A provocative book digs into the myths of India’s ancient past
NEW DELHI, March 18, 2025 – In a nation where history doubles as identity, few dare to question the sacred cows of the past. Rajeev Patel is not one of them. His book, "Bhram Ka Pulinda" ("A Bundle of Illusions"), now in its fourth edition since 2023, is a 248-page assault on the orthodoxies that have long shaped India’s understanding of its antiquity. Published by Samyak Prakashan, a Delhi-based house fond of contrarian voices, it’s less a scholarly treatise than a gauntlet thrown at the feet of traditionalists.
Patel’s target is what he calls the “illusions” of Indian history—narratives woven from Vedic hymns, Sanskrit’s supposed primacy, and the neat lineage of Hinduism and Buddhism. Armed with archaeological evidence and a skeptic’s eye, he aims to prise apart these threads, offering a vision of the past that’s as unsettling as it is intriguing.
Beneath the Vedic Veil
Start with the Vedas, those ancient texts revered as the fountainhead of Indian civilisation. Patel argues they’re less a timeless blueprint than a patchwork of evolving traditions, their grandeur inflated by later scribes. Where tradition dates them to 1500 BCE or earlier, he points to a dearth of matching archaeological footprints—no sprawling cities or chariot-strewn plains to echo their verses. Instead, he nods to the Indus Valley’s silent ruins, suggesting a disconnect between its urban sophistication and the pastoral world of the Rigveda.
Sanskrit, too, comes under fire. Long hailed as the subcontinent’s mother tongue, its antiquity is a given in cultural lore. Patel demurs. He posits that its dominance owes more to political heft than primordial roots, hinting at older tongues—Prakrit, perhaps, or Tamil—whispering through the archaeological record. It’s a claim that could ruffle linguistic nationalists, but Patel cares little for feathers.
Buddha Before Brahman
Then there’s the tale of Buddhism, traditionally cast as a reformist ripple in Hinduism’s vast ocean. Patel sees a deeper current. Peering at the stupas of Sanchi or the relics of Lumbini, he wonders if the Buddha’s creed predates the Vedic codification it’s said to have challenged. Far from a reaction to Brahmanical excess, Buddhism might reflect a parallel tradition, smothered by later orthodoxies eager to claim primacy. For a country where Hinduism’s eternity is political gospel, it’s a radical rewrite.
Patel’s method is simple: let the stones speak. Where texts can be spun, archaeology offers a harder truth, he insists. From Harappan seals to Buddhist mounds, he builds a case that India’s past was more pluralistic—and less Vedic—than the epics suggest. Critics might call this cherry-picking; admirers see a long-overdue reckoning.
A Provocateur’s Playbook
At ₹250 a copy, "Bhram Ka Pulinda" is priced for the curious, not the cloistered academic. Its prose, by all accounts, is sharp and accessible, laced with a provocateur’s zeal. Readers on India’s buzzing online marketplaces give it a 4.3-star nod, praising its clarity and courage. “It connects the dots,” one writes; another cautions that its leaps demand a skeptical eye. Patel, it seems, has lit a spark—whether it catches fire or fizzles depends on how many dare to question the canon.
The book’s foes will find plenty to fault. Its reliance on physical evidence can feel dogmatic, sidelining the nuance of oral and textual traditions. Historians steeped in India’s layered past might argue that Patel’s revisionism risks replacing one myth with another. Yet in a land where history is both heritage and weapon, his challenge resonates. “Illusions,” he writes, “thrive in the dark.” His bundle, like it or not, lets in some light.
The Indus Puzzle
No site looms larger in Patel’s arsenal than the Indus Valley Civilisation, that enigmatic sprawl of brick and ingenuity spanning modern-day Pakistan and northwest India. Dated to 3300–1300 BCE, its cities—Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, Dholavira—boast granaries, drainage systems, and a script yet to be cracked. Traditionalists often link it to the Vedic Aryans, casting it as a precursor to the chariot-riding poets of the Rigveda. Patel demurs. He points to a glaring mismatch: the Vedas sing of pastoral tribes and sacrificial fires, not urban grids or bathhouses.
