The abovementioned is an 11-volume bookshelf buster written by Will and Ariel Durant. First published in 1934, it has been updated numerous times. I've read nearly two-thirds of Volume 1. Only 10 more volumes lie ahead. I hope to live (and retain my senses) long enough to finish them all.
I grew up in a family with lots of books, including all 11 volumes of this one. As a child I was puzzled by the title of the first volume: "Our Oriental Heritage." Yes, "Oriental." I always thought of The Orient as China and Japan. But the Durants defined it thus: "Written history is at least six thousand years old. During half of this period the center of human affairs, as far as they are known to us, was in the Near East.... The Aryans did not establish civilization - they took it from Babylon and Sumeria" (p. 116-117). We are told of the ancient city of Susa, where "French archeologists found human remains dating back 20,000 years, and evidences of an advanced culture as old as 4500 BC."
The Durants' treatment of India amazed me. It covers not just Indian history but also the "the life of the mind": the religion of the Vedas, the philosophy of the Upanishad, Buddha, Hindu divinities and science, Brahmanical philosophy, Indian art and literature.
I learned that "Among the most vital parts of our Oriental heritage are the Arabic numerals and the decimal system, both of which came to us through the Arabs from India." We are told that the Hindu believes that "the purpose of knowledge and philosophy is not control of the world so much as release from it" and that "the goal of thought is to find freedom from the suffering of frustrated desire by achieving freedom from desire itself."
The Durants believed that "we cannot judge these mystics, for our judgments in the West are usually based on corporeal experience and material results, which seem irrelevant and superficial to the Hindu saint." Still ahead lies Chinese and Japanese history.
