Issues and Analysis on Usefulness of Literary account of foreigners in writing the history of Ancient India for UPSC Civil Services Examination (General Studies) Preparation

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    Usefulness of Literary account of foreigners in writing the history of Ancient India

    India is a dawn of civilisation and since the advent of civilisation, India has been attractive to all the world's travellers and most of them had been coming to India to quench their thirst of knowledge and visiting India.Ancient Travellers were very profound and were agent of civilisation and accounts written by them are truthful and very important source for the establishing facts and joining different pieces of ancient history together.

    We can establish the importance of different travellers in following way :

    • Megasthenes: Around 290BC-300BC Greek Tavaeller.He was the first known foreign traveller to India, His Book Indica is one the most important book to establish pre Mauryan empire in India
    • Faxian: around 400 CE: Chinese traveller Faxian came into India around 400 AD in Guptas period and his accounts are one of the most important figure to establish the history of Gupta period
    • Huen Tsang: Chinese traveller He came in Harsha Vardhan period, and so far his account are known to be best and most correct one to establish the history of India in 6th CE
    • Albaruni: Came in 1000 CE era and establish facts and social life of that era
    • Ibn e batuta: Moroccan Came in Tualaq era and wrote his accounts in that era
    • Nicole de conti and Abdur Razzaq: French came under Vijayanagar empire and many others

    Literary accounts written by them are very important due to following :

    • They gave idea about the political power situation at that era: as Huan Tsang told that Pulkeshin II defeated Harsha
    • They give social life at that time: such as al Baruni's account tells that how Indians did not like muslim invasions and practices
    • Financial conditions: These account tell how rich was india such as meghasthense times tell india was too rich to be get attacked
    • Ibn e batuta tells about river Ganga's water was so pure that it did not get spoiled even in 3-4 months
    • Daily life, Trade, Trading routes, Wars, victories, architectures, art and culture, different building stone statues etc everything was detailed in these accounts.

    These travellers account has been taken into deciding India's History and establishing facts as much of Indian history books were destroyed in Muslim invasions.These travellers are not like todays travellers in-fact they were themselves students who came to learn in India and made our history rich.Literary foriegners accounts becomes very valuable in present context as they provide a direction to shape ancient history of India in new dimensions.


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