Empires of the Indus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Studying Indic religions? You might consider Alice Albinia's excellent 2008 book, Empires of the Indus. In the tradition of William Dalrymple,\u00a0 Albinia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2014\/10\/empires-of-the-indus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Empires of the Indus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Studying Indic religions? You might consider Alice Albinia's excellent 2008 book, Empires of the Indus. 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{"id":5300,"date":"2014-10-12T10:35:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-12T15:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/?p=5300"},"modified":"2014-10-12T10:40:56","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T15:40:56","slug":"empires-of-the-indus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2014\/10\/empires-of-the-indus.html","title":{"rendered":"Empires of the Indus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"empires$ <\/a>
\nStudying Indic religions? You might consider Alice Albinia\u2019s excellent 2008 book, Empires of the Indus<\/a>. In the tradition of William Dalrymple<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0 Albinia combines colorful travel writing with terrific history.<\/p>\n

In one chapter, for example, Albina traces the spread of early Buddhism<\/a> from India to the Swat Valley of Afghanistan where it enjoyed a \u00a0renaissance in the first and second centuries CE..<\/p>\n

There we learn about magnificent stupas with amazing artwork and architecture and about the \u00a0beginning of image worship as a way to distinguish Mayhayana Buddhism from Therevada Buddhism.<\/p>\n

In another chapter, Albina travels to Pakistan along the Indus where she attends a\u00a0wedding unlike any she had seen before. \u00a0This was a Sheedi wedding. Sheedis, Albinia notes, are \u201cdescendants of slaves taken from Africa to Sindh by Muslim traders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here we learn that Muslims treated slaves\u00a0differently than Christians in the Atlantic slave trade. Muslim slaves were integrated into Muslim life probably because the buyers and sellers were Muslim and because, says Albina, \u201cin Islam, good treatment of slaves incurred heavenly benefits for the owner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albinia continues along the Indus to the Kalash mountain village of Bumboret in Pakistan. There she considers one of the great debates about the origins of Hinduism. Did Aryans invade the Indus valley region and set up a caste system? She explains the history of the \u201cinvasion\u201d theory \u00a0and considers new research that suggests that Aryans were indigenous to the valley.<\/p>\n

Albinia weaves travel writing and history together. That combination\u00a0\u00a0gives the book personality and readability.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"