Studying Early India

Studying Early India PDF Author: Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
Publisher: Orient Blackswan
ISBN: 9788178241432
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book comprises a set of interrelated essays on some of the key issues which continue to excite historians and scholars of early India. It shows the profound impact of colonialism on the study of India's early past, the new methods and premises introduced into India by colonial studies, and the variety of departures from traditional, pre-colonial modes of history-writing. It goes on to show that post-Independence historiography has brought a fresh set of problems to the fore: such as the integration of archaeology with narratives of early Indian history; of the trajectories of social change and social formation; of the historical position of ideology and its shifts; and of the ways of communicating knowledge of a past which is now increasingly under non-academic fundamentalist onslaughts. With its diverse parts connected by strong threads of interest in the changing nature of history-writing on early India, this new book on the methodological changes that confront the historian of pre-colonial India will consolidate Professor Chattopadhyaya's reputation as one of the foremost thinkers in his area of ancient and early medieval history.

Studying Early India

Studying Early India PDF Author: Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
Publisher: Orient Blackswan
ISBN: 9788178241432
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book comprises a set of interrelated essays on some of the key issues which continue to excite historians and scholars of early India. It shows the profound impact of colonialism on the study of India's early past, the new methods and premises introduced into India by colonial studies, and the variety of departures from traditional, pre-colonial modes of history-writing. It goes on to show that post-Independence historiography has brought a fresh set of problems to the fore: such as the integration of archaeology with narratives of early Indian history; of the trajectories of social change and social formation; of the historical position of ideology and its shifts; and of the ways of communicating knowledge of a past which is now increasingly under non-academic fundamentalist onslaughts. With its diverse parts connected by strong threads of interest in the changing nature of history-writing on early India, this new book on the methodological changes that confront the historian of pre-colonial India will consolidate Professor Chattopadhyaya's reputation as one of the foremost thinkers in his area of ancient and early medieval history.

Studying Early India

Studying Early India PDF Author: Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1843311321
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
A focal study of the methodological changes that confront historians of pre-colonial India.

Studying Early India

Studying Early India PDF Author: Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781843311331
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Get Book Here

Book Description
A focal study of the methodological changes that confront historians of pre-colonial India.

Music and Musical Thought in Early India

Music and Musical Thought in Early India PDF Author: Lewis Rowell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226730344
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

Get Book Here

Book Description
Offering a broad perspective of the philosophy, theory, and aesthetics of early Indian music and musical ideology, this study makes a unique contribution to our knowledge of the ancient foundations of India's musical culture. Lewis Rowell reconstructs the tunings, scales, modes, rhythms, gestures, formal patterns, and genres of Indian music from Vedic times to the thirteenth century, presenting not so much a history as a thematic analysis and interpretation of India's magnificent musical heritage. In Indian culture, music forms an integral part of a broad framework of ideas that includes philosophy, cosmology, religion, literature, and science. Rowell works with the known theoretical treatises and the oral tradition in an effort to place the technical details of musical practice in their full cultural context. Many quotations from the original Sanskrit appear here in English translation for the first time, and the necessary technical information is presented in terms accessible to the nonspecialist. These features, combined with Rowell's glossary of Sanskrit terms and extensive bibliography, make Music and Musical Thought in Early India an excellent introduction for the general reader and an indispensable reference for ethnomusicologists, historical musicologists, music theorists, and Indologists.

The Routledge Handbook of the State in Premodern India

The Routledge Handbook of the State in Premodern India PDF Author: Hermann Kulke
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000485145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 594

Get Book Here

Book Description
This handbook presents a multilayered and multidimensional history of state formation in premodern India. It explores dense and rich local and subregional historiography from the mid-first millennium BC to the eighteenth century in South Asia. Shifting the focus away from economic and political factors, this handbook revises the conventional understanding of states and empires and locates them in their quotidian conduct and activity on socio-cultural and concomitant factors. Comprehensive in scope, this handbook addresses a range of themes connected with the idea of state formation in the subcontinent. It includes discussions and debates on ritual practices and the Brahmanical order in early India; the Delhi Sultanate and role of Sultans among the Hindu kings; the cosmopolitan ‘Islamicate’ cultural influences on Puranic Hinduism; cultural background of the Mughal state. The handbook examines new questions and ideologies of state formation, such as: · facets of violence and resistance; · the significance of the autonomous spaces and forests; · regional elites, including ‘Little kings’; tribal background of some famous cults; · trade and maritime commerce; · royal patronage, courtly manners, lineage formation; · imperial architecture, monuments, and temple, among others. Featuring case studies from different part of the India subcontinent, and with contributions by renowned historians, this authoritative handbook will be an indispensable reading for teachers, scholars, and students of early India, medieval India, premodern India, South Asian history, Asian history, historiography, economic history, historical sociology, and South Asia studies.

