Author: Ram Sharan Sharma
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Illustrations: 2 maps and 23 line drawings Description: The book focuses on the decline of the towns and their desertion in late ancient and early medieval India on the basis of archaeological evidence. The author has material remains to study crafts, commerce and coinage, and identifies and illustrates signs of growth and decay for more than 130 excavated sites. The strata with poor remains are taken to indicate decrease in construction, manufacturing and commercial activities, and are hence associated with de-urbanization. The reasons for the urban eclipse are sought not only in the fall of empires but also in social disorder and the loss of long-distance trade. The disintegration of the town life is seen not as social regression but as part of the social transformation which generated classical feudalism and promoted rural expansion. The book explores the link between urban decay and land grants to officials, priests, temples and monasteries. It shows how the landed elements collected surplus and services directly from the peasants, and remunerated artisan servicing castes through land grants and grain supply. The monograph should interest students of pre-modern urban history and those who study processes of change in economy and society in Gupta and post-Gupta times. It may also provide basic information on the urban horizons of excavated sites during the second half of the first millennium BC and the following six centuries AD.
Author: Patrick Olivelle
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191007080
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 576
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Book Description
Through pointed studies of important aspects and topics of dharma in Dharmaśāstra, this comprehensive collection shows that the history of Hinduism cannot be written without the history of Hindu law. Part One provides a concise overview of the literary genres in which Dharmasastra was written with attention to chronology and historical developments. This study divides the tradition into its two major historical periods—the origins and formation of the classical texts and the later genres of commentary and digest—in order to provide a thorough, but manageable overview of the textual bases of the tradition. Part Two presents descriptive and historical studies of all the major substantive topics of Dharmasastra. Each chapter offers readers with salest knowledge of the debates, transformations, and fluctcating importance of each topic. Indirectly, readers will also gain insight into the ethos or worldview of religious law in Hinduism, enabling them to get a feel for how dharma authors thought and why. Part Three contains brief studies of the impact and reception of Dharmasastra in other South Asian cultural and textual traditions. Finally, Part Four draws inspiration from "critical terms" in contemporary legal and religious studies to analyze Dharmasastra texts. Contributors offer interpretive views of Dharmasastra that start from hermeneutic and social concerns today.
Author: Patrick Olivelle
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198702604
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 572
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Book Description
"The foundation of Hindu law is the voluminous textual tradition called Dharmaśāstra, the expert tradition on dharma. This book seeks to delineate the historical development of Dharmaśāstra, even though the tradition presented dharma as timeless and ahistorical. The volume establishes the importance of law for the history and study of Hinduism by providing interpretive descriptions of all the major topics of Hindu dharma according to this tradition. First, two broad introductions to the historical development of the textual sources of Hindu law suggest new ways to understand both the original texts (smṛti) and the later commentaries and digests. Next, groundbreaking research into the origin of the householder (gṛhastha), who is at the center of the Dharmaśāstric enterprise, provides new insights into both the origin of this genre and many of its topics, such as the āśrama system and married household life. The book devotes its central chapters to each of the major topics of Dharmaśāstra: epistemology of dharma, caste and social class, orders of life, rites of passage, Vedic student and graduate, marriage, children, inheritance, women, daily duties, food, gifting, funeral and ancestral offerings, impurity and purification, ascetic modes of life, dharma during emergencies, king, punishment, legal procedure, titles of law, penances, vows, pilgrimage, images, and temples. The final chapters then explore both the reception of Dharmaśāstra in other religious traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist, and the relevance of Dharmaśāstra to studies of critical concepts in religious studies—the body, emotions, material culture, subjectivity, animal studies, and vernacular culture."--
Author: Hermann Kulke
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415329194
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456
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Book Description
This fourth edition of A History of India presents the grand sweep of Indian history from antiquity to the present in a compact and readable survey. The authors examine the major political, economic, social and cultural forces which have shaped the history of the subcontinent. Providing an authoritative and detailed account, Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund emphasize and analyze the structural pattern of Indian history. The fourth edition of this highly accessible book brings the history of India up to date to consider, for example, the recent developments in the Kashmir conflict. Along with a new glossary, this edition also includes expanded discussions of the Mughal empire and the economic history of India.
Author: Ronald M. Davidson
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120819917
Category : Tantric Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 502
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Book Description
Despite the rapid spread of Buddhism the historical origins of Buddhsit thought and practice remain obscure.This work describes the genesis of the Tantric movement and in some ways an example of the feudalization of Indian society. Drawing on primary documents from sanskrit, prakrit, tibetan, Bengali, and chinese author shows how changes in medieval Indian society, including economic and patronage crises, a decline in women`s participation and the formation of large monastic orders led to the rise of the esoteric tradition in India.
Author: Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1843311321
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
A focal study of the methodological changes that confront historians of pre-colonial India.
Author: Daud Ali
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521816274
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
Publisher Description
Author: Cameron A. Petrie
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1785703048
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 797
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Book Description
From 1985 to 2001, the collaborative research initiative known as the Bannu Archaeological Project conducted archaeological explorations and excavations in the Bannu region, in what was then the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. This Project involves scholars from the Pakistan Heritage Society, the British Museum, the Institute of Archaeology (UCL), Bryn Mawr College and the University of Cambridge. This is the third in a series of volumes that present the final reports of the exploration and excavations carried out by the Bannu Archaeological Project. This volume presents the first synthesis of the archaeology of the historic periods in the Bannu region, spanning the period when the first large scale empires expanded to the borders of South Asia up until the arrival of Islam in the subcontinent at the end of the first and beginning of the second millennium BC. The Bannu region provides specific insight into early imperialism in South Asia, as throughout this protracted period, it was able to maintain a distinctive regional identity in the face of recurring phases of imperial expansion and integration.
Author: Manu V. Devadevan
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311051737X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
This book is a pioneering attempt to understand the prehistory of Hinduism in South Asia. Exploring religious processes in the Deccan region between the eleventh and the nineteenth century with class relations as its point of focus, it throws new light on the making of religious communities, monastic institutions, legends, lineages, and the ethics that governed them. In the light of this prehistory, a compelling framework is suggested for a revision of existing perspectives on the making of Hinduism in the nineteenth and the twentieth century.
Author: Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
Publisher: Pearson Education India
ISBN: 9788131719589
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
Contributed seminar papers.
