An Alternative Timeline of Indian History: From Buddha and Mahavira to Bappa Rawal

The chronology of ancient India is based on counting backward and forward from two sheet anchors of Indian history - the identification of Sandrokottos of Greek accounts with Chandragupta Maurya and the identification of Devanampriya Priyadarshi of major rock edicts with Ashoka Maurya. For Sandrokottos there is another candidate which fits better, Chandragupta I of Imperial Gupta dynasty. Thus most of ancient Indian chronology is based on a single set of evidence, major rock edicts of Devanampriya Priyadarshi. While Devanampriya Priyadarshi attributes his conversion to Buddhism to Kalinga war, there is no mention of Kalinga war in all the available literature about Ashoka Maurya. In this book it is proposed that the identification of Devanampriya Priyadarshi with Ashoka Maurya is wrong and Devanampriya Priyadarshi should be identified with Kumaragupta I, the great grandson of Chandragupta I of Imperial Gupta dynasty. Based on this identification, a new chronology of ancient Indian history has been proposed. (Note: This book has been compiled by extracting information from my trilogy on Indian history. It does not contain any new information that is not already there in the books India before Alexander: A New Chronology , India after Alexander: The Age of Vikramadityas , and India after Vikramaditya: The Melting Pot .)