Source materials for understanding Indian history and culture

[LurkerBaba]

For those about to read the Arthshastra, I recommend this translation

The original translation (Shastry) is too tedious and boring

Amazon.com: The Arthashastra (Penguin classics) (9780140446036): Kautalya: Books
Kautilya: The Arthashastra(Paperback)

 

[Sabir]

Full text .....Tavels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia

Full text of "The travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667"

Mundy visited India when Taj Maha was under construction.

 

[Sabir]

Baburnama Babur Nama

I have a copy of different translation which I dont like. But the link I have given is a nice translation.

 

[civfanatic]

For those about to read the Arthshastra, I recommend this translation

The original translation (Shastry) is too tedious and boring

Amazon.com: The Arthashastra (Penguin classics) (9780140446036): Kautalya: Books
Kautilya: The Arthashastra(Paperback)

Is this version available online?

And the cover art is not even from the Maurya period

 

[LurkerBaba]

Is this version available online?

And the cover art is not even from the Maurya period

You can get an eBook but It's not free.

 

[civfanatic]

You can get an eBook but It's not free.

Just checked, they have this version at my campus library.

 

[Shaitan]

Full text of "The stūpa of Bharhut: a Buddhist monument ornamented with numerous sculptures illustrative of Buddhist legend and history in the third century B. C"

 

[Shaitan]

[pdf]http://www.sdstate.edu/projectsouthasia/upload/Aelian-on-India.pdf[/pdf]

 

[Shaitan]

[pdf]http://www.sdstate.edu/projectsouthasia/upload/Megasthene-Indika.pdf[/pdf]

 

[MAYURA]

Is this version available online?

And the cover art is not even from the Maurya period

Arthasastra is not of mauryan period either.

 

[IBSA]

Are there any material about Indus Valley Civilization?

 

[arpakola]

CONTRIBUTIONS OF AFRICANS TO INDIAN SOCIETY
SONS OF MALCOLM: CONTRIBUTIONS OF AFRICANS TO INDIAN SOCIETY

An exhibition and conference highlight rare images of the contribution of Africans to Indian society.

"One of the most fascinating stories that emerged from the Indian Ocean region, which included Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, was that India had African rulers, notables and chief ministers. This was not the case with African diaspora in any other place, she said."

[source]

Almost a hundred years before Shivaji began to consolidate his empire, Malik Ambar of Bijapur led an army of 50,000 soldiers, many of whom were Marathi cavalry soldiers, against the Mughals. Malik Ambar, who was born in Ethiopia and brought as a slave to India around 1570, was one member of India's once-thriving community of African immigrants.

Like other Africans in India, he is now only rarely remembered. But a new exhibition and conference in New Delhi, Africans in India: A Rediscovery, seeks to change that.

Dr Sylviane Diouf, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has been working on this exhibition, for some years now, in association with Ken Robbins, who co-wrote a book on African elites in India. The first iteration of the exhibition was in February 2013 in New York.

"We thought it was time for us to look at African diaspora in the Indian Ocean world, which in the Western world, nobody knows about," said Diouf, whose work as a historian focuses on Africans along the Atlantic. "Our mission was to cover the entire African diaspora."

One of the most fascinating stories that emerged from the Indian Ocean region, which included Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, was that India had African rulers, notables and chief ministers. This was not the case with African diaspora in any other place, she said.

Africans from countries such as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia began arriving in India as early as the 1300s. Many African women came to India as domestic servants or as concubines. Due to an established trade between India and east Africa, some men arrived as traders and sailors, but an overwhelming majority came to India as slave soldiers. This eventually enabled them to reverse equations and to work their up the social ladder.

"When armies arrived, they needed people to actually manage, if you will, the territories they had conquered," said Diouf. "Usually what happens in many cases is that when you're a newcomer, you don't trust the people who were there before. You think people from outside will be more loyal because they won't have any family links."

Instead, some Africans seized power for themselves and turned against those who brought them in, resulting in figures like Malik Ambar, or even the Sidi Nawabs of Sachin and Janjira, the last of whom joined the Indian union only in 1948.

