Studying Early India: Archaeology, Texts and Historical Issues

by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya

Overview

This volume of essays focuses on the fresh set of problems that post-Independence historiography has brought to the fore. It covers areas such as the integration of archaeology with narratives of early Indian history; the trajectories of social change and social formation; the historical position of ideology and its shifts; and, importantly, how ways of communicating knowledge of the past is now increasingly under non-academic fundamentalist onslaught.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843311324
Publisher:	Anthem Press
Publication date:	03/01/2006
Series:	Anthem South Asian Studies
Edition description:	First Edition, First ed.
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya was educated at Calcutta and Cambridge. He has taught at Burdwan University, Viswabharati and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where he is currently Professor of History.

Table of Contents

Preface; Introductory: 1. The Study of Early India; Archaeology and Historical Issues: 2. Indian Archaeology and the Epic Traditions; 3. Transition to the Early Historical Phase in the Deccan: A Note; 4. Geographical Perspectives, Cultures Change and Linkages: Some Reflections on Early Punjab; 5. Urban Centres in Early Bengal: Archaeological Perspectives; Texts and Historical issues: 6. The City in Early India: Perspectives from Texts, 7. 'Autonomous Spaces' and the Authority of the State: The Contradiction and Its Resolution in Theory and Practice in Early India; 8. Historical Context of the Early Medieval Temples of North India; 9. 'Reappearance' of Goddess or the Brᾱhmaṇical Mode of Appropriation: Some Early Epigraphic Evidence Bearing on the Goddess Cults; 10. Other, or the Others? Varieties of Difference in Indian Society at the Turn of the First Millennium and Their Historiographical Implications; Historiography and History as Communication: 11. Trends of Research on Ancient Indian Economic History; 12. State ad Economy in North India: Fourth Century to Twelfth Century; 13. Cultural Plurality, Contending Memories and Concerns of Comparative History: Historiography and Pedagogy in Contemporary India; Notes and References