Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History

1172 Pages·74.579 MB·English

by  Romila Thapar

Cultural Pasts
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Cultural Pasts
Essays in Early Indian History
Romila Thapar
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... Included in this land were fruit-yi.elding trees,
water, lands, gardens, all up-growing trees and
down going wells, open spaces, wastes in which
calves graze, the village site, ant hills, platforms
built around trees, canals, hollows; rivers and their
alluvial deposits, tanks, granaries, fish-ponds and
deep ponds, clefts with bee-hives; and everything
else on which the iguana runs and the tortoise
crawls; and taxes such as the income from places
of justice, the taxes on betel leaves, the cloths from
looms ... everything that the king could take and
enjoy .. .
Anbil Copper Plate Grant of
Sundara Chola c. 960
AD
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Preface
'"rhe
papers and lectures that comprise this volume were written
1
at different times over the past thiny years or so and have
appeared earlier within diverse journals, pamphlets, books. I was
asked to pull them together into a single volume by Oxford Univer
sity Press who - as they persuasively put it - were certain that
'a fulsome selection of your best essays will interest a large number
of historians and general readers.'
I have arranged the essays thematically and not chronologically
because that makes for more interesting reading. As a consequence,
a certain level of overlap in the subjects discussed is more noticeable
than it might otherwise have been, but editing out the overlap
would probably have truncated lines of thought within each essay
and perhaps made each seem less unified and readable.
No substantial revision has been made to these essays, therefore,
except here and there in order to correct dated information. A little
more than such minimalist revision was required in those'e ssays
that appeared in an earlier forrn in my collection titled Ancient
Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, but here again I have
taken care to preserve the essays' original argument and unity.
Fortunately, major changes in perspective within the study of
early Indian history take time getting established! My present views
on some of the themes within this present volume have marginally
altered, but I feel there is much to be said for retaining the flavour
of the separate periods in which these essays were originally
written.
I am aware that the terms 'culture' and 'cultural' have had rnany
meanings and connotations, ranging from an interest in literature,
the arts and philosophy to the sophisticated analyses of those who
work in 'cultural studies'. Nevertheless, the choice of title for this
book derives from my preference that culture be defined as 'a
pattern of life'. In this sense, historical analysis - where it is not
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Preface
V111
an arid recounting of dates and events - inevitably refers to the
culture of a society, or to a segment of that society.
I would like to thank Venkatesh Nayyar and Avinash Kumar for
help with the nitty-gritty of preparing this book.
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New Delhi, 1999 ROMILA TiiAPAR
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Contents
List of Illustrations xii
I. Historiography 1
1. Ideology and the Interpretation of F.arly Indian History 3
2. Durkheim and Weber on Theories of Society and
Race Relating to Pre-colonial India 21
3. The Contribution of D.D. Kosambi to lndology 52
4. F.arly India: An Overview 74
5. Regional History: The Punjab 95
6. Regional History with Reference to the Konkan 109
7. Society and Historical Consciousness:
The Tradition 123
ltihdsa-pura~a
8. Historical Consciousness in Early India 155
9. Antecedents, Religious Sanctions and Political
Legitimation in the Ladakh Chronicles 173
n.
Social and Cultural Transactions 193
10. The Oral and the Written in F.arly India 195
11. Dissent and Protest in the Early Indian Tradition 213
12. The Image of the Barbarian in F.arly India 235
m.
Archaeology and History 271
13. A Possible Identification of Meluhha,
Dilmun and Makan 273
14. Society in Ancient India: The Formative Period 310
15. The Archaeological Background to the
Agnicayana Ritual 336
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x Contents
16. Archaeological Artifacts and Literary Data:
An Attempt at Co-relation 367
JV. Pre-Mauryan and Mauryan India 375
17. The Evolution of the State in the Ganga Valley
in the Mid-first Millennium 377
BC
18. The Early History of Mathura: Up to and
Including the Mauryan Period 396
19. State Weaving-Shops of the Mauryan Period 411
20. ASoka and Buddhism as Reflected in the
ASokan Edicts 422
21. Llteracy and Communication: Some Thoughts
on the Inscriptions of ASoka 439
22. Epigraphic Evidence and Some lndo-Hellenistic
Contacts During the Mauryan Period 453
23. The Mauryas Revisited 462
Towards the Defir,ition of an Empire:
I.
The Mauryan State 462
..
Text and Context: Megasthenes and the
II.
Seven Castes 488
v.
Forms of Exchange 519
24. Dana and Dak~ii:ia as Forms of Exchange 521
25. Indian Views of Europe: Representations of
the Yavanas in Early Indian History 536
26. Black Gold: South Asia and
the Roman Maritime Trade 556
27. Patronage and the Community 589
VI. Of Heroes and History 611
28. The Historian and the Epic 613
29. Some Aspects of the Economic Data
in the Mahdbhdrata 630
30. The Rdmdyai:ia: Theme and Variation 647
31. Death and the Hero 680
32. As Long as the Moon and the Sun Endure 696
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