Roman port of Aquileia

Two thousand years ago, Aquileia on the Adriatic coast of north-east Italy was one of the biggest cities of the world. Today it is a small town with a population of few thousand persons. This is how the wheels of history move, leaving behind ruins and stories. This post is about discovering Aquileia.

If you holidaying in a neighbouring seaside town like Lignano, Bibione or Caorle, visit Aquileia for a wonderful day trip. Aquileia is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Roman Town of Aquileia

Aquileia is situated in the north-eastern part of Italy, not far from the modern day Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Before the arrival of the Romans, Celtic people lived here and called it Akylis. At that time it was an important centre for the trade of amber.

Aquileia became a Roman colony in 181 BCE. It was the Roman frontier-town in the north for launching military campaigns in the northern and eastern Europe. Around 58 BC, Julius Ceasar established here his command centre (the Circum Aquileie) and it became the capital of the whole region. Around 300 CE, the emperor Maximillian built a big palace in Aquileia.

Situated on the banks of river Natiso and just 13 km from the sea, Aquileia was an important port city controlling the local trade. Caesar visited it many times and a good road network connected it to other cities like Bologna and Genoa.

At its peak the city's population was one hundred thousand and it was one of the biggest cities in the world. However, by the fifth century CE, the western part of Roman empire were already in decline and thus, slowly Aquileia lost its strategic importance. Around 1,100 CE though the city had become less important, it was still a big Roman town and a new big cathedral was built here. In the medieval period, it passed under the Republic of Venice and then in 19th century, under the Austrian-Hungerian empire.

More recently, during the First World war, fighting took place in Aquileia. After the war, Aquileia became part of Italy.

Today Aquileia is a tiny hamlet with a population of only 3,500 persons. However because of its history, it is one of the major archaeological sites in northern Italy.

Roman ruins of Aquileia

Passing armies, wars, floods, earthquakes and the passage of time, have destroyed all the Roman period buildings of Aquileia. Some archaeological excavations have brought out the old roads and foundations of important buildings such as amphitheatre, forum and the port.

Cathedral of Aquileia

Aquileia has a beautiful basilica church from 11th century, built over an older church. The bell tower of the basilica is visible from far away. The facade of the church is in Romanesque-early Gothic style.

Outside the basilica, a column carries the statue of a she-wolf feeding two babies Romolo and Remo, the symbol of imperial Rome.

Inside, the basilica has a much older (from 4th century CE) wonderful original mosaic floor and beautiful frescoes on the walls. A transparent glass pathway allows the visitors to walk above the floor to see these mosaics and the frescoes from close, without damaging them. The frescoes from 12th century depict the life of saint Hermagoras, the first bishop of Aquileia.

War Cemetery

Behind the basilica a path connects this area to the ruins of the old Roman port. This area also has a military cemetery from the first world war.

The cemetery also has the tomb of Saint Hermagoras, the first bishop of Aquileia from 3rd century CE.

Candia Memorial

A round shaped monument called "Candia Memorial" was built in Aquileia in 1956. The stones and materials from a two thousand years old tomb, discovered in 1952 in the nearby Roncolon of Fiumicello, were used to build this memorial.

The funds for this reconstruction came from Marcello Candia who wanted a memorial in the memory of his father, Camillo Candia. Thus a two thousand years old Roman tomb was used to build a modern-day memorial. Marcello Candia was a rich industrialist of Aquileia, who later emigrated and dedicated his life to serving the persons affected with leprosy in Brazil. Therefore, apart from the Roman monument of Aquileia that is known by his name, Marcello Candia's name is also associated with the Marituba leprosarium in Brazil.

Conclusions

Today when you visit Aquileia, its magnificent ruins give some idea of the importance of this ancient town during the expansion of Roman empire. Yet, it is difficult to imagine that this far away, isolated place was one of the biggest cities in the ancient world.

For me, one of the most beautiful part of the visit to Aquileia was the mosaics of its Basilica Cathedral. Even if you can't visit it, you can admire this church and its mosaics and frescoes in a virtual tour on internet.

However if you are visting this part of Italy for some seaside holidays, do visit Aquileia and the nearby island of Grado.

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Discovering Mumbai: Kanheri Caves

Few persons visiting India’s commercial capital Mumbai have heard of the Kanheri caves. Even less seem to have visited it. This post is about this forgotten jewel of Mumbai that deserves to be seen.

