History & Culture

Jainism in Early Medieval Karnataka attempts to explain the prevalence of image worship, tantrism, priesthood and ritualistic formation which characterized Karnataka Jainism in the early medieval period. The book also seeks to examine the social and economic basis of Jaina monasteries in all parts of the Kannada region.

The Sherpas

The Sherpas of the Mount Everest region, famous for their mountaineering exploits, have frequently been depicted as victims of the world’s highest-altitude tourist boom. Stanley Stevens is the first to analyze the complex interaction of local environmental knowledge, cultural beliefs, and socio-economic and political conditions in changing sherpas subsistence strategies, land use practices, and local resources management institutions.

Ancient Indian warfare

The author explores the domestication of horses and elephants and their use for military purposes; the invention of wheeled vehicles and the battle-chariot; the use of metals for the manufacture of weapons; the nature of ancient arms and armour; forts and fortifications; military order and organisation; and the uneasy birth of a moral consciousness evidenced in the development of a code of war.

The present book is an attempt to speak about the life of the Tibetan people in their own homes. The contents are leaved on the author’s first-hand knowledge of Tibetan life during a residence of nearly twenty years from conversation with his Tibetan acquaintances in their own language not through interpreters. In order to keep this volume within moderate limits he had to exclude from it many aspects of Tibetan life. Shut-off from the outer world by their immense mountain barriers Tibet still presented a virgin field of enquiry. There has been little change in the inner life of the people during the last thousand years. As the area is very large and the intercourse of one part with another is restricted, the manners and customs vary in different districts and provinces.

The Indus Script and the Rg-veda

Since the publication of the concordances of the inscriptions of the Indus seals many people have been working on the solution of the riddle presented by the 5000 years old indus script of the Indus valley. At first sight the task does not appear too difficult, as there are pictograms that can easily be recognized as man, bird, fish, dog or plant or a part of them. A lot of signs are geometric, but this does seem to be an insurmountable obstacle either, since some of them resemble or are identical to the majuscules of the Greek and the Latin alphabet or found in the mudras of Indian dance and in the patterns of symbolic Indian art. The decipherments that were based on these similarities resulted, however, only in the reading of some inscriptions as more or less obscure names, sometimes not even a phonetic value could be given. Nevertheless they are often presented as complete decipherments to the public. On this account, the pretension that the Indus script is deciphered meets with increasing suspicion and is exposed to ridicule even. Many scholars working in this field are nowadays of the opinion that the Indus script is altogether indecipherablem if not a bilingual of considerable size turns up.

The approach to a decipherment presented in this volume make avail of bilingual, too, but its masterkey is the discovering of the symbolic and linguistic connection of the Indus signs with the Rg-Veda. More than 200 inscriptions, among them the longest and those with the most interesting motifs, have been decoded here by setting them word after wordin relation to Rg-Vedic verses. The results that were gained by this method of comparison for the pictographic and phonetic values of the Indus signs are surprising and far beyond the most daring phantasy. They have been summarised now in a complete sign-dictionary containing over 150 further inscriptions. At the same time many problems of the Rg-Veda could be solved and new insights be won, for example in the issue of the age of the Rg-Veda and the origin of the Vedic poets or the nature of the Soma plant.

Studies in the Political and Administrative Systems in Ancient and Medieval India

The earlier chapters of the present volume deal with a large number of topics relating to kingship, landlordism (sometimes mistaken as feudalism), tenancy, royal, charter, Pancayat system etc. Some of the following chapters contain discussions on certain royal officers the functions of some of them or their departments a few aspects of the judicial system some land measures and taxes etc. The third group of topics mostly concerns the interpretation of technical expressions found in epigraphical records.

The last section of the work consists of several appendices which are really some of the author’s recently published studies. Of these, one deals with the democratic traditions of ancient Indian and another with the functioning of the guilds, while a third contains a number of popular conceptions about the duties of Kings. The Subject of the last of the appendices is the traders privileges guaranteed by kings, which has been included here as a topic relating to kingship, though it is equally suitable for a study of economic life.

It will be seen that the book contains the learned author’s views on a great variety of matter respecting the political and administrative systems of ancient and medieval India. The treatment of the majority of topics is primarily based on information gathered from innumerable epigraphic records discovered in various parts of India and is characterised by an unusual mastery of details.

Northern India experienced great crises in the years between C.A. D. 475 and 1030. Many a time this part of the world was the scene of foreign invasions-Empires arose and disintegrated: society and economy changed to a great extent; many Brahman’s of this period migrated.

This work deals at length with various theories about relgion prevalent at the time when Megasthenes visited India very interesting and scholarly views have been put forth regarding investigations of Megasthenes their reliability and the reliability of his reporters.

Undoubtedly Culture of India lacks historical aspect inasmuch-as does not provide as to when an event took place or certain concept was first used