India is a diverse country with a long history of cross-cultural interactions, complex philosophical ideas, and multifaceted literary traditions. To capture the intricacies of Indian history is no easy feat. For people of Indian origin who visit the country sporadically, their ancestral homeland can be mysterious, exotic, and incomprehensible. In his lifetime, despite ailing health, the late Dr Balaji Sadasivan spent long hours digging into India's ancient history to present his findings to the Diaspora Indians. Admirably, with great insights into important events, he has expressed his findings in a way that is exciting to read and easy to follow. His achievement is even more commendable considering that Dr Balaji Sadasivan was not a historian but a neurosurgeon and a full-time politician.

Divided into several chapters, The Dancing Girl: A History of Early India, covers over four thousand years of Indian history. From the Indus Valley Civilization, which produced the beautiful figurine of the dancing girl on the cover of this book, to the splendours of Islamic traditions under the Mughal empire, Dr Balaji has outlined the evolution of Indian religions and philosophical traditions, analysed the Buddhist interactions between India and China and the trading relations between South Asia and Southeast Asia, and given a fascinating account of the spread of Islamic ideas into India.

Every chapter of this book is carefully researched and organized. In the chapter titled “The Reformation”, for example, Dr Balaji points out the complexities of Hinduism, its Vedic origins and its “reformation” during the Gupta and post-Gupta periods. At the same time, however, he is meticulous about the developments taking place within Buddhism and the support it receives from the Pala rulers of Bengal. He is also thorough in his discussions about the increasing importance of Buddhist monastic institutions and Hindu temples in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Although Dr Balaji notes that the book is intended for the Diaspora Indians, I am hopeful it will attract a much wider audience. Students of non-Indian heritage will find the discussion of India's contact with the wider world particularly useful.