Kanheri caves are rock-cut Buddhist caves in the Borivali suburb of Mumbai. References to king Yajna Satakarni in one of the cave inscriptions shows that its oldest parts date back to at least 2nd century BCE. It was one of the most prosperous Buddhist monk communities, functioning actively for a period of more than a thousand years.

Modern Mumbai is composed of 7 islands that were merged together through land reclamation in the 19th century. Before the merger, Borivali and the Kanheri caves were part of the Salsette island.

Rock-cut Caves in India

Carving rocky hills to create caves for human dwellings in India started about 2,500 years ago. One of the oldest rock-cut caves in India are at Udaygiri near Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, dating back to 5 century BCE. Among the twenty caves of Udaygiri, 1 is dedicated to Jainism while the remaining 19 caves are dedicated to Hindu Gods. Some other rock-cut caves, such as the Pandava Caves in Panchmarhi, also seem to be equally old.

Other caves in India older than the rock-cut caves, such as the prehistoric Bhimbetaka caves near Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), are natural caves.

The rock-cut caves were carved mainly for Buddhist and Jainist monks. They were built over periods of centuries. On the other hand, rock-cut structures linked with Hinduism are usually temples, such as the temple complex in Mahabalipuram in eastern coast of south India dating back to about 700 BCE. This could have been because Hinduism mostly has individuals or small groups in search of God and spirituality, while it lacks centralised monastic orders and therefore, did not need a large number of caves in one place for the monks.

Many Hindu temples contain “Garbhgriha” (Womb caves) where the deities are placed. In many old temples, like in the Kamakhaya temple in Guwahati (Assam), such Garbhgrihas are rock-cut structures. Though the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was created in 1861 under the British colonial rule, it has not been able to carry out precise dating of most of these structures. Thus, usually the information available regarding these ancient rock-cut caves is based only on myths and popular stories.

Buddhist Caves in Maharashtra, India

The tradition of carving out caves in rocks and hills for creating Buddhist monasteries probably started after the death of Gautam Buddha. Except for the Saspol caves in Kashmir, all the other well-known Buddhist cut-rock caves are located in the state of Maharashtra in central-west part of India. These include the famous Ajanta and Ellora caves from 3rd century BCE.

A total of 27 significant Buddhist caves have been identified in Maharashtra.  Five of these caves are in Mumbai – Elephanta (Gharapuri), Jogeshwari, Mahakali, Mandapeshwar and Kanheri; while another 8 caves are close to Mumbai, going towards Lonavla and Pune - Bhaja, Karla, Bedse, Ghorawadi, Lenyadri, Shelarwadi and Shirwal.

The presence of these caves in Maharashtra indicates that from 5th century BCE till about early medieval times, there were a lot of flourishing communities of Buddhist monks in this part of India. These seemed to have close relationships with the seafaring trading communities.

Why did rock-cut Buddhist monasteries remain circumscribed only to central-western parts of India? Why there were no similar Buddhist monasteries in other parts of India? Was it linked to the coastal trade routes from the west coast of India? Was it a geological issue that other parts did not have rocks suitable for making caves? Was it because the artisans involved in making the caves were concentrated only in this part of India? Perhaps some experts can answer this question.

Reaching Kanheri Caves

Kanheri Caves can be reached easily through the public transport of Mumbai. Borivali local train station is just a couple of kilometres away. From the train station, a 20 minutes walk or frequent buses bring you to the entrance of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), the wild-life park of Mumbai. A shuttle bus service connects the entrance gate to the Kanheri caves, around 6 km away inside SGNP.

If you come with your own vehicle you have to pay the vehicle entry fee at the entrance gate while the tickets for entering the Kanheri caves are sold near the caves-entrance.

Kanheri Caves

The name Kanheri comes from two words - Kanha or Krishna (Black) and Giri (mountain). The name refers to Kanha hill with the dark coloured basaltic rocks common in this area. Basaltic rocks are formed from volcanic lava. The darker coarse grain basaltic rock, as found in Kanheri, is also called Gabbro or the Black Granite.

