Upinder Singh has a book titled Ancient India: Culture of Contradictions. Owing to her left slant, the themes she focused on were anachronistic and basic (”misogyny”, “goddess worship”, “inequality” etc.) but I thought the idea was a good one, and better-chosen themes would help highlight the notable features of Indian civilization and the depth and variance of Ancient Indian thought.
Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya’s Āmuktamālyada 278
The king is non-violent, though he kills.
Chaste, though he has women.
Truthful, though he lies.
Ever fasting, though he eats well.
A hero, though he uses trickery.
Rich, though he gives away.
Kingship is rather strange.
Xuanzang: made light of the things of the present world
Orientalism
As with all such characterizations of India though, there is a significant sense of “what is true in India is not true in India” to keep in mind – it’s a large civilization, ours is perhaps the most “high-variance” of all the races of the world, and there were often distinct subcultures that competed with each other in the same arena.
This nuance applies whenever people say things about how ancient Indian culture treated free speech vs blasphemy, economic expansion vs environmentalism, sexual modesty vs feminist or libertine ideals, the life of a householder vs ascetism/voluntary poverty, rationality vs mysticism, etc.
To portray the whole of Ancient Indian civilization as having one view, like the old Orientalists did, is suspect (especially so when you see people claiming that it had a view on some very modern political issue, like random stuff about gay and trans).