This, however, was not the story of Africans who arrived later in the 19th and 20th centuries, brought in mostly by the Portuguese slave trade from Kenya and Tanzania. Their situation resembled that of their American counterparts far more.

This exhibition revolves around those who were descended from the earlier arrivals. The earliest painting is of an African woman dated around 1600. The prints themselves span various painters and styles across eras around India.

What stands out, said Diouf, is that Africans are represented very realistically. They are not ridiculed or stereotyped, but appeared just as they were.

"In early Europe, we see paintings of African ambassadors, some of whom visited Europe in the 16th century," she said. "Those are represented in a dignified manner. It is only when we get to slavery in the Americas that Africans begin to be depicted as stereotypes

 

[patrika]

YOu can find lot more from wikipedia

 

[VishalVKale]

LONG message...

{To alll : 90% of these books are reviewed on my blog, reflectionsvvk.blogspot.in}

The best books, in my opinion, are :

1) An Economic History Of India - RC Dutt, 1906. Widely acknowledged to be te only definitive work on pre-colonial and colonial economic reality; most other books from this period are to be studiously avoided

2) Books by Irfan Habib.

3) The Shadow Of The Great Game - Narendra Singh Sarila {True story of partition : by an ADC to Mountbatten}

4) Jinnah - Jaswant Singh {for the period 1900 - 1940}

5) The Discovery of India - Jawaharlal Nehru

6) The Case For India - Will Durant

7) Bengal Divided - Nitish Sengupta

8) Ashok The Great - Monika Khanna

9) Early India - Romila Thapar {objectionable in some aspects, but worth a read}

10) What India Should Know - Laxmikanthan and Devi

11) India's Independence Struggle - Bipin Chandra Pal Et Al

12) Kargil - Gen VP Malik

13) From Midnight To The Millenium and Beyond - Shashi Tharoor

14) Tinderbok - MJ Akbar

15) The Land Of The Seven Rivers - Sanjeev Sanyal\

16) The Blood Telegram - Gary J Bass

17) Black Friday - S Hussain Zaidi

18) Fatwa - Arun Shourie. Strongly worded in segments, not recommended for anything other than understanding the historical aspect covered in 2 chapters

19) Operation Red Lotus - Parag Tope

20) The Real Story Of The Great Uprising - Vishnu Bhatt Versaikar Godse

21) The Revolt Against The West and The Rise Of Asia - Pankaj Mishra



Notice that there are only 2 western authors here. The first stands as the ONLY unbiased and accurate account by a westerner; the second, while slightly biased, is factually accurate. IMHO, avoid ALL western books; most are highly inaccurate, or foul, or biased. Most of these, as well as some western books, are reviewed on my blog. Read if interested.

 

[Bhadra]

Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies

Stephen Peter Rosen

Cornell University Press, 1996 -

Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies - Stephen Peter Rosen - Google Books

 

[Kyubi]

1)Romil Thapar
2)Satish Chandra
3)A.L Basham
4)S.A Rizvi
5)Irfan Habib
6)K.A Neelakanta Shastry
7)M.N Srinivasan
8)Sumit Sarkar
9)Bipin Chandra

Read these authors to get a vague idea of Indian History based on facts .Rather than on conjecture

I have my doubts about the authors especially Romila thapar, Bipin Chandra, Irfan Habib, Satish Chandra.. I would like to point out that these historians are associated with ICHR and have been part of several Projects which are yet to see the light of the day. I would recommend you to read Eminent Historians By Arun Shourie .. it will give us an insight in to how these authors have used govt money for their own personal works...

The case in reference here is the proposal by National Book Trust given to ICHR for translating the volumes in the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Series on the history and culture of India , there was a committe setup consisted of these historians namely Bipin Chandra and Romila Thapar and they had decided that these BVB Series are not suitable for translations and they suggested that instead of these , other titles for translation were to be selected and guess who the authors of these other TITLES were !!?? Romila Thapar , Irfan Habib, Satish Chandra, EMS Namboodiripad etc.. How much Money had been spent on this 41,89,000/- and this project began in the yr 1972 !!!! I Believe this project was indeed completed but were they objective in their approach or purely selfish ???