There are 109 rock-cut caves in Kanheri. The earliest caves date back to 2nd century BCE while the most recent caves are from 1000 CE. It seems that these caves were part of a thriving learning centre, where student monks came to study the teachings of Buddha. It was also used as a resting and storage point for the seafaring traders.

Most of these caves were used as living rooms for individuals. These are mostly small caves without any specific adornments and have a rock platform to be used for sitting and sleeping. The area also has some bigger halls closer to the entrance, which were used for prayers and meetings.

The first cave close to the entrance has pillars similar to those found at Elephanta. However, this two storied cave was never completed, probably due to some defect in the rock structure. (Image below)

The second cave is divided into three parts, each hosting a stupa. Each of these stupas is accompanied by rock-cut sculptures of Buddha, almost all of them in the Vyakhyana mudra. For example, the sculpture near the first stupa has a sitting Buddha in Vyakhana mudra, holding a lotus and with two lions at his feet. Two guards stand behind him along with two flying gandharvas. One of the walls has a large beautiful statue of Avalokiteshwara form of Buddha. (a part of Cave 2 in the image below)

The third cave from the entrance is the most beautiful. It has an entrance gate with guard-sculptures.

Entrance leads to a courtyard and then a covered anteroom with giant Buddha statues on the two side walls.

The anteroom walls also have sculptures of some couples, who probably donated money for the construction of this temple. These were rich merchants of the area and thus, these sculptures give an idea of local society of that period. Both men and women seem to be given equal importance and both are wearing loin clothes and jewellery while upper parts of their bodies are uncovered. They all wear a head-gear and they have something on their shoulders connected to their head-gear, perhaps for holding a clothe covering their backs? They are not wearing any kind of footwear. (image below)

The main hall of the cave temple is spacious - 26 metres long, 12 metres wide and 15 metres high, with pillars on the side walls. The roof of the hall shows the signs of the wooden rafters, which covered it originally. A 5 metres high stupa stands closer to the deep end of the hall. An inscription found in this hall explains that the hall was built in 2nd century BCE.

Another important cave is cave 11, located at a higher level above the entrance caves. It is known as Darbar cave. Around 20 metres wide and 8 metres deep, it has rows of low rock-benches.

Some persons believe that this was a teaching area and thus consider Kanheri as a learning centre. Others think that it was a meeting room, perhaps used for a Buddhist council meeting. It has a covered verandah with 8 pillars and two cisterns on the sides. 

When I saw it, I thought that it resembled a hostel mess. But it also has some beautiful sculptures on its walls, and I think that an eating room was unlikely to host beautiful sculptures. So I don't know if it could have been an eating place, with kitchens and store rooms around the main hall and the two water cisterns. To confirm it we need to check if there are signs of fires in the rooms used as kitchens.

One of the Buddha sculpture has Buddha shown sitting with his feet on the ground - I had never seen a similar statue of Buddha before. (In the image below)

Recently (January 2016) another group of 7 caves was discovered not far from the Kanheri complex in the forest surrounding it. Further excavations of this area is awaited to understand the role of these caves.

Inscriptions in Kanheri Caves

There are more than 70 inscriptions in Kanheri. Three scripts have been used in these inscriptions – Brahmi, Devnagari and Pahlavi. The inscriptions provide information about local rulers such as Vashishtiputra Satakarni, about the supervisors, artisans and artists who worked here, and general information such as a list of local birds. Most common inscriptions are about the gifts of caves and cisterns by the rich merchants of nearby towns such as Sopara and Kalyan.

One of the caves has an inscription about a “Tooth cave”. It is thought that this cave temporarily hosted a tooth, a relic of Buddha, which was later placed in a big stupa near the great temple hall. More recent excavations of this stupa did not show any tooth, though a brass plate was found. It is thought that the tooth was removed from the stupa in some earlier excavations. It is not clear if this tooth relic was in any way related to the famous tooth relic in a stupa in Sri Lanka. According to some experts, the brass plate found in Kanheri refers to 494-95 BCE and thus propose it as the oldest rock-cut Buddhist caves in India.

The image below shows one of the epigraphs near the Darbar hall (cave 11). Close to the epigraph is a bass-relief showing a strange figure which reminded me of the bull horns. I wondered if it was linked to Pashupati Nath (Shiva) worship or if it could be linked to the Pashupati seals found in Indus valley (image below).

