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In an excerpt from Bacteria to Buddha, Ramanan Laxminarayan traces a path from a single cell responding to its surroundings to a person reflecting on the mind. The book’s broader argument, as Hachette India describes it, is that cooperation helped shape consciousness—a thesis the publisher presents as the author’s argument, not as settled scientific consensus.
Hindustan Times published the excerpt on October 2, 2026, with permission from the author and publisher. Read the authorized excerpt at Hindustan Times.
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What the excerpt explores
The excerpt begins at the boundary between an organism and its environment. Living things register signals around them and respond; in Laxminarayan’s account, this responsiveness is tied to survival and becomes an evolving relationship with the outside world.
From that starting point, the narrative moves through increasingly complex ways of engaging with surroundings: sensing and responding, perception, cognition, imagination and reflection. Its arc is both evolutionary and literary, ending with the human capacity to observe one’s own mind. It should be read as the book’s framing of consciousness, rather than as a report of a new study.
The book’s cooperation-centered thesis
Hachette India presents the book’s central question as: “What if consciousness evolved not simply to think, but to cooperate?” Its synopsis connects cooperation with consciousness, trust, empathy, compassion and human relationships. That is the book’s thesis as described by its publisher; the materials accompanying the excerpt do not establish it as a scientific consensus or provide an independent study validating it.
Laxminarayan has described the book’s journey as running “between a single cell sensing its environment and a meditating monk observing his own mind.” The sentence appears in an author post on LinkedIn; the post’s date is not visible in the available record.
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About the book and listed hardback edition
Bacteria To Buddha: How Cooperation Shaped Consciousness And What It Means To Be Human is by Ramanan Laxminarayan and is published by Hachette India under the John Murray India imprint. Hachette lists a hardback with ISBN 9789357315203, a publication date of September 17, 2026, an extent of 267 pages and a listed price of INR 799. Those details are from the publisher’s India listing and do not confirm live stock or availability.
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See Hachette India’s listing for the hardback. Other catalogue records are available from Google Books and Crossword.
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