In this work of prodigious scope and scholarship, one of the greatest figures of Indian history unfolds the panorama of the country's rich and complex past, form prehistory to the last years of British colonial rule. Analysing texts like the Vedas and the Arthashastra, and personalities like the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru brings alive an ancient culture that has seen the flowering of the world's great traditions of philosophy, science and art ,and almost all its major religions.