Water Collection and Conservation Systems of Kanheri

A water stream flows between the northern and southern hills of Kanheri. One of the inscription mentions the construction of a dam for the collection of water. However, the caves are on the higher parts of the southern hill and thus going down to collect water from the stream must have been difficult. For this reason, as well to answer the water needs of a large number of persons, a detailed water collection and conservation system was designed in Kanheri including a network of canals and cisterns, as shown in the image below.

I visited Kanheri around the end of the dry season and was surprised to find that many cisterns of the monastery were full of water. This traditional knowledge of water collection and conservation seems to have been lost from many rural communities of India which face regular droughts and water-shortages.

Some Specific Things to See in Kanheri

There were a few other things in Kanheri caves which struck me as interesting. These included the numerous steps carved in the rocks for going from one place to another. Some of these were very long. These seemed like snakes winding on the rock surfaces.

Another curious find were small holes in the surface of rocks on the top of the hills, as shown in the image below. When I saw them I thought that they were holes above the cisterns for a ritual use similar to the stepwell of Santa Cristina in Sardinia island of Italy. However on closer look, these were not deep holes and were closed at the bottom. I wondered if these holes were made for fixing the bamboo umbrella stands to avoid the sun or may be for fixing poles for hanging out the washed clothes for drying.

Views of the Borivali high rise buildings from the top of the hills, behind the dense forests surrounding the Kanheri rock caves, were beautiful.

Conclusions

I have been to the more famous Elephanta caves on an island near the Gateway of India. It has a beautiful Trimurti scultpure. However, Elephanta does not have the rugged beauty of Kanheri. I was really surprised by this visit because I was not expecting to see such a vast and imposing structure with such beautiful sculptures.

I have not yet visited the other three rock-cut Buddhist caves in Mumbai and and if they are half as beautiful as Kanheri, it will be worthwhile to go and look for them. 

The large number of caves in and around modern Mumbai also means that this area was already inhabited many centuries before the British came and developed the city of Bombay in the 19th century.

If you live in or are only visiting Mumbai and are interested in the rich Indian cultural heritage, do visit Kanheri.

Acknowledgements

I found some useful archaeological information about the caves in an article by Saurabh on the Indian History and Architecture website.

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Ancient World history in Indian Scriptures - Context

This is part 2 of an article in three parts, about the ancient world and Indian history in ancient Hindu sacred books, based on the works of eminent Hindi writer, Acharya Chatur Sen. Part one of this article introduced the writings of Sen. This second part examines the context of writings by Sen. The third part presents the events described by Chatur Sen in his book, Vayam Rakshamah.

All writers need to do research, when they are writing about something with which they are not familiar. Thus, for all historical novels, writers need to research that particular historical period. Probably Acharya Chatur Sen started his research when he decided to write about "Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu", or perhaps the research was started for some other book, and then it led to writing of this book.

If there was ten years of research in the ancient Hindu sacred books, you don't really see it in "Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu", because the book is true to its fiction form. The result of the long studies is reflected in the background and characterization, but it is not flaunted.

Six years later, in 1955, when "Vayam Rakshamah" came out, the situation had changed. The book is presented as historical fiction about the life of Raavan, son of an Aryan, Polsatya muni, and a Daitya girl. Yet, after the initial chapters, the book forgets about Raavan and starts with other stories about origins of different clans and their movements in different parts of the world. Entire chapters are devoted to explanations that have nothing to do with Raavan's story. In that sense, the historical research is not just for bringing authenticity to a historical novel, but is an integral part of the narrative, making it a mix of fiction and non-fiction. I can't say if it was because the writer was not able to control himself or it was a deliberate attempt to mix what he perceived as "real history" with the fiction of the story, so that it is read by larger number of persons?

In fact, while reading Vayam Rakshamah, at times I was feeling a little disoriented at the sudden intrusion of long descriptions of different clans and who married whom, etc. Sen tries to explain the history of world, how ancient people spread out from central Asia to Indonesia, Australia, Norway and central America. Another proof of this mixture between historical research and fiction writing is the publication of the companion volume with explanations about the research, something unknown in fiction world of Hindi literature.

