This book is designed for the intelligent yet uninformed reader who wishes to begin understanding India. It seeks to bring together, in a simple and compact form, material drawn from scholarly studies of different periods and phases of Indian history and culture. The selection is personal, serving as an answer to the author’s own questions and as a starting point for the reader.

The book suggests how the past remains alive in the present of India, offering a basis for comprehending today’s reality. It ties together details—whether living customs, surviving architecture, or works of art—with the causal stories behind them. These stories are woven through the thread of time for the armchair reader, while for the traveler in India, they are indexed by place to help interpret temples, palaces, and monuments in their context.

India cannot be contained within the covers of a single volume, but this book offers glimpses of its beauty and drama. It does not attempt to analyze modern social or political problems directly, but instead highlights the historical roots and intricate background from which they emerge.