Reclaiming the Soul of Bharat brings together, for the first time, ten seminal works by historian Meenakshi Jain, whose scholarship has played a decisive role in re-examining India’s past through indigenous sources, long-ignored archival material, and civilisational continuities. Spanning themes as varied as sacred geography, temple histories, colonial interventions in education and language, to social issues and political theology, the series presents a sustained inquiry into how India’s cultural and institutional foundations were reshaped, disrupted, and often misrepresented across centuries. From the fate of temples and deities to the remoulding of indigenous education, from the reinterpretation of social practices to the long contest over sacred spaces such as Ayodhya, Mathura, and Kashi, these books collectively argue that India’s past cannot be understood through fragmented episodes or inherited colonial frames. Instead, they must be read as part of a living civilisation whose memory, symbols, and institutions continued to adapt, resist, and renew themselves despite repeated attempts at erasure.
Taken together, the ten volumes form a coherent civilisational narrative that moves beyond polemics and binaries, grounding its arguments in careful documentation, primary sources, and historical context. Reclaiming the Soul of Bharat is thus not merely a collection of books but a body of scholarship that invites readers to reconsider how history is written, remembered, and transmitted. It speaks to scholars, students, and thoughtful general readers alike—those seeking to understand India not as a static past or a modern invention, but as a civilisation shaped by continuity as much as change. At a moment when questions of identity, heritage, and historical memory are being revisited with renewed urgency, this series stands as an essential contribution to the ongoing conversation about India’s civilisational journey and its enduring cultural soul.
