The 'Early Medieval' Origins of India
Published on 3. December 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
524 pages
978-1-108-74851-3 (ISBN)
Description
India is generally regarded as a civilization with a set of intrinsic attributes that emerged in the age of the Vedas or, better still, in the Harappan times. In recent decades, historical studies have moved away from rigid perspectives of singularity in origin and expansion; the emphasis now is on pluralities and long-term processes spanning centuries and millennia. There is also an influential school of thought which rejects antiquity claims such as these and holds that India is a construct of the colonial and nationalist imagination. In his radical reinterpretation of India's past, Manu V. Devadevan moves away from these reifying assessments to examine the evolution of institutions, ideas and identities that are characterized, typically, as Indian. In lieu of endorsing their Indianness, he traces their emergence to specific conditions that developed in India between 600 and 1200 CE, a period which historians now call the 'early medieval'.
Reviews / Votes
'... Devadevan uses a truly impressive range of examples from politics, religion, philosophy, architecture, literature, and economy to support his thesis. ... With an approach indebted to the work of the Keralan historian and epigraphist Kesavan Veluthat and a sweeping command of his material, Devadevan has produced a work that deserves to be read and discussed...' Brian Collins, ReligonMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 196 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
680 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-108-74851-3 (9781108748513)
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Schweitzer Classification
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Additional editions
Manu V. Devadevan
The 'Early Medieval' Origins of India
Book
12/2020
Cambridge University Press
€97.50
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Person
Manu V. Devadevan is Assistant Professor of History at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi. He specializes in religion and literary practices in South Asia, politics and economic processes of South Asia, and South Asian epigraphy. His most recent publication is an edited volume titled, Clio and Her Descendants: Essays for Kesavan Veluthat (2018).
Content
List of tables; List of maps and figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. Institutions: 1. State formation and its structural foundations; 2. From the cult of chivalry to the cult of personality: the seventh-century transformation in Pallava statecraft; 3. Changes in land relations and the changing fortunes of the Ce?ra state; 4. Temple and territory in the Puri Jaganna?tha imaginaire; Part II. Ideas: 5. Svayamobuddha's predilections: the epistemologies of time and knowledge; 6. Bha?ravi and the creation of a literary paradigm; 7. Knowing and being: the semantic universe of the Ku?doiya?totoamo theatre; 8. The invention of zero and its intellectual legacy; Part III. Identities: 9. The evolution of vernacular languages: a case study of Kannada; 10. Religious identities in times of Indumauloi's grief; 11. Caste, gender and the landed patriarchy; 12. The making of territorial self consciousness (with particular reference to Kalin?ga); Bibliography; Index.