Return of the Aryans [Paperback]

Bhagwan S Gidwani (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2000

This book tells the epic story of the Aryans - a gripping tale of kings and poets, seers and gods, battles and romance and the rise and fall of civilizations. Vast and absorbing, the novel tells the stories of characters like the gentle god, Sindhu Putra, spreading his message of love; the physician-sage Dhanawantar and his wife, Dhanawantari; and Nila who gave his name to the river Nile.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bhagwan S. Gidwani was India's Additional Director General of Tourism and Director General of Civil Aviation till 1978. he served as India's Counsel at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, and as Representative of India on the Council of ICAO (UN) from 1978 to 1981. Thereafter, he joined ICAO as its Director till 1985.

Product Details

• Paperback: 944 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; 2 edition (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140240535
• ISBN-13: 978-0140240535
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #856,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly reccomended, February 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Return of the Aryans (Paperback)

I came upon this book by chance and I am only halfway through it. But I am too excited by what I've read to wait till it's over. I have a very poor knowledge of the ancient Indian history which I can blame that on 3 things:
1. Maharashtra school board history textbooks
2. Uninspired teaching
3. Lack of enthusiasm on my part to read more
But this book has renewed my enthusiaism for finding out more about our hisotry. I like the authors concept of presenting history in form of a story. Sometimes it's difficult to separate fact from fiction (since i dont have much info on the historical facts in the first place), sometimes the author tends to repeat whole statements. However I have really enjoyed reading so far. This is the first time I've read about the basic philisophies of Hinduisim and I'm both proud & humbled. Proud of being an Indian and Hindu, humbled by the wisdom of our ancients. Reading the book is a very rewarding experience. It's not preachy. It offers different views in a very objective fashion. And the author's passion comes across through his words. I highly reccomend this book to anyone curious about Hinduism &/or ancient Indian history. Especially people of my generation who have suffered through memorizing dates from boring history textbooks.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Return of the Aryans is a masterpiece, November 24, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Return of the Aryans (Paperback)

I started reading this book with only a very little idea of what it was about. Being Indian myself i had some knowledge of the ancient Aryan civilization and the supposed history behind their conquest of India. The summary at the back of the book stated that the author presented an alternative to the accepted historical theory. The accepted theory being that the Aryans were a race of nomads whose origins are unknown (Eastern Europe is a frequently given place of origin) and who entered India and conquered the races that were living there at the time. Bhagwan S. Gidwani presents a different theory - saying instead the Aryans were not a race that affected India externally , rather they were from India itself. A large number of people migrated from India around 3000 B.C. for various reasons and they were called Aryans (literally meaning "outcasts" in pre-Sanskrit) , this group of 'Aryans' arbitrarily split up into several sub-groups and travelled to various places including Iran, Eqypt, Sumeria, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Russia. The Aryans had left India because of cruel treatment and a degradation of the society, but upon reaching these foreign countries - where they had gone to look for a better life - they realized that they were far better off in India than they were in these lands. They encountered all sorts of new races and (to them) primitive civilzations. Being unable to return home , the Aryans faced all kinds of hardship, and many of them stayed in the new lands to help the people there. Most of the Aryans returned to their homeland after many years, bringing with them a plethora of new ideas and experiences from their travels and sufferings abroad. Although this view of history appeared at first to be slightly far-fetched to me, Gidwani has spun the tale remarkably well and with great fluidity. He spent 18 years of his life doing research on this subject and he collected various papers and artifacts from all the over the world in order to re-construct the distant past and this lends the story much more relevance than it would have otherwise. I get the feeling while reading the book that these events are not fiction but that most of them really happenned, and who is to say that they did not? Only the latter half of the book actually deals with the Aryan exodus and subsequent travels. The first half sets up the events leading to the peoples' self-exile and in doing so paints a very beautiful and vivid picture of life in ancient India. We catch a glimpse of a remarkably well-ordered and intelligent civilization that has sadly been left out of the history books because of the lack of historical evidence. I would say that this book is a must-read for anyone interested in India or Indian history, or simply anyone looking for a truly classic piece of fiction.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Book, November 26, 2002

By 

Nagaraja Udupa (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Return of the Aryans (Paperback)

Fabulous. It's incredible that author spent 18 years on doing research on Aryans. A must read for anyone interested in ancient indian history. One of my all time favourite book.