Multi-award-winning Scottish writer and historian William Dalrymple lives near New Delhi in India.
Neil and I were privileged to have visited India many moons ago. One place that impressed us particularly was Mamallapuram in the state of Tamil Nadu, a UNESCO World Unesco Heritage site containing monuments that date back to the 7th and 8th centuries.
Now a sleepy coastal town, it was once one of the largest trading ports in a region once ruled by the powerful Pallava dynasty. Evidence of the Pallavas’ trade and influence is can be seen in the temples that remain. This town played a pivotal role in the spread of ancient Indian culture, religion and trade further east, including to Cambodia, Indonesia, Korea and China.
This is the subject of the latest book by William Dalrymple, entitled ‘The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World’, just published in September by Bloomsbury. It covers the period from 250BC to 1200AD and persuasively argues that the ‘Golden Road’, a maritime trade route from India to the rest of the world, predates the Silk Road.
The west of India traded with the Roman Empire. More Roman coins, for instance, have been found in India than anywhere outside of Rome. Romans’ love for the spices and textiles of India grew as the Empire became more and more decadent. “Through these waters, passed boatload and boatload of India exports, while in reverse the wealth of Rome drained into Indian pockets.” Indeed, so many gold and silver coins were being exchanged for goods that Roman administrator Pliny the Elder described India as the ‘sink of the world’s most precious metal’.
Monks from monasteries in India also travelled around the world preaching. They brought Buddhism to China, for instance, where they were welcomed. They eventually went on to Japan and Korea, spreading philosophy by peaceful means. Famous temples like Angkor Wat, constructed as Hindu temples, were gradually transformed into Buddhist places of worship.
Indian ideas spread through the world too – ideas such as the mathematical concept of zero. In fact, over half of the world’s population today lives in areas where Indian culture or religion are or once were dominant.
William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India’s oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia in what makes for an unforgettable read.
In his 2019 book, ‘The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company’, Dalrymple focuses on a later period in Indian history, when the East India Company became an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business.
The book opens with a scene in 1599 in Threadneedle Street in the city of London, where a group of merchants and explorers gathered to prepare a petition to Queen Elizabeth I to set up a company to venture into the East Indies to ‘make trade’. At that time the Portuguese had made inroads into Goa in India and the Dutch into Indonesia. England had been slow off the mark.
Moving on to 1742, we hear the story of Robert Clive, who was paramount in the rise of the East India Company to the point where it pretty much ruled India up until the Rebellion, or the First War of Independence as Indian people themselves call it.
When Clive turned 17, in 1742, his father sent him off to India as a clerk in the East India Company. Four years later, in 1746, during the French attack of Madras, Clive’s true nature began to become apparent. He refused to give his word that he would not bear arms against the French, slipped out of town avoiding the French patrols, and made it to Fort St David, where his ‘military’ career, as such, began.
He led the attack in the Battle of Plassey in 1765, when the young Mughal emperor was defeated and forced to establish a new administration in his richest provinces. Run by English merchants who collected taxes using a ruthless private army, this new regime saw the East India Company transform itself, causing anarchy as the merchants took control and plundered their way through India. Clive himself became an extremely wealthy man.
After ‘The Rebellion’, the British Government took control of the company in 1874 and formerly dissolved it by an Act of Parliament… and so began the British Raj.
Both books of these fascinating books by William Dalrymple are being read by the History Book Club at Tertulia bookshop this month.
Bríd Conroy and her husband, Neil Paul, run Tertulia bookshop at The Quay, Westport.
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