This week a snippet appeared in the news about an Ancient carved pillar being excavated in Uttar Pradesh bearing an inscription that mentions the name Mahendraditya. This name is not likely to be found among the list of Aaravs and Vivaans in schools today, but it will certainly evoke a frisson of excitement in some people, for it is another name for Kumargupta, son of Chandragupta Vikramaditya, emperors of the ancient Gupta dynasty.Medieval history, particularly of the Mughals and their contemporary Muslim dynasties, has been a much excavated and exploited literary resource. We have zillions of academic treatises on those sultans and shahenshahs as well as tomes on their social, political, military, economic, poetic, artistic, musical and other aspects. Besides love stories, there are even detective novels written today set in that era. But ancient India remains largely unmined.And that is because of a perceived paucity of archival material to pad up potential tomes and treatises. Much of the information has to be tediously retrieved and interpreted from the plethora of temple inscriptions or ancient pillars. It is just so much easier to delve into the copious, detailed accounts of, say, an Abul Fazl or a Ferishta to come up with gems that can be the focal point of say, the umpteenth magnum opus on Akbar or some Deccan sultan.But there is also a limit to how much this literary rubberband can be stretched before it snaps, even though content for web-based serials has opened up a new avenue for the next generation of Mughal-e-Azam type grand panegyrics. While making Babur wear a nosepin (as has been done in an ongoing webseries) may thrill those who think that ornament was introduced to India by the Mughals, it still is not enough to sustain interest much longer.On the other hand, ancient India should be a no-brainer simply because there are so many gaps still in our knowledge of it. Many antique Indian languages remain undeciphered (such as the shankhalipi or conchshell script that was also found at the excavation with Mahendraditya’s name) leaving space for imagination and extrapolation that may not satisfy snooty academics but can provide hours of great reading and action-packed TV entertainment.It is not enough to fall back on decades-old productions of Mahabharata and Ramayana or more recent stylised TV tales about Krishna and Ganesha to tempt those who have tired of Mughal or Raj era revivals. There are so many more (secular) stories of ancient India and enough great empires, grand rivalries, doomed love stories, female-oriented royal sagas, adventurous expeditions – even across the seas – to sate all viewing preferences.Generations of Indians have eagerly devoured the stories of ancient Indian heroes and heroines as depicted by Amar Chitra Katha, so the appeal of that era cannot be denied. Countless dynasties of ancient India ruled longer than the Mughals or other medieval monarchs, and their genealogical lists are enough to spawn thousands of hours’ worth of novels, movies and TV/web series, if authors and producers put their minds to it. Audiences are guaranteed.And Mahendraditya may never be able to elbow out the Kiaans and Reyanshes from the list of names of schoolboys in India – or it may take a while – but if people do get to know the stories behind names thought of as arcane, there may be a few surprises in store yet. After all, there was a bumper crop of boys named Ashok in the first few decades of the 20th century, not long after the great ancient emperor was rediscovered by intrepid British Orientalists!