Speaking about India during the period starting the 3rd century BC and ending around the 12-13th century CE, William Dalrymple says: “What Greece was first to Rome, then to the rest of the Mediterranean and European World, so at this period India was to South East and Central Asia and even to China”.

In other words, India was one of the great and dominant intellectual and cultural forces in the world, on par with other civilisations like Greece and China.

In an interview to mark the launch of his recent book The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, Dalrymple talks about three broad and big narratives, which are also the core of his book. They are the spread of Buddhism from India to China and Central Asia and all the way to Siberia and Mongolia, the spread of Hinduism and Sanskritik culture to South East Asia all the way to Cambodia and Java and the spread of Indian concepts of mathematics and astronomy to the Arab world and thence to Europe.

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