The Historian and Her Craft

Description

This set of four volumes reflects the scholarship of one of the foremost historians of our time. It is a comprehensive collection of lectures and essays by Romila Thapar, with each focusing on a theme—Historiography, Pre-Mauryan and Mauryan India, Social and Cultural Transactions, and Religion and Society. Each of these includes an interview of the author by an expert in the field, who also introduces the essays in that volume.
In a general introduction to the four volumes, Romila Thapar touches on various aspects of her approach to writing early Indian history. She analyses some of the trends in historical thought that have shaped the last six decades of such writing.

ROMILA THAPAR is Professor Emerita at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She has researched and written extensively on early India, and on the historiography of this period. She was awarded the John W. Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanity in 2008.

Table of contents

Volume I

List of Abbreviations

Preface

General Introduction
Romila Thapar

Introduction
Neeladri Bhattacharya

DECOLONIZING HISTORY
1. Ideology and the Interpretation of Early Indian History
2. Early India: An Overview
3. The Decolonization of History: Early India

MARXISM, SOCIOLOGY AND THE WRITING OF HISTORY
4. Durkheim and Weber on Theories of Society and Race Relating to Pre-colonial India
5. The Contribution of D.D. Kosambi to Indology

WRITING THE REGION
6. Regional History: The Punjab
7. Regional History with Reference to the Konkan

SECULARISM AND THE WRITING OF HISTORY
8. Imagined Religious Communities?: Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity
9. Secularism and History
10. The Historiography of the Concept of ‘Aryan’
11. The Tyranny of Labels

THE QUESTION OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
12. Society and Historical Consciousness: The Itihāsa-purāṇa Tradition
13. Was There Historical Writing in Early India?

NARRATIVE AND HISTORY
14. A Historical Perspective on the Story of Rāma
15. Śakuntalā: Histories of a Narrative
16. Somanātha: Narratives of a History

Romila Thapar in Conversation with Neeladri Bhattacharya
Index

Volume II

List of Figures

List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Kumkum Roy

STARTING UP
1. A Possible Identification of Meluhha, Dilmun and Makan
2. Society in Ancient India: The Formative Period

ARCHAEOLOGY AND TEXTS
3. The Ṛgveda: Encapsulating Social Change
4. The Archaeological Background to the Agnicayana Ritual
5. Archaeological Artifacts and Literary Data: An Attempt at Co-relation

STATE AND EMPIRE
6. The Evolution of the State in the Ganga Valley in the Mid-first Millennium bc
7. The Early History of Mathurā: Up to and Including the Mauryan Period
8. Towards the Definition of an Empire: The Mauryan State
9. State Weaving-Shops of the Mauryan Period

INSCRIPTIONS
10. Aśoka and Buddhism as Reflected in the Aśokan Edicts
11. Rāyā Asoko from Kanaganahalli: Some Thoughts
12. Literacy and Communication: Some Thoughts on the Inscriptions of Aśoka

BEYOND THE EMPIRE
13. Epigraphic Evidence and Some Indo-Hellenistic Contacts during the Mauryan Period
14. Text and Context: Megasthenes and the Seven Castes
15. The Role of the Army in the Exercise of Power in Early India

Romila Thapar in Conversation with Kumkum Roy

Index

Volume III

List of Figures

List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Rajan Gurukkal

LOOKING AT EPICS
1. The Historian and the Epic
2. Some Aspects of the Economic Data in the Mahābhārata
3. Dāna and Dakṣiṇā as Forms of Exchange
4. The Rāmāyaṇa: Theme and Variation

THE HERO
5. Death and the Hero
6. As Long as the Moon and the Sun Endure

GENEALOGIES AND CLAIMS TO STATUS
7. Genealogical Patterns as Perceptions of the Past
8. Origin Myths and the Early Indian Historical Tradition
9. Clan, Caste and Origin Myths in Early India
10. The Mouse in the Ancestry

INDIA AND EUROPE IN EARLY TIMES
11. The Image of the Barbarian in Early India
12. Indian Views of Europe: Representations of the Yavanas in Early Indian History
13. Black Gold: South Asia and the Roman Maritime Trade
14. Time Concepts, Social Identities and Historical Consciousness in Early India

Romila Thapar in Conversation with Rajan Gurukkal

Index

Volume IV

List of Abbreviations vii

Introduction ix
Kunal Chakrabarti

EXPLORING NEW IDEAS
1. Sacrifice, Surplus, and the Soul
2. Ideology, Society and the Upaniṣads
3. Ethics, Religion and Social Protest in the First Millennium bc in Northern India
4. The Oral and the Written in Early India

THE SOCIAL ROLE OF THE RENOUNCER
5. Dissent and Protest in the Early Indian Tradition
6. Renunciation: The Making of a Counter-Culture?
7. The Householder and the Renouncer in the Brahmanical and Buddhist Traditions
8. Millenarianism and Religion in Early India

INCLUSION AND EXILE
9. The Purāṇa s: Heresy and the Vaṃśānucarita
10. Exile and the Kingdom: Some Thoughts on the ‘ Rāmāyaṇa ’
11. Perceiving the Forest: Early India

RELIGION AS AN ASPECT OF POLITICS
12. Syndicated Hinduism

FORMS OF PATRONAGE—OLD AND NEW
13. Cultural Transaction and Early India: Tradition and Patronage
14. Patronage and the Community
15. The Museum and History
16. The Museum Experience

Romila Thapar in Conversation with Kunal Chakrabarti

Index