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Indias unfolding story, from the ancient Hindu dynasties to the coming of Islam, from the Mughal Empire to the present day India has always been a land of great contradictions. To Alexander the Great, the country was a place of clever naked philosophers and massive armies mounted on elephants which eventually forced his army to retreat. To ancient Rome, it was a source of luxuries, mainly spices and textiles, paid for in goldhence the enormous numbers of Roman gold coins excavated in India. At the height of the Mughal empire in 1700, India boasted 24 percent of the world economya share virtually equal to Europes 25 percent. But then its economy declined. Colonial India was known for its extremes of wealth and poverty, epitomized by the Taj Mahal and famines, maharajas and untouchables, and also for its spirituality many-armed Hindu gods and Buddhist philosophy, Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.