hi therani:

thank you for your comment. i am also a fan of P.G. Wodehouse and always pick up a novel at the library when I get too "non-ficitoned out". Aunts are'nt Gentlemen and Eggs, Beans and Crumpets remain perennial favorites.

I am going to interpret your use of "Classical India" as the Maurya/Gupta period. Some historians refer to the entire period from the Vedic period to the Gupta period as Classical India. I would recommend the following:

Perhaps the best overview is Romila Thapar's Early India. Given your interest in political administration, Kautilya's Arthashastra (Penguin Classics Edition) is required reading. Kautilya was a minister of Chandragupta Maurya, and this treatise is considered an essential work of Classical India and a precursor to many theories about the State and its administration that followed.

For art overviews of this period I would recommend The Golden Age: Gupta Art - Empire, Province and Influence, edited by the renowned Indian art historian Karl Khandalavala. This is an excellent overview of the art of this period. The first chapter also presents a very good overview and chronology of rulers.

There are several detailed histories available, but the best one to read (after Thapar's Early India) is the volume covering the Mauryas and the Guptas in the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan series - the History and Culture of the Indian Peoples.

Cheers,
Mahakapi

posted by mahakapi at 9:11 pm (EST) on Mar 19, 2008