A cultural and intellectual history of Ancient India

Sitting down with the Bhagavad Gita at the age of sixteen opened many new channels in my mind. Ever since, for the best part of thirty years, I have been searching for a book on Indian thought that ties it all up, coherently and succinctly.

Write the book you want to read, they say—and this, here, is it.

While covering all the important areas, you will learn:

• How the Vedic gods are related to the Greek and Roman ones.


• The secret of the self that even the gods were desperate to learn.


• How to stop suffering, according to the Buddha.


• How to achieve enlightenment, according to the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains.


• How the swastika came to be appropriated by the Nazis.


• How Gandhi's non-violence is rooted in Indian philosophy.


• Why the Kama Sutra is about a lot more than sex.


• What yoga's actually about—not even my yoga teacher knew this.


• How the Gupta Golden Age led to the invention of zero, chess, and nose jobs.


• And much, much more.

Never before has the history of Indian thought and culture been laid out as clearly and succinctly as in Burton's book. —Prof Nicolas Martin, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zürich

The parallels between Indian and Greek philosophy amazed me… This book will hold your interest until the last page. —Courtnee Turner Hoyle for Readers' Favorite