Incarnations
Page 55
University College London
Upanishads (Vedanta)
Uprising of 1857
Urdu language
USSR, see Russia/USSR
Uttarapatha
Uttar Pradesh (United Provinces)
Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act (1952)
vachanakaras (vernacular poets)
vachanas (rhythmic poetic prose in Kannada language)
Vaidya caste
Vaikom temple
vair (Rajput vendetta tradition)
Vaishya caste
vakils (“local lawyers”)
Valiathan, Sankaran
Vande Mataram (“Hail to the Motherland,” Swadeshi slogan)
van den Broecke, Pieter
van Gogh, Vincent
Varma, Raja Ravi
varna (caste or class of men)
vatta (“wind,” a bodily humor)
Vedanta, see Upanishads
Vedanta Society
Vedas
veena (instrument)
vegetarianism
Vellalar caste
venbas (verse form)
Venice Film Festival
Venkatachalapathy, A. R.
Versailles, Treaty of
Victor (cousin of Amrita Sher-Gil)
Victoria, Queen of England
Victoria and Albert Museum
Victorian Age
Viet Minh
Vietnam War
Vijayanagara (City of Victory); see also Hampi
vijigishu (person desiring to conquer)
Vimal (Reliance textiles)
Virashaivas
Virgil
Vishakhadatta
Vishnu
Vishnugupta, see Kautilya
Vishnu Sahasranama
Visvesvaraya, Mokshagundam (“MV”)
Vivekananda
vyakarana (language analysis)
Wadiyar, Chamarajendra
Wadiyar, Krishnaraja
Wake Up, India: A Plea for Social Reform (Besant)
wand chhakna (charity; Sikh tenet)
Warhol, Andy
warrior castes
Washbrook, David
Washington, Booker T.
Washington, George
Washington Post
Watergate scandal
weavers
Weber, Max
Wellesley, Richard Wellesley, Marquess of
Wells, H. G.
West Pakistan; see also Pakistan
Westphalia, Peace of (1648)
Whitehead, A. N.
“Wife’s Letter, The” (Tagore)
Wilde, Oscar
Wilson, Woodrow
World Bank
World War I
World War II
Wujastyk, Dagmar
Wujastyk, Dominik
Xuanzang
Yadav, Yogendra
Yadava caste
yakshis (female spirits)
Yeh Jawani Hai Dewani (This Youth Is Crazy) (film)
Yemen
yoga
Yoga Sutra (Patanjali)
Young Girls (Sher-Gil)
yuga (Hindu time unit)
Zafarnama (Gobind Singh)
zamindars (landlords)
Zimmer, Heinrich
Zoroastrians; see also Parsis
Zulu uprising in South Africa (1906)
Zutshi, Chitralekha
The Buddha, Ajanta cave 26, c. sixth century CE. (The Art Archive)
The seventeen-meter-tall statue of Bahubali, or Gommata, c. 983 CE, at Sravanabelagola, Karnataka. (ImageBroker / Alamy)
Ashokan lions at the Great Stupa at Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, photographed by Deen Dayal in the 1880s. The image has been rotated 90 degrees. (From Sir Lepel Griffin, Famous Monuments of Central India, 1886; photo: Royal Collection Trust / copyright © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015)
A colossal statue of Basava at Basavakalyan, Karnataka, constructed in 2012. (Dr. Sunil Deepak)
A courtly scene, frontispiece to a collection of poetry by Amir Khusrau Dhilavi. Safavid school, Iran, 1609. (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore [W.623f.2a])
An eighteenth-century miniature showing Guru Nanak with his companions Bhai Mardana and Bhai Bala. (Roland and Sabrina Michaud / akg-images)
Krishnadevaraya, as shown in a popular commercial print, twentieth century. (Roland and Sabrina Michaud / akg-images)
A contemporary poster showing the popular image of Mirabai. (India Pictures / Getty Images)
The interior of the Diwan-i-Khas, or Hall of Public Audience, Fatehpur Sikri. (UIG / Getty Images)
Jahangir Shooting Malik Ambar, painting by Abu’l Hasan, c. 1615. (Copyright © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin [CBL In 07A.15])
Rembrandt van Rijn, Shah Jahan and Dara Shikoh, c. 1654–1656. (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles)
Nainsukh, Self-Portrait, 1730. (Indian Museum, Calcutta; photo: India Picture / Bridgeman Images)
John Linnell after Joshua Reynolds, Sir William Jones, c. 1827. (Courtesy of the Master and Fellows of University College, Oxford)
Detail from Johann Zoffany, Sacrifice of a Hindoo Woman on the Funeral Pyre of Her Husband, c. 1780. (Private collection; photo: Christie’s / Bridgeman Images)
Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, as shown in a popular oleograph print, c. 1930. (National Portrait Gallery, London, reproduced in The Raj: India and the British 1600–1947, NPG: 1990, p. 245)
Deen Dayal’s portrait of the Sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, “The Royal Champion Crackshot,” displaying his hunting trophies, 1894. (Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi [NBJ 0992])
Birsa Munda in manacles after his arrest, c. 1895. (Photograph from S. C. Roy, The Mundas and Their Country, 1912)
Portrait of Jamsetji Tata by Deen Dayal, 1898. (Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi [NBJ 1054])
The cover of a mid-twentieth-century matchbox, sold to accompany Vivekananda Beedies. (Private collection)
Annie Besant, c. 1897. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.)
Kappalittiya Thamizhan (The Tamil Who Launched a Ship), 1961, a Tamil film celebrating Pillai’s achievements.