Medieval Indian Mindscapes

Medieval Indian Mindscapes PDF Author: Evgenii͡a I͡Urʹevna Vanina
Publisher: Primus Books
ISBN: 9380607199
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Get Book Here

Book Description
Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man centres on how Indians in pre-colonial times perceived their world. It compares the specific features of their 'mental programmes' with that of their counterparts in other pre-modern societies. While analysing the importance of space in the medieval world view, the book discusses how medieval Indians comprehended their territories and the landscape as 'their own' vis-a-vis the 'alien' space; the development of territorial-cultural and territorial-political identities, and knowledge about other lands and peoples. In a discussion of medieval temporality, the book also studies the ways of perceiving and reckoning time, attitudes to the historical past and the manifold ways of recording it. A special chapter on 'Society' deals with socio-ethical values and behavioural stereotypes of major estate and caste groups like the feudal landlords, priests and officials, merchants and craftsmen, peasants and the lower castes in villages. The book also has a chapter on the medieval Indian perception of Man, his appearance and peculiarities as they pertained to the a≥ behaviour, social status, and the steady development of individuality. Medieval Indian Mindscapes will be of interest to medievalists as well as general readers, keen to know more about the dynamics of pre-modern history and culture.

Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies

Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies PDF Author: Sitta Reden
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110604949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 960

Get Book Here

Book Description
The notion of the “Silk Road” that the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen invented in the 19th century has lost attraction to scholars in light of large amounts of new evidence and new approaches. The handbook suggests new conceptual and methodological tools for researching ancient economic exchange in a global perspective with a strong focus on recent debates on the nature of pre-modern empires. The interdisciplinary team of Chinese, Indian and Graeco-Roman historians, archaeologists and anthropologists that has written this handbook compares different forms of economic development in agrarian and steppe regions in a period of accelerated empire formation during 300 BCE and 300 CE. It investigates inter-imperial zones and networks of exchange which were crucial for ancient Eurasian connections. Volume I provides a comparative history of the most important empires forming in Northern Africa, Europe and Asia between 300 BCE and 300 CE. It surveys a wide range of evidence that can be brought to bear on economic development in the these empires, and takes stock of the ways academic traditions have shaped different understandings of economic and imperial development as well as Silk-Road exchange in Russia, China, India and Western Graeco-Roman history.

Chinese and Indian Warfare - From the Classical Age to 1870

Chinese and Indian Warfare - From the Classical Age to 1870 PDF Author: Kaushik Roy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317587103
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 395

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines the differences and similarities between warfare in China and India before 1870, both conceptually and on the battlefield. By focusing on Chinese and Indian warfare, the book breaks the intellectual paradigm requiring non-Western histories and cultures to be compared to the West, and allows scholarship on two of the oldest civilizations to be brought together. An international group of scholars compare and contrast the modes and conceptions of warfare in China and India, providing important original contributions to the growing study of Asian military history.

The City and the Country in Early India

The City and the Country in Early India PDF Author: P. K. Basant
Publisher: Primus Books
ISBN: 9380607156
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book Here

Book Description
The City and the Country in Early India: A Study of Malwa is about the emergence of urban centres in the sixth century bce, and analyses the processes and spatiality of urbanization, taking Malwa as its case study. Earlier research on urbanism has focussed on either literary or archaeological sources. While literary sources tend to locate the agency for change exclusively in preachers and rulers, in archaeology, the forces of change become nameless and faceless. The study of inscriptions from Malwa helps in restoring agency to common people. The beginnings of urbanism are to be found in the pre-literate past, and, therefore, require an analysis of archaeological data. Using insights from anthropology and studies of early states, in the first half of the book an attempt has been made to look for new ways to account for urbanization. The second half of the book tries to understand the process of urbanization by examining epigraphic and literary sources. The process of the emergence of urban centres created new forms of division of space: urban centres were surrounded by villages which in turn were surrounded by wilderness. This book tries to recover the histories of their complex interrelations. Since caste and kinship are considered central to the world of Indian sociology, an attempt has also been made to understand the relationships between caste, kinship and urbanism. Changes in the attitude of the literati towards the city and the country have also been examined.

Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society

Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society PDF Author: Ranabir Chakravarti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000170128
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book Here

Book Description
Highlighting diverse types of market places and merchants, this book situates the commercial scenario of early India (up to c. ad 1300) in the overall agrarian material milieu of the subcontinent. The book questions the stereotypical narrative of early Indian trade as exchanges in small quantity, exotic, portable luxury items and strongly argues for the significance of trade in relatively inexpensive bulk commodities – including agrarian/floral products – at local and regional levels and also in long distance trade. That staple items had salience in the sea-borne trade of early India figures prominently in this book which points out that commercial exchanges touched the everyday life of a variety of people. A major feature of this work is the conspicuous thrust on and attention to the sea-borne commerce in the subcontinent. The history of Indic seafaring in the Indian Ocean finds a prominent place in this book pointing out the braided histories of overland and maritime networks in the subcontinent. In addition to three specific chapters on the maritime profile of early Bengal, the third edition of Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society offers two new chapters (14 and 15) on the commercial scenario of Gujarat, dealing respectively with an organization of merchants during the early sixth century ad and with the long-term linkages between money-circulation and overseas trade in Gujarat c. ad 500-1500). A new preface to the Third Edition discusses the emerging historiographical issues in the history of trade in early India. Rich in the interrogation of a wide variety of primary sources, the book analyses the changing perspectives on early Indian trade by taking into account the current literature on the subject.