Author: Dilip K chakrabarti
Publisher: Aryan
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 173
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788173053412
Description
A number of issues regarding the study of ancient India have recently emerged in the public domain. The most important of them are the saraswati project, Aryan invasion theory, the textbook controversy in India and California and the language of the Indus civilization.
The intensity of debate on each of these issues is reminiscent of religious clashes. Much of this debate is also not limited to professional historians and archeologists. The mass of data and archeologists. The mass of data and opinions, which are currently available on the internet and have frequently been published in the media, can no longer be ignored by anybody interested in ancient India. Some professional analysis of this development has long been called for.
This book is in response to this need. it first states the author's position on each of these issues, but more importantly, critically examines their rationale. By studying the socio-political implications of some of the current assumptions of the Indian archeology and by noting their associations with different scholars and scholarly groups, it demonstrates that even the apparently remote conclusions about India's prehistoric, protohistoric and early historic past have sub-texts of various kinds and that these sub-texts have different socio-political implications and agendas
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
The Thyme
The Author's Own Approach and Beliefs
The Idea of India as Colonized Land
Throughout History
SUNRISE IN THE WEST
DIFFERENT STRANDS OF PREHISTORIC AND PROTOHISTORIC STUDIES
The General Background
The Theme of 'Sunrise in the West'
Comments on Certain General Trends of Publications in Indian Prehistory and Protohistory
THE SOCIOPOLITICS OF INDUS CIVILIZATION STUDIES
The Framework of the Ancient Indian Past Before the Discovery
The Discovery and the Early Hypothses of Excavators
The Period Between the Discovery and Associated Reports and the Publication of Marshal's Mohinjodaro Report in 1931: R P Chanda
The Formulation of the Dravidian Hypothesis: Suniti Kumar Chatterji
Observations on Chanda and Chatterji
John Marshal's ' Mohinjodaro and the Indus Civilization" 1931
The Basic History of the Idea of Harappa-Vedic Relationship; B N Dutta to P V Kane and Others
More on Dravidian Premise or the Question of the Dravidian Authorship of the Dravidian Civilization
The Current Politics of the Indus Civilization Studies
THE SOCIOPATHY OF SOME DEBATE IN EARLY HISTORIC
ARCHAEOLOGY
The Literature on the NBP
The Beginning of Writing
The Role of Iron in the early Urbanisation
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSIONS
Appendix
Bibliography
Index