Srinivasa Ramanujan, 1919. (Frontispiece to G. H. Hardy, Ramanujan: Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by His Life and Work, 1940)
Tagore in Japan, 1916. (PVDE / Bridgeman Images)
Muhammad Iqbal, c. 1930. (Iqbal Academy, Lahore, Pakistan)
A still of Periyar (and his Brahmin-repelling pet dog) from the 1960s. (YouTube)
Amrita Sher-Gil, Self-Portrait in Green, 1932. (Private collection, reproduced courtesy of Vivan and Navina Sundaram)
Bose addresses a rally at the Cathay Theatre, Singapore, 1943. (Nirvan Thivy Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore)
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, c. 1947. (akg-images / Archiv Peter Rühe / GandhiServe)
Gandhi at Birla House, Delhi, 1942. (Archiv Peter Rühe / akg-images)
Cover design for Manto’s Thanda Gosht (Cold Meat), 1960. Published by Mashvara Book Depot, Delhi. (Rekhta.org)
Ambedkar in his blue suit, undated photo. (akg-images / Archiv Peter Rühe / Copyright © GandhiServe)
Poster for Awāra, 1951, starring Raj Kapoor and Nargis. (R.K. Films / The Kobal Collection)
Krishna Menon outside the UN’s Security Council Chamber, New York, photographed by Marilyn Silverstone, 1957. (Copyright © Marilyn Silverstone / Magnum Photos)
The cover of the English edition of New Kashmir, the radical manifesto adopted by Abdullah’s National Conference in 1944. Published by K. N. Bamzai at the Kashmir Bureau of Information, Delhi. (Andrew Whitehead)
Indira Gandhi surrounded by congressmen, Parliament House, Delhi; photographed by Raghu Rai, 1967. (Copyright © Raghu Rai / Magnum Photos)
Satyajit Ray directing Sharmila Tagore and Soumitra Chatterjee in Days and Nights in the Forest, photographed by Nemai Ghosh, 1969. (Copyright © Nemai Ghosh / Delhi Art Gallery)
M. F. Hu
sain, Self-Portrait with Horse, 1995. (Private collection, copyright © Christie’s / Bridgeman Images)
ALSO BY SUNIL KHILNANI
Arguing Revolution: The Intellectual Left in Postwar France
The Idea of India
Civil Society: History and Possibilities
(with Sudipta Kaviraj)
Comparative Constitutionalism in South Asia
(with Vikram Raghavan and Arun Thiruvengadam)
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sunil Khilnani is the author of the acclaimed and influential The Idea of India (FSG, 1998). He is currently the Avantha Professor and Director of the India Institute at King’s College London. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Fifty Lives: Birthplaces Map
Introduction
1. The Buddha: Waking India Up
2. Mahavira: Soldier of Nonviolence
3. Panini: Catching the Ocean in a Cow’s Hoofprint
4. Kautilya: The Ring of Power
5. Ashoka: Power as Persuasion
6. Charaka: On Not Violating Good Judgment
7. Aryabhata: The Boat of Intellect
8. Adi Shankara: A God Without Qualities
9. Rajaraja Chola: Cosmos, Temple, and Territory
10. Basava: A Voice in the Air
11. Amir Khusrau: The Parrot of India
12. Kabir: “Hey, You!”
13. Guru Nanak: The Discipline of Deeds
14. Krishnadevaraya: “Kingship Is Strange”
15. Mirabai: I Go the Other Way
16. Akbar: The World and the Bridge
17. Malik Ambar: The Dark-Fated One
18. Dara Shikoh: The Meeting Place of the Two Oceans
19. Shivaji: Dreaming Big
20. Nainsukh: Owner Transfixed by Goose
21. William Jones: Enlightenment Mughal
22. Rammohun Roy: “Humanity in General”
23. Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi: Bad-ass Queen
24. Jyotirao Phule: The Open Well
25. Deen Dayal: Courtier with a Camera
26. Birsa Munda: “Have You Been to Chalkad?”
27. Jamsetji Tata: Making India
28. Vivekananda: Bring All Together
29. Annie Besant: An Indian Tom-tom
30. Chidambaram Pillai: Swadeshi Steam
31. Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Elbow of Genius
32. Tagore: Unlocking Cages
33. Visvesvaraya: Extracting Moonbeams from Cucumbers
34. Periyar: Sniper of Sacred Cows
35. Iqbal: Death for Falcons
36. Amrita Sher-Gil: This Is Me
37. Subhas Chandra Bose: A Touch of the Abnormal
38. Gandhi: “In the Palm of Our Hands”
39. Jinnah: The Chess Player
40. Manto: The Unsentimentalist
41. Ambedkar: Building Palaces on Dung Heaps
42. Raj Kapoor: The Politics of Love
43. Sheikh Abdullah: Chains of Gold
44. V. K. Krishna Menon: Somber Porcupine
45. Subbulakshmi: Opening Rosebuds
46. Indira Gandhi: The Center of Everything
47. Satyajit Ray: India Without Elephants
48. Charan Singh: A Common Cause
49. M. F. Husain: “Hindustan Is Free”
50. Dhirubhai Ambani: Fins
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Photographs
Also by Sunil Khilnani
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2016 by Sunil Khilnani
All rights reserved
Originally published, in somewhat different form, in 2016 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, Great Britain
Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First American edition, 2016
Published by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Khilnani, Sunil, 1960– author.
Title: Incarnations: a history of India in fifty lives / Sunil Khilnani.
Description: First American edition. | New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. | “Originally published, in somewhat different form, in 2016 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, Great Britain”—Title page verso. | Includes notes and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016007101 | ISBN 9780374175498 (hardback) | ISBN 9780374715427 (E-book)
Subjects: LCSH: India—Biography. | India—History. | BISAC: HISTORY / Asia / India & South Asia. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical.
Classification: LCC DS434 .K48 2016 | DDC 954.009/9—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016007101
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