Apart from this there are several other projects which have been put in to cold storage even after spending lakhs of public money ...

Excerpt from Eminent Historians - Arun Shourie

 

[archie]

I am looking for this Book called "The Vedic Civilisation" by Anwar Shaikh Cardiff : Principality Publishers, 2003

surprisingly the author is Pakistani and converted to hinduism and been very critical of pakistan.. Any one know where i can find this e-book or book .

 

[josan420]

Here you can read about Indian culture, About ancient India, and about its wonders.
Mystery of India | Explore The wonders and Mysteries of india

 

[archie]

I am looking for this Book called "The Vedic Civilisation" by Anwar Shaikh Cardiff : Principality Publishers, 2003

surprisingly the author is Pakistani and converted to hinduism and been very critical of pakistan.. Any one know where i can find this e-book or book .

I have been searching for this book.. physical or E-book form.. unable to find a source

His Videos on Youtube are intresting

 

[Khagesh]

Linking here because this will change history.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...rfan-habib/articleshow/47303073.cms?prtpage=1

ICHR dissolves advisory panel comprising Romila Thapar & Irfan Habib
By Ritika Chopra, ET Bureau | 16 May, 2015, 04.00AM IST
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NEW DELHI: The Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) has disbanded the advisory committee of its journal comprising 21 eminent historians from around the world, includingRomila Thapar and Irfan Habib.

The council's member-secretary Gopinath Ravindran opposed the decision taken during a meeting of the journal's editorial board held this week, people familiar with the matter told ET.

The decision to disband the committee is among the first taken by the country's top historical research body after it was reconstituted by the NDA government in January.

The Indian Historical Review is the refereed journal of the ICHRthat has been publishing research work in history since 1974. It is one of the few Indian journals found on the prestigious Thomson Reuters list. The panel was disbanded in a meeting of the journal's editorial board, headed by ICHR Chairman Y Sudershan Rao, on Tuesday.

The membership of the new advisory committee is now limited to the 18 historians on ICHR's governing body.

The advisory committee included Satish Chandra, Muzaffar Alam from the University of Chicago, Richard M Eaton of the University of Arizona, BR Tomlinson from London's School of Oriental and African Studies and JS Grewal, former vice chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar. Although the advisory members are not actively involved in producing the biannual journal, they help in reviewing articles that appear in it. "A panel of eminent historians lends lustre to the journal. It adds to its credibility," said Professor BP Sahu of Delhi University, a former ICHR member.

Ravindran, who also serves as the managing editor of IHR, opposed the decision on the grounds that it wasn't backed by any "academic logic", one of the persons cited earlier said. Ravindran, a professor of history at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, who was appointed as ICHR's membersecretary under the previous UPA II government, declined to comment on the matter. Rao, however, defended the decision saying appointment of the advisory panel for IHR is purely the prerogative of the journal's editorial board. "There is nothing unusual or wrong about this," he said.

Thapar told ET that she had received no official communication about her removal from IHR's advisory panel. Asked if she was surprised by the news of her removal, she said, "Not really. One can see from the membership of the new council which direction they are heading into."

Reacting to the decision to limit the panel's membership to just ICHR members, she said, "The whole point of the advisory board is that you can search far and wide for people who have expertise in various subjects. If you limit the membership of the advisory board to just members of the ICHR, you are, in a sense, annulling the purpose of the advisory board, which is to get as wide an opinion as possible on what to put into the journal."

This development comes close on the heels of historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya's resignation from the post of chief editor of the journal last month. Although Bhattacharya gave no official reason for quitting, media reports suggested he was unhappy with the "direction" the ICHR is taking. Professor Dilip Chakrabarti of Cambridge University is the new chief editor of the journal.