Sen did not limit himself to study of ancient Hindu books, but also looked at historical and archaeological publications of his time. In Vayam Rakshamah, he mentions about the findings and theories of eminent archaeologists and historians of his time like Dr D. Tera, Dr. Frankfort, D. Morgan, Dr. Landon, Sir John Marshall. Then he writes:

Now I am daring to contradict the theories of these archaeologists. I want to take the places described by these western experts such as Susha, Elam, Saptasindhu, Pralay and their descriptions of different groups of people living there, together I also want to take more disorderly descriptions in ancient books like Rigved, Brahman, Vishnu-Puran, Matasay-Puran, etc. Then on the basis of these considerations, I want to make some foggy word-pictures of pre-vedic times. I will describe these people who were living in those times, friendly or warring, their names, habitates and Jaati, as given in our Puran but that also find an echo in ancient histories of Persia, Arab, Africa, Misr (Egypt) and central Asia.

He links ancient Indian mythological stories such as that of Narsimha, Hiranyakashyap and Prahalad to the archaeological findings in Assyrians, that also talk of Narsimha, as shown in some images of engraved panels from Assyrian culture in the British Museum of London:

Some clarifications
Before proceeding to the descriptions of Sen's world history, it is necessary to make some clarifications. Acharya Chatur Sen was not a scientist or a historian, and the history he presents in Vayam Rakshamah has its share of contradictions, specially in terms of names of people and the timeline of when the events happened. This may be because the sources of his information are themselves contradictory.

Another problem is caused by persons of same name, who are apparently alive after events that must have taken centuries to unfold. This could be because they are using clan names, where same name continues though it refers to different persons.

Understanding the relationships between people is very difficult and Sen explains this a result of possibility of getting married or having children among different family members, including sons with their mothers or brothers with sisters. For example, Varun, the eldest son of Aditi is both, Surya's elder brother as well as his uncle (father's elder brother). The initial societies are described as matrilineal.

Timeline itself is a problem and Sen recognises it by saying that the times described in Puran are exaggerated hundreds or thousands of times. He has resolved this issue by estimating the time of events described in different Puran during the first six generations of Manvanter (children of Manu, who had some kind of leadership role), and using that as a yardstick for calculating times of all other events. In this way, the period of what ancient Hindu books call "Satyug", is about 1300 years.

Sen has given names of different places that he talks about, asserting that similar names still exist in those regions but through Google map, I was unable to find those places. For example, Atri river in Aryaviryan (Azerbaijan) near Kashyap sea (Caspian sea) described by Sen is supposed to have given the name Atraman to that region, but I couldn't find any such river or place in Azerbaijan. This could be because Sen is taking names from Arabic or Persian sources while the names in English or other local languages of these countries may be different.

In the book Sen presents all the characters as ordinary living beings, though many of them are today known as religious characters or gods in Hindu mythologies such as Varun, Brahma, Vishnu, Indra, Narad, etc. Basing himself on ancient descriptions in the Hindu sacred literature, some of his characters seem to be in contradiction with their present images. For example, Indra and to a lesser degree, Vishnu, are both presented as clever and ruthless persons, who are willing to adopt any means to gain power and wealth. This could have another reason, why Sen was worried that some persons may not like his depiction of Hinduism in this book.

One final point about calling the texts consulted by Acharya Chatur Sen as "ancient Hindu texts". This is because these are part of Puran, Brahman, Upanishad and Ved, etc. the texts safeguarded by Hindu Brahmin traditions, though they actually talk of periods centuries before the establishment of "Hindu" traditions, in much later Aryan and Anaryan people in what came to be called Bharat Varsh.

He locates the origin of different groups of persons living in India to the region south of Kashyap sagar (Caspian sea), where he identifies geographical places that are part of Hindu mythology such as Ksheersagar and Vaikunthdham. He also explains the ruins of Harappa and Mohan Jo'daro as ruins from attacks of Indra on the kingdom of Vritra. The images below showing the seals from Harappa and Mohan Jo'daro are from British Museum in London:

With this background, now we are ready to move into the actual, though grossly simplified, descriptions of the world history and more specifically Indian history in Acharya Chatur Sen’s writings.

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 End of part 2 - Part one of this article introduced the writings of Sen.  The third part presents the events described by Chatur Sen in his book, Vayam Rakshamah.

