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Social Worlds of Premodern Transactions bring together a range of new perspectives on social and economic history. They show how exchange is not only about commodities or items, but also about interactions and relationships between people. The essays span a broad time frame, starting from the early historic and extending into the medieval. They range from studies of sites and micro-regions to translocal communities and transcontinental voyages.
Uma Chakravarti, feminist historian, teacher, and democratic rights' activist, has inspired generations of teachers, students and friends. This volume, including contributions from a handful of those who share her concerns, is a tribute to her energy, commitment and perseverance in pursuing her ideas and dreams. Is it possible to extend interventions from the classroom to the community? How do we strive towards a more integrated vision and praxis without falling into the trap of uniformity? Delving into texts ranging from the Rigveda to contemporary Dalit literature, and using diverse analytical strategies to understand present-day situations and experiences, the contributors offer insights, share concerns, and uncertainties through their essays and narratives. The themes addressed include issues of caste, nationalism, gendered identities, communalization, sexualities, socio-political relationships in all their complexities and the modes of transmission of ancient texts. The contributors include scholars/teachers who, like Uma, attempt to bridge the worlds of academics and activism, as well as young researchers who share her enthusiasm for ancient Indian history.
Papers mostly presented at various seminars; some previously published.
How can the complexities of ancient India be comprehended? This book draws on a vast array of texts, inscriptions, archaeology, archival sources and art to delve into themes such as the history of regions and religions, archaeologists and the modern histories of ancient sites, the interface between political ideas and practice, violence and resistance, and the interactions between the Indian subcontinent and the wider world. It highlights recent approaches and challenges in reconstructing South Asia's early history, and in doing so, brings out the exciting complexities of ancient India. Authoritative and incisive, this revised Penguin edition-with two new chapters-is essential reading for students and scholars of ancient Indian history and for all those interested in India's past.
How can higher education today create a community of critical thinkers and searchers for truth that transcends the boundaries of class, gender, and nation? Philosopher and classicist Martha C. Nussbaum takes up the challenge of conservative critics of academe to argue persuasively that sustained reform in the aim and content of liberal education is the most vital and invigorating force in higher education. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Between 300 BCE and 200 CE, concepts and practices of dharma attained literary prominence throughout India. Both Buddhist and Brahmanical authors sought to clarify and classify their central concerns, and dharma proved a means of thinking through and articulating those concerns. Alf Hiltebeitel shows the different ways in which dharma was interpreted during that formative period: from the grand cosmic chronometries of kalpas and yugas to narratives about divine plans, gendered nuances of genealogical time, royal biography (even autobiography, in the case of the emperor Asoka), and guidelines for daily life, including meditation. He reveals the vital role dharma has played across political, r...
The economic history of early India is a rich and diverse area of study, covering agricultural developments, trade, markets, occupation and professional groups, urbanization and the institutions that govern the economy. Recent research has expanded our understanding of the processes of transformation of the economy in different temporal contexts within the Indian sub-continent. They have particularly led us to explore connected histories given the trans-continental trading networks and movements of people from very early times. This volume seeks to draw attention to this vast and unexplored terrain in the economic history of early India, by bringing together essays on a new and rich historio...
The Sovereign Lives of India and Pakistan explores what it has meant for the two countries to act as sovereign states entangled at birth by an unsatisfactory partition. Sovereignty is conventionally understood as a means to achieve the goals that states set for themselves. This book argues that for India and Pakistan, sovereignty has become an end in itself, and that its pursuit has aided majoritarianism, insecurity, and mutual estrangement. It examines the trajectory of three problems that the partition of 1947 bequeathed to the two states. It investigates the state–minority relations, national identity debates, and contestation over Kashmir to outline the parallel processes of minoritiza...
Explore this second volume of translations, in vivid prose, from one of the most celebrated collections of ancient Buddhist stories. Actions never come to naught, even after hundreds of millions of years. When the right conditions gather and the time is right, then they will have their effect on embodied beings. Ancient Buddhist literature is filled with tales of past lives. The Buddha, surrounded by his followers, is asked how it came to be that a certain person has met a particular fate. With his omniscience, the Buddha looks into eons past and uncovers the events that led to the present outcome and foretells the future as well. With stories of wicked wives, patricidal princes, and shape-s...
Crossing the Lines of Caste offers a cultural-historical analysis of the legends of Visvamitra, a sage who is said to have used his ascetic power to change his caste and become a Brahmin. It reveals how and why mythological culture has played an active role in the construction of Brahmin social power for more than three thousand years.