India. Short story. From the oldest civilization to the present day

From medicine to mathematics, from philosophy to astronomy, from literature to music, from Buddhism to Bollywood - for five millennia India played a noticeable role in the Asian region and throughout the world. At the same time, India had the ability to adopt and absorb foreign ideas that Javaharlal Ner compared with the Palimpsest - an ancient manuscript, which was rewritten many times without removing the previous layer completely. In the book of a prominent specialist in South Asia, John Zubzhitsky briefly and capaciously summarizes the complex and not similar stages of Indian history.

"India is the oldest civilization of the world and the largest democracy. This is the Center for the Union of East and Western Asia, as well as the confident guard of the Indian Ocean. ... Unlike the history of China, which can be clearly divided into periods of the rule of dynasties, such as Yuan, Ming or Qing, the past of India is replete with many centers of power, desperately fighting among themselves . Even during the heyday of the empire, not one of the three great Indian empires - Mauryev, Guptov and Mogolov - did not control the entire subcontinent. And even Britain could not make such a statement until the defeat of the Maraths in 1818. But even then, the states-aquisitions, which were a third of the population, retained some nominal independence. ... It is not so easy to collect 5,000 years of Indian history in a couple of hundred pages, trying to reflect all the subtleties, but I risk doing it. (John Zubzhitsky)