Arthur Llewellyn Basham

Group Photograph showing T. V. Venkatachala Sastry (first from right) with A. L. Basham (third from left) during a meet at University of Mysore.

Arthur Llewellyn Basham (24 May 1914 – 27 January 1986) was a noted historian and Indologist and author of a number of books.

Quotes

• Though its fame is much restricted by its specialized nature, there is no doubt that Panini's grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the 19th century in any part of the world.
  • Professor A. L. Basham in: Daya Kishan Thussu Communicating India's Soft Power: Buddha to Bollywood, Palgrave Macmillan, 24 October 2013, p. 47.

• The age in which true history appeared in India was one of great intellectual and spiritual ferment. Mystics and sophists of all kinds roamed through the Ganga Valley, all advocating some form of mental discipline and asceticism as a means to salvation; but the age of the Buddha, when many of the best minds were abandoning their homes and professions for a life of asceticism, was also a time of advance in commerce and politics. It produced not only philosophers and ascetics, but also merchant princes and men of action.
  • The Wonder that was India (1954).

• “The ancient civilisation of India differs from those of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, in that its traditions have been preserved without a break down to the present day. Until the advent of the archaeologist, the peasant of Egypt or Iraq had no knowledge of the culture of his forefathers, and it is doubtful whether his Greek counterpart had any but the vaguest ideas about the glory of Periclean Athens. In each case there had been an almost complete break with the past. On the other hand…to this day legends known to the humblest Indian recall the names of shadowy chieftains who lived nearly a thousand years before Christ, and the orthodox Brahman in his daily worship repeats hymns composed even earlier. India and China have, in fact, the oldest continuous cultural traditions in the world.”
  • A.L.Basham in his “The Wonder That Was India” quoted in [1] [This article is a major extract from the article "Sita Ram Goel, memories and ideas" by S. Talageri, written for the Sita Ram Goel Commemoration Volume, entitled "India's Only Communalist", edited by Koenraad Elst, published in 2005.

• “At most periods of her history India, though a cultural unit, has been torn by internecine war. In statecraft, her rulers were cunning and unscrupulous. Famine, flood and plague visited her from time to time, and killed millions of her people. Inequality of birth was given religious sanction, and the lot of the humble was generally hard. Yet our overall impression is that in no other part of the ancient world were the relations of man and man, and of man and the state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilisation were slaves so few in number, and in no other ancient lawbook are their rights so well protected as in the Arthasastra. No other ancient lawgiver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair play in battle as did Manu. In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants…There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but, in comparison with conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilisation is its humanity.” (pp.8-9)].
  • A.L.Basham in his “The Wonder That Was India” quoted in [2] [This article is a major extract from the article "Sita Ram Goel, memories and ideas" by S. Talageri, written for the Sita Ram Goel Commemoration Volume, entitled "India's Only Communalist", edited by Koenraad Elst, published in 2005.

• Prof. Arthur Basham (d. 1986), the leading authority on ancient Indian culture and Oriental civilizations, writes about ancient Indian codes of war that ‘In all her history of warfare, Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants. The ghastly sadism of the kings of Assyria, who flayed their captives alive, is completely without parallel in ancient India. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilization is its humanity.’
  • cdlxxviii Basham AL (2000) The Wonder That Was India, South Asia Books, Columbia, p. 8–9 as quoted in M.A. Khan Islamic Jihad: A legacy of forced conversion, imperialism and slavery (2011)

• In A Cultural History of India, A.L. Basham notes that “[by] the fifth century CE, Indianised states, that is to say states organised along the traditional lines of Indian political theory and following the Buddhist or Hindu religions, had established themselves in many regions of Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, Malaysia, and Indonesia”.
  • A Cultural History of India, A.L. Basham. As quoted in Lamb, 1975:442-43. Lamb, Alastair. 1975. ‘Indian Influence in Ancient South-East Asia’. In A Cultural History of India. Ed. A.L. Basham. London. Oxford University Press. and in Malhotra R. & Babaji S. D. (2020). Sanskrit non-translatables : the importance of sanskritizing english. Amaryllis.