India, Aug. 18 -- Civilisations rarely develop in straight lines. They evolve through encounters, conflicts, intellectual debates and institutional change.

In Indus Cities to Harsha's Empire: The Long Arc of Indian Civilisation, Anoop Verma explores ancient India through this expansive lens, tracing nearly three millennia from the Indus Valley Civilisation to the age of Emperor Harsha.

Across almost 500 pages, Verma moves beyond a conventional chronology of dynasties and battles to examine what he sees as the evolution of the Indian civilisational mind.

The Vedic corpus, Upanishadic thought, Buddhism and Jainism, the epics, the Mauryan and Gupta periods, and the rise of regional powers are presented as interconnected stages in a contin...