I recently picked up a book titled The Culture and History of the Indian People. Vol I : The Vedic Age. This was an edition from the 1950's, written by, arguably, India's greatest historian, R.C Majumdar. Further research indicated that he had written eleven volumes (nearly 10,000 pages!) in all, with a different perspective and an approach that deviated from traditional, popular methods of carving up Indian history. The traditional approach was to divide Indian History into three equal sections in terms of information - the Hindu period (Ancient - 1000AD), the Muslim period (1000AD - 1600 AD), the British period (1600AD - 1947AD+). His argument (and that of the other authors) was that though this division relatively matches the amount of information that we have for these different periods, it certainly does not do justice to the length of time that they cover. It appears that these books are not as easy to find anymore, and thanks to my good friend Google, I was able to compile the list of titles of this eleven volume series :

The Culture and History of the Indian People : R.C Majumdar et al. (11 vols.)

1. The Vedic Age (dawn of Hindu civilization)
2. Age of Imperial Unity (6th century BC, Magadha, Mauryas, South India, Ceylon)
   
3. The Classical Age (Guptas, Chalukyas, Pallavas)
   
4. The Age of Imperial Kanauj (??)
   
5. The Struggle for Empire (1000-1300)
   
6. The Delhi Sultanate (1200?-1526)
   
7. The Mughal Empire (1526-1707)
   
8. The Maratha Supremacy (1707-1818)
   
9. British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance Vol I (1818-1905)
   
10. British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance Vol II (1818-1905)
    
11. Struggle for Freedom (1905-1947)

It is interesting to note that he devotes four and a half, perhaps five full volumes to this Hindu period. The Vedic Age has been a good read so far, at times a little controversial, and I intend to provide my insights and observations into Majumdar's descriptions of this period once I am done with it. Stay tuned.