History & Culture

The author’s direct aim in the present work is to furnish the historians of the special sciences with new material which will serve to widen the scope of their survey. The Hindus no less than the Greeks have shared in the work of constructing scientific concepts and methods in the investigation of physical phenomena, as well as of building up a body of positive knowledge which has been applied to industrial technique; and Hindu scientific ideas and methodology (e.g. the inductive method or method of algebraic analysis) have deeply influenced the course of natural philosophy in Asia-in the East as well as the West-in China and Japan, as well as in the Saracen Empire. The author has undertaken a comparative estimate of Greek and Hindu science. Hindu Philosophy om its empirical side was dominated by geometrical concepts and methods. The author has cared to see that the Sanskrit philosophico-scientific terminology, however difficult from its technical character, is rendered exceedingly precise, consistent, and expressive.

The present work relates to the political organization in Northern India during the period from 600 A.D. to 1200 A.D. It describes, in detail, how several Kingdoms emerged and how their rulers claimed divinity, possessed absolute powers over their subjects. The author discusses the culminative effects of the separatist tendencies of the monarchs on Indian Polity whichultimately resulted in their weak resistance to the Muslim invaders from the North-West. The work is based on literary, epigraphic and foreign accounts. It is critical, informative and intelligible. The reader would find it interesting as well as instructive.

Descendents of two great warriors of Central Asia-Taimur and Chingiz Khan, The Mughals have become a legend in history of the world. Their rule in India heralded a new era of far-reaching socio-political changes making for an enlightenment of a sort that calls for an evergrowing scholarship to grasp its many-faceted significance. The monograph in hand is not just a mere addition to the numerous works on the Mughals and their activities in various fields. Being the result of a deep and critical scholarly study of the various Political and Religious aspects of the doings of the Mughals it comes up as a unique approach to the subject. Here is an attempt to study Mughal history from a new angle.

India as Seen in the Kuttanimata of Damodara Gupta

The Kuttani-mata of Damodaragupta is one of the few works in the history of classical Sanskrit literature the time and locale of the composition whereof can be ascertained with a fair degree of certainty. We learn from Kalhana that Damodaragupta occupied a high position under the Karkota-Naga

king Jayapida Vinayaditya who ruled over Kashmir in the closing years of the eighth and early years of the ninth centuries A.D. A critical study of the internal evidence indicates that the work was probably composed a few years after the close of Jayapida’s reign.

As indicated by the title, the text aims at exposing the secrets of the whole craft of prostitution in the form of the advice of an experienced bawd (Kuttani) to a courtesan, and from this point of view it occupies a unique place in the whole range of Sanskrit literature; for the account is

based not only on the standard erotic texts like Vatsyayana’s Kama-sutra but draws copiously upon the poet’s personal observation of the actual state of affairs obtaining in post-Jayapida Kashmir. But the poem has a much wider scope than its professed theme and covers the entire gamut of contemporary life of Kashmir in particular and northern India in general in all its varied aspects and as such forms an important source for the study of contemporary Indian society. The present work attempts a critical evaluation of this evidence in the light of relevant literary and archaeological data. In the process new light is thrown on several important questions.

Studies in the Religious Life of Ancient and Medieval India

The topics dealt with are of as varied nature as those in his other Studies. The approach of most writers to the problems relating to Indian religions is based on literary sources; but in respect of the majority of topics discussed in the volume with the exception of the first few chapters, Prof. Sircar depends primarily on inscriptions and supplements epigraphic evidence by the testimony of literary and numismatic records wherever necessary. A few of the studies incorporated in the volume exhibit the author’s search for truth spread over a number of years. Thus his investigation relating to the god Purusottama-Jagannatha of Puri began when he noticed the dominions of Ganga Anangabhima III (1211-39 A.D.) described as ‘Purusottama’s empire’ in an inscription, in 1939. In the course of its progress, he found out, in 1946, how Bhanu II (1305-27 A.D.) is represented in his records as a feudatory of the god Purusottama-Jagannatha and, in 1953, how a literary work speaks of the dedication of the Ganga kingdom to the god by king Anangabhima. Finally in 1963, Prof. Sircar traced in a tenth century epigraph of the Satna District, Madhya Pradesh, how the god of Puri attracted pilgrims from distant regions. The chapter on Purusottama-Jagannatha in the volume is thus the result of a study of about quarter of a century.