Oriental Heritage: Art, Literature and Thought

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About the Book This monumental work in three beautiful volumes is a comprehensive, authentic and scholarly survey of the major developments of ancient civilizations. It deals mainly with the cultural heritage of mankind, the advances of invention, the varieties of economic organisations, the experiments in governments, the aspirations of religion, morals and manners, the development of science, the master pieces of literature, the wisdom of philosophy and achievements of art. Volume I of the book covers the Establishment of civilization, the pre historic beginnings, Neolithic culture, the coming of metals, and the development of great civilizations of Sumeria, Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Judea and Persia. Volume II is devoted to the great civilization of India-its history, religion, society, philosophy, literature and Art. Volume III provides a comprehensive view of Chinese and Japanese history, philosophy, poetry and Art.

This book is an invaluable asset for students, scholars and art historians.

About the Author Will Durant was born in 1885 at North Adams, Mass. He received his education in the Catholic parochial schools of North Adms, Mass., and Kearney, N.J.; at St. Peter's (Jesuit) college, Jersey City; and at Columbia University, New York. In 1913, he gave himself over to graduate studies at Columbia University, specializing in biology under Morgan and Calkins, and in philosophy under Woodbridge and Dewy. He received the Ph.D. degree there in 1917, and taught philosophy at Columbia Unversity for one year. He toured Europe in 1927; went around the world for a study of Egypt, the Near East, India, China and Japan in 1930; and circled the globe again in 1932 to visit Japan, Manchuria, Siberia and Russia.

Dr. Vijay Kumar Mathur, art historian, is M.A.; Ph.D. in History. He has been working in National Museum, New Delhi. Dr. Mathur has widely travelled in India and abroad and has visited several important museums in Russia, Belgium, France, Poland and Thailand. In 1992, Indian Council for Cultural Relations deputed him to Pakistan for the selection of art objects for the classical art exhibition held in the National Museum, New Delhi, on the occasion of the First South Asian Festival of SAARC countries. He is the author of 'Indian Art'; 'Art and Culture under the Sungas', and 'Marvels of Kishangarh Paintings.'

Preface I have tried in this book to accomplish the first part of a pleasant assignment which is rashly laid upon myself some twenty years ago: to write a history civilization I wish to tell as much as I can, in as little space as I can, of the contributions that genius and labor have made to the cultural heritage of mankind-to chronicle and contemplate, in their causes, character and effects, the advances of invention, the varieties of economic organisation, the experiments in government, the aspirations of religion, the mutation and morals and manners, the masterpieces of literature, the development of science, the wisdom of philosophy, and the achievements of art. I do not need to be told how absurd this enterprise is, nor how immodest is its very conception; for many years of effort have brought it to but fifth of its completion, and have made it clear that no one mind, and no single lifetime, can adequately compass this task. Nevertheless I have dreamed that despite the many errors inevitable in this undertaking, it may be of some use to those upon whom the passion for philosophy has laid the compulsion to try to see things whole, to pursue perspective, unity and demanding through history in time, as well as to seek them through entire space.

I have long felt that our usual method of writing history in separate educational sections-economy, history, political history, religious history, the history of philosophy. the history of literature, the history of science, the history of music, the history of art-does injustice to the unity of sections that history should be written collaterally; as well as lineally. critically as well as analytically; and that the ideal Historiography should be portray in each period the total complex of the nation's culture, adventures and ways. But the accumulation of knowledge has included history, like science, into a thousand isolated specialties; and pruport such that I have refrained from attempting any view of the whole-to conceive material universe, or of the living past of our race. For the probability of error increases with the scope of the undertaking, and any man who sells his soul to synthesis will be a tragic target for a myriad merry was of specialist critique. "Consider", said Path-hotep five thousand years ago show thou mayest be opposed by an expert in council. It is foolish to speak on every kind of work. A history of civilization from the presumptuousness of every philosophical enterprises: it efforts the marvelous spectacle of a fragment expounding the whole. Like philosophy it is a venture has no rational excuse, and is at best but a brave stupidity: all of us hope that, like philosophy, it will always lure some rash spirits in the fatal depths.

**Contents and Sample Pages**