The Golden Lineage and Its Legends
We are all proud of the glorious history of our nation and the rich Vedic culture and thoughts that have survived through millennia. Philosophy, science, mathematics, art and architecture, literature, political thought, political systems, thrived in our land, which slowly spread across the globe and eventually to the West. Foreign powers invaded our land from time to time over a period of about eight hundred years, making every effort to impose their culture on us and obliterate our own but we survived. Strangely, it is seldom that we wonder how and by whom was it made possible that we were able to keep our rich ancient culture intact. Unfortunately, modern Indians have grown up with a distorted version of the historical facts about India presented to them by the Western world and agenda driven historians. It is time that we let the younger generation know about our true historical heritage, and provide an answer to the mystery how, while all ancient civilisations perished with the passage of time, the Vedic civilisation survived. This book is an effort to explore that question. The only reason why the Vedic civilisation still stands tall is that at every stage of these foreign invasions, there arose brave and patriotic defenders of the Vedic civilisation, icons like Prithviraj Chouhan, Maharana Pratap, Krishnadeva Raya, Shivaji, Raja Ranjit Singh, Rani Jhansi, Subhash Chandra Bose. Coupled with that, were our great saints and intellectuals like Buddha, Mahavira, Shankaracharya, Ramanuja, Guru Nanak, Swami Vivekananda, who guided the king and subject alike on the right path and helped Indians to cherish human values, accepting all as their own, spreading the message of love, tolerance and ahimsa and never showing any imperialistic ambitions. When we take a zoomed out view of our history, these personalities stand out prominently. They shared the core Indian values and hence seemed as if they belong to the same lineage.