Approaches to History
Approaches to History

Author: Sabyasachi Bhattacharya

Publisher: Primus Books

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 9380607172

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History as a social science is arguably more self-reflective than associated disciplines in that family. Other social scientists seem to see little reason to look beyond the paradigm they are developing in the present times. Historians on the other hand, tend to depend on the cumulative process of the development of their craft and the fund of accumulated knowledge. Yet, while this is acknowledged in the practice of research, Historiography in itself as a subject of study has rarely found its place in the syllabi of Indian universities. Knowledge of Historiography is taken for granted when a scholar plunges into research. In an attempt to address this lacuna, the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) has planned a series of volumes on Historiography comprising articles by subject specialists commissioned by the ICHR. The first volume in the series, Approaches to History: Essays in Indian Historiography brings to the readers the first fruits of that endeavour. While the essays encompass areas of research presently at the frontiers of new research, scholars will also find the bibliographies accompanying the essays of significant appeal.

Witness to Marvels
Witness to Marvels

Author: Tony K. Stewart

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2019-09-13

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0520973682

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A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. There is a vast body of imaginal literature in Bengali that introduces fictional Sufi saints into the complex mythological world of Hindu gods and goddesses. Dating to the sixteenth century, the stories—pir katha—are still widely read and performed today. The events that play out rival the fabulations of the Arabian Nights, which has led them to be dismissed as simplistic folktales, yet the work of these stories is profound: they provide fascinating insight into how Islam habituated itself into the cultural life of the Bangla-speaking world. In Witness to Marvels, Tony K. Stewart unearths the dazzling tales of Sufi saints to signal a bold new perspective on the subtle ways Islam assumed its distinctive form in Bengal.

Ibn Al-At̲h̲ir
Ibn Al-At̲h̲ir

Author: Mahmood ul-Hasan

Publisher: Northern Book Centre

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9788172111540

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The historian Ibn al-Athir lived during the last quarter of the twelfth and the first half of thirteenth century - turbulent period of Asia. The historian, receiving elementry education first at home and later in the neighbouring schools turned a wondering scholar of the then known disciplines at various centres of learning in Mosul, Baghdad, Damascus, Allepo and Basra. His gigantic work Tarikh al-Kamil is perhaps the product of sober days of his last ten years. An Incomplete History of Mosul are the lasting contribution to the Arab treasure of knowledge.

Chariot in Indian History
Chariot in Indian History

Author: U.P. Thapliyal

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-10-06

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1000781011

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The invention and development of the chariot around the third millennium revolutionized the art of warfare and dominated the battlefields for some 3000 years. It seems to have evolved in the borderlands between the steppes and the riverlands. It is believed that the Āryan borrowed the idea of chariot from Sumerians around 2000 bc. It is presumed that these Āryans entered Iran and departed in three branches. One marches westward towards Syria, another eastward towards India and a third stays back in Iran. The absence of chariot in Indus valley civilization suggests that chariot arrived in India with Āryans, who settled here around 1500 bc. They used it as a lethal war machine to conquer the natives. The Chariot has played a vital role in Indian warfare through the ages, spanning over Vedic, Epic, and Puranic times, as attested to by literary and archaeological evidence. The Turk invasion marked by the dominance of cavalry arm brought the curtain down on chariot as a war machine. However, it survived in the Indian milieu in some other incarnations.

The Cambridge World History: Volume 2, A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE–500 CE
The Cambridge World History: Volume 2, A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE–500 CE

Author: Graeme Barker

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-04-16

Total Pages: 808

ISBN-13: 1316297780

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The development of agriculture has often been described as the most important change in all of human history. Volume 2 of the Cambridge World History series explores the origins and impact of agriculture and agricultural communities, and also discusses issues associated with pastoralism and hunter-fisher-gatherer economies. To capture the patterns of this key change across the globe, the volume uses an expanded timeframe from 12,000 BCE–500 CE, beginning with the Neolithic and continuing into later periods. Scholars from a range of disciplines, including archaeology, historical linguistics, biology, anthropology, and history, trace common developments in the more complex social structures and cultural forms that agriculture enabled, such as sedentary villages and more elaborate foodways, and then present a series of regional overviews accompanied by detailed case studies from many different parts of the world, including Southwest Asia, South Asia, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Europe.

Universal Empire
Universal Empire

Author: Peter Fibiger Bang

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-08-16

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 1139560956

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The claim by certain rulers to universal empire has a long history stretching as far back as the Assyrian and Achaemenid Empires. This book traces its various manifestations in classical antiquity, the Islamic world, Asia and Central America as well as considering seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European discussions of international order. As such it is an exercise in comparative world history combining a multiplicity of approaches, from ancient history, to literary and philosophical studies, to the history of art and international relations and historical sociology. The notion of universal, imperial rule is presented as an elusive and much coveted prize among monarchs in history, around which developed forms of kingship and political culture. Different facets of the phenomenon are explored under three, broadly conceived, headings: symbolism, ceremony and diplomatic relations; universal or cosmopolitan literary high-cultures; and, finally, the inclination to present universal imperial rule as an expression of cosmic order.

Ships and the Development of Maritime Technology on the Indian Ocean
Ships and the Development of Maritime Technology on the Indian Ocean

Author: Ruth Barnes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1317793439

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Recognising the fundamental role both of shipping communities and the technologies crafted and shared by them, this book explores the types of ships, methods of navigation and modes of water-borne trade in the Indian Ocean region and the way they affected the development of distinctive settlements against a changing but strong sense of regional consciousness and identity.

Indian Epigraphy
Indian Epigraphy

Author: Richard Salomon

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1998-12-10

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0195356667

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This book provides a general survey of all the inscriptional material in the Sanskrit, Prakrit, and modern Indo-Aryan languages, including donative, dedicatory, panegyric, ritual, and literary texts carved on stone, metal, and other materials. This material comprises many thousands of documents dating from a range of more than two millennia, found in India and the neighboring nations of South Asia, as well as in many parts of Southeast, central, and East Asia. The inscriptions are written, for the most part, in the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts and their many varieties and derivatives. Inscriptional materials are of particular importance for the study of the Indian world, constituting the most detailed and accurate historical and chronological data for nearly all aspects of traditional Indian culture in ancient and medieval times. Richard Salomon surveys the entire corpus of Indo-Aryan inscriptions in terms of their contents, languages, scripts, and historical and cultural significance. He presents this material in such a way as to make it useful not only to Indologists but also non-specialists, including persons working in other aspects of Indian or South Asian studies, as well as scholars of epigraphy and ancient history and culture in other regions of the world.

The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia
The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia

Author: Michael D. Petraglia

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-05-22

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 1402055625

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This is the first volume of its kind on prehistoric cultures of South Asia. The book brings together archaeologists, biological anthropologists, geneticists and linguists in order to provide a comprehensive account of the history and evolution of human populations residing in the subcontinent. New theories and methodologies presented provide new interpretations about the cultural history and evolution of populations in South Asia.