Excavations bolster his case. At Lothal, a Harappan port, archaeologists unearthed docks and warehouses—hardly the stuff of nomadic hymn-makers. The famous “Priest-King” statuette from Mohenjo-Daro, with its serene gaze and trefoil cloak, hints at a sophisticated culture that left no trace of Vedic altars. Patel likely argues that this civilisation’s collapse around 1900 BCE predates the Vedic age, suggesting its legacy was co-opted by later arrivals rather than birthed by them. For a nation taught to see continuity from Indus bricks to Hindu temples, it’s a jarring disconnect.
Sanskrit’s Silent Rivals
Then there’s Sanskrit, the language of gods and scholars, its antiquity a pillar of cultural pride. Patel questions its primacy, turning to the dirt for answers. At Bhirrana, a Harappan site in Haryana dated to 7500 BCE, pottery shards bear simple markings—proto-writing, perhaps, but not Sanskrit. Further south, Tamil Nadu’s Keeladi excavations, begun in 2015, unearthed carbon-dated artefacts from 600 BCE, alongside a script tied to Tamil-Brahmi, not Vedic Sanskrit. Patel might contend that these finds signal a linguistic mosaic, with Sanskrit rising to prominence later, possibly under royal patronage, rather than reigning from time immemorial.
The Ashokan edicts, carved in Prakrit around 250 BCE, offer another clue. Found across India—from Gujarat’s Girnar rock to Odisha’s Dhauli—these inscriptions predate widespread Sanskrit use in public records. For Patel, they whisper of a world where other tongues held sway, challenging the notion of Sanskrit as India’s eternal voice.
Buddhism’s Buried Roots
Patel’s most daring claim may be his reimagining of Buddhism. Convention holds that Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, emerged around 500 BCE as a reformer within a Vedic fold. Patel peers beneath that tale, pointing to archaeological whispers of an older tradition. The Sanchi Stupa in Madhya Pradesh, its core dated to 300 BCE, stands atop earlier structures—some suggest as far back as 500 BCE—hinting at pre-Ashokan Buddhist reverence. At Lumbini, Nepal, where the Buddha was born, digs in 2013 uncovered a timber shrine from 550 BCE, predating his traditional lifespan.
Such finds fuel Patel’s hunch: Buddhism may not be a reaction to Vedic excesses but a survivor of a broader, perhaps pre-Vedic, spiritual current. The Piprahwa reliquary in Uttar Pradesh, with its bone fragments and 3rd-century-BCE inscriptions, ties early Buddhism to a material culture distinct from Brahmanical rites. Patel likely sees in these relics a challenge to Hinduism’s claim as India’s aboriginal faith—a notion that could unsettle both scholars and saffron-clad politicians.
Stones Over Scripture
Patel’s method is his message: archaeology trumps text. Where the Vedas or Puranas can be spun to suit a scribe’s agenda, a brick or seal stays stubbornly mute until probed. At Kalibangan, a Harappan site in Rajasthan, fire altars once touted as Vedic precursors have been reinterpreted as domestic hearths—undermining a key link in the traditional chain. Patel might wield such revisions to argue that India’s past was less a Vedic monolith than a tapestry of overlapping cultures, from Indus traders to Buddhist monks.
His approach isn’t flawless. Critics could charge him with cherry-picking—ignoring, say, the horse bones at Surkotada that nod to Vedic imagery, or the continuity of fire worship across millennia. Yet his fans, who’ve pushed the book to a 4.3-star rating online, hail its clarity and grit. “It’s like a shovel through the fog,” one reader writes; another warns it’s “compelling but not gospel.”
A Past Unsettled
India’s historical debates are rarely quiet—witness the rows over Mughal legacies or Aryan origins. "Bhram Ka Pulinda" adds fuel to that fire, urging readers to rethink not just what they know but how they know it. It won’t topple the old guard overnight, but for those weary of rote certainties, Patel offers a tantalising glimpse of a past less bound by scripture than by the shovel. In a nation wrestling with its present, that’s no small thing.
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