fist great mega-civilizations. It is an issue of scale, not simply content.

In fact, one of the great obstacles to studying yoga is the entanglement in its Hindu context and history, where, despite its great charm and endless interest, the study of the Vedas simply confuses the issue. As the Buddhists attempted to make clear the core teaching needs to be extracted from the syncretism.
These are still open questions. It may well be there is some truth to this new perspective, in the earlier prescence of Aryans of India, but it still doesn't follow that the world of Patanjali evolves from Vedism. And the telltale signature of layers is clearly evident in later Hinduism, with its traces of the Siva cult.
Another (speculative) version of all this simply sees the Aryan appearance earlier than thought, but still finding an indigenous culture going as far back as the early Neolithic with religious elements that are pre-Vedic. In fact, Danielou in his History of India suggests something like this. The strange combination of advanced spiritual teaching (perhaps older still) and a Neolithic culture context with its cults of Siva makes as much sense.
Anyway, this provocative book is an important study, taken in neutral without the claims it has already been proven.


Rating:
Summary: A Pathbreaking Book
Review: This was the first book to debunk the Aryan Invasion Theory, and it remains the best in presenting the scholarship from a variety of areas and showing step by step how the old paradigm is dead. As the most widely read book on ancient India, it has had great impact on the layperson as well academics. I use it as a text in my Indian Civ class.

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Summary: This is not a book for beginners
Review: When I decided that it was time to extend my studies of the antiquity beyond that of the Middle East into India, I looked at the reviews of several books on Indian history, and the title of this book captured my attention because the current focus of my studies is on the development of the earliest civilizations. Having read only a few of the reviews, I did not realize that I had acquired a book on a rather controversial subject.

In retrospect perhaps, I should have been more careful as my knowledge of Indian history was somewhat sparse. Because the thesis of this is primarily based upon a reconciliation of the archaeological record with the Vedic scriptures, I now realize that it is important to read it with a more complete knowledge of Ancient India than I had. That is not to criticize the book in any way, because it contains a plethora of information about which I was almost completely ignorant. I think it was also helpful to my understanding that the book is separated into two parts, with Part One focussing on the analysis of the archaeological findings, and Part Two focussing on cultural and spiritual legacy of Ancient India.

Part One includes an overview of Vedic writings themselves, a detailed discussion on the 19th century theory of the Aryan invasion, the cities of the Indus valley, the reconstruction after the catastrophic drying up of the Sarasvati River at around 1900BC, and what the Vedic scriptures have to say about "The Land of the Seven Rivers". The later chapters on the Indus Sarasvati script, and the Neolithic town of Merhgarh is rounded out by a final chapter giving seventeen arguments about why the Aryan invasion never happened. So far so good, except that I don't know enough about ancient India to be able to determine how selective the authors were being about their facts. But at least I felt that the authors had provided cogent arguments to support their position.

Part Two is another matter. The first chapter on the spiritual heritage of India was very interesting because I knew so very little about it and the description of the various forms of Yoga, and ten key metaphysical ideas and practice of Hinduism was most helpful to my understanding. But it was Chapter 11 on the Birth of Science and Ritual with its description of "Fire Altars and Heavenly mathematics" where I started to run into trouble, and particularly with the theories relating the number of books in the Vedas to the fire altars and the astronomical data about the planets. From that point on I could only read the remaining chapters with decreasing comprehension and consequently decreasing acceptance. Somewhere in this area of the book there is a disconnect where you have to take a leap of faith in order to be able to accept what you are reading. Since my focus was on knowing more about the basic data than in its interpretation, I could not bring myself to spend the time to study these final chapters in the way I had done on the earlier chapters. I obviously am in a state of "insufficient data".

One final point. I decided that I should reread all the customer reviews of this book, because I find they often provide useful insights. I am happy to have done so, because I find I am not alone. I also wanted to avoid being too repetitive as well as to resist the temptation of saying "Me too".

In summary, this was probably not the best selection for my first book on India. That caution apart, the book is easy to read and for the most part very interesting. For Part One at least, I found that I could easily summarize for myself the facts of what I had learnt, but I found it almost impossible, however, to do that for the final chapters of Part Two, and in the end I gave up. Nevertheless, the book has given me the incentive to find out more about the Harrapan and Indus River civilizations, and I now have three books to read on that subject, which hopefully will tell me whether this book has based its theories on all of the essential facts about these civilizations. As to the truth of myth of the Aryan invasion, I think the authors have made a good case, but I do want to read the views of other historians before making up my mind about that.