Ancient world history in Indian scriptures - Introduction

This is first part of an article in 3 parts on ancient World History and Indian history. It looks at the ancient history of world and India, given in Hindu sacred books including Veda, Puran and Brahman stories, based upon the works of an eminent Hindi writer, Acharya Chatur Sen (1891-1960). Part 2 explains the context of writings by Sen, while part 3 presents the main ideas of world history in Sen's work.

Introduction to some works of Acharya Chatur Sen

Acharya Chatur Sen, a trained Ayurvedic doctor, was a prolific Hindi writer and published 186 books including 32 novels, more than 450 short stories, and many non-fiction books on themes as diverse as politics, history and Ayurveda. Apart from a strong interest in ancient Hindu sacred books, he also wrote about history of Islam in India.

I have read two of his works related to ancient India -

(a) Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu (वैशाली की नगरवधु, The courtesan of Vaishali, first published in 1949 by J. S. Sant Singh and Sons Delhi for Hindi Vishwabharati) about a courtesan called Ambapali during the time of Gautama Buddha, a few centuries before Jesus.

(b) Vayam Rakshamah (वयं रक्षामः, We are Raksha, first published in 1955; from the edition published by Rajpal and Sons, Delhi 2009) about Raavan, the mythological king from Ramayana.

Each of these books carries a long list of ancient texts that were consulted by Chatur Sen for writing that book. Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu, the first book in this series, was dedicated to Jawaharlal Nehru and in preface of this book Chatur Sen had explained that though a work of fiction, the book was attempt to remove the "black curtain that has hidden the defeat of religion, literature, royal governance and culture of Aryas, and the win of progressive cultures of mixed races, during thousands of years, that have not been tackled by historians." He had also explained that writing that book had taken "ten years of research in the cultures of Aryas, Boddh, Jain and Hindus".

By the time, "Vayam Rakshamah" came out in 1955, Chatur Sen was 63 years old and not keeping very well. In the dramatic preface of this book, Sen declared that "he had put in all the learnings and knowledge, both emotional from his heart and logical, from his brain, into writing this book and he had no more left to contribute." About his own mental condition he had written, that like horses, bulls and donkeys, who can die while pulling heavy burdens, he might also die because of burden of writing this book."

At that time, he was also worried that his depiction of ancient history of Aryas and other races may not be accepted easily as it touched on areas that can be seen as obscene. At the same time, he felt that he had to speak the truth as he had understood it from the studies of the ancient Hindu books:

In this book, I have presented the forgotten word-pictures of different human clans such as Nar, Naag, Dev, Daitya, Danav, Arya, Anarya, etc. from pre-vedic times, who had been seen through the coloured lenses of religion and mythologised into gods of the heavens. I have the courage to present them as human beings. "Vayam Rakshamah" is certainly a work of fiction, but at the same time it is the result of deep study of Ved, Puran, philosophy and foreign texts ... it the summary of my life's work.

This book was accompanied by an accompanying explanatory book, to justify and reference whatever he had written in the book, with notes from different sources that Sen had studied.

Upinder Singh in "A history of ancient and early medieval India" (Dorling Kindersley India, 2008) had written, "History is not one but many stories, only a few of which have yet been written. ... there are two parallel images of ancient South Asia - one based on literary sources, the other on archeology." About the ancient texts, Singh wrote, "Ancient texts are much older than their surviving scripts, and have a life of their own. They have grown and changed over time, and this process of growth and change - the period of composition - could in some cases have lasted for hundred of years before they were compiled or given a more or less final shape."

The descriptions of ancient Indian and world histories, from analysis of ancient Indian texts, have been attempted many times, by scholars from different disciplines, from India and many other countries. Continuing archaeological excavations as well as new technologies such as satellite mapping imaging, have provided new corroborative evidences to the the different theories.

Still I think that it could be interesting to look at the conclusions about the ancient world events during prehistorical times, at which Acharya Chatur Sen had arrived through his decades long studies. I don't think that people have seriously taken a systematic look at the literary works of Indian authors writing in Hindi or other Indian languages, in terms of analysing their ideas and their implications.

This article is mainly based on the descriptions in Sen's book, "Vayam Rakshamah".

End of part one of a three parts article. Part 2 explains the context of writings by Chatur Sen, while part 3 presents the main ideas of world history in Chatur Sen's work.

Note: Special thanks to Sanjay Bengani and Sameer Lal for the image of Acharya Chatur Sen!