Brahmanas Vedic exegetical texts for rituals
brahmi the earliest deciphered script of India and dating to historical times
chaitya a sacred enclosure – later took the form of a hall and became an essential focus of Buddhist worship together with the stupa
chakravartin/chakravartigal/chakkavatti universal monarch
chandala a group from among the outcast section of society, gradually regarded as untouchable
Chandravamsha the lunar lineage, indicative of royal status
chetti/chettiyar merchants
daivaputra literally, the son of a deity; a royal title
dakshina sacrificial fee; the southern direction
dana donation/votive offering
danda force/coercion/punishment
dasa initially ‘the Other’ of the arya – later a slave or servant
desha territory or an administrative unit; a region
devadana usually land or revenue donated to a temple
devadasi female slave of the gods, used with reference to women dedicated to the temple
devanagari the later, evolved form of the brahmi script, also used for some modern Indian languages
Dhamma/dharma piety, morality, ethics, virtue/the social and religious order
Dharmashastra texts attempting to codify the social and ritual duties, and obligations of the members of the four varnas and the relationship between them
Digambara literally, ‘sky-clad’, one of the two main Jaina schools
digvijayin the conqueror of the four quarters
dinara a coin based on the Roman denarius
doab the land between two rivers
dronavapa a measure of grain
dvija literally, the twice-born, refers to either the highest varna or the three upper varnas of Hindu caste society, where the first birth is the physical birth and the second is the initiation into varna status
eripatti land from which the revenue was used to maintain irrigation tanks
gahapati a landowner
gana-rajya oligarchy/chiefdom
garbha-griha literally, the womb-house, the sanctum sanctorum of the Hindu temple
gavunda categories of landowners; could be a member of a local administrative committee
ghatika an educational centre often attached to a temple
ghi clarified butter
grama village
guru teacher or guide
heggade a term used in the peninsula for a landowner
Hinayana The Lesser Vehicle, a major school of Buddhism
itihasa-purana sections of texts claiming to refer to events of the past
jana people, subjects, tribe, clan
janapada literally, where the clan or tribe places its foot; the territory initially occupied by a clan and which could evolve into a state
jati caste; a social segment identified by membership through birth, marriage circles, occupation, custom and location
jyestha elder, as in the guild-like organization of the shreni
kahapana/karshapana/pana widely used coin series, often silver
kakini copper coins
Kalamukha a Shaiva sect
kaliyuga the fourth and final age of the great cycle of time, the mahayuga
kalpa a frame of time-reckoning
kama desire
Kapalika a Shaiva sect
karma action or deed, and also used in the theory of future births being conditioned by the deeds of the present life
kassaka a cultivator, not as well-off as the gahapati
kayastha a caste, chiefly of scribes
kharoshthi a script used in north-west India and derived from the Aramaic script
kshatrapa associated with the administrative title of satrap, and used specifically for some rulers of western India
kshatriya the second in rank among the four varnas; included a warrior aristocracy, landowners and royalty
kshetra field
kula family
kuladevi clan goddess
kulyavapa a winnowing basket
kumaramatya a title of honour, often used for a prince
kutumbi householder
lingam the phallic symbol, associated with the worship of Shiva
mahadanas great gifts/donations
maharajadhiraja great king of kings
mahasamanta ruler or governor but subordinate to an overlord
mahasammata ‘the great elect’, the person elected to rule and signifying the origin of government in Buddhist theory
mahasenapati commander-in-chief of the army
mahattara head of the village
Mahayana the Great Vehicle, a major school of Buddhism
mana a large unit of weight
mandala a cosmogram, projecting the universe in a geometric pattern, often concentric with indications of cardinal points and sometimes square; also refers to a theory of interstate relations where the king desirous of victory is at the centre and the pattern lays out potential allies and enemies.
mandalam an administrative unit
manigramam a formal association or guild of merchants
mantra sounds, words, verses associated with magical and religious connotations
marga the path/mainstream
matha a hospice or a monastery attached to a temple and often a centre of education
matsyanyaya a political theory where a parallel is drawn between a condition of drought when tanks dry up with the big fish eating the small fish, and a condition of political anarchy when the strong devour the weak
maya illusion
mlechchha outside the pale of caste society/impure
moksha liberation from rebirth
nadu a territorial unit in south India
nagarashresthin the chief merchant of the city
nataka dance, mime, drama
Nayanars Shaiva poets of Tamil devotionalism
nigama a market or a ward of a city
nirvana release from the cycle of rebirth
nishka a unit of value, later used for a coin
paan betel-leaf
Pali an Indo-Aryan language in which the Buddhist Canon of the Theravada sect was recorded
palli a hamlet, sometimes also a small market centre
panchakula administrative body
panchayat an administrative body, said to be a council of five
Pashupata a Shaiva sect
pipal ficus religiosa tree
pradesha an administrative unit
pratiloma literally, against the direction of the body hair, therefore against the hierarchy of castes in relation to marriage
purohita priest and mentor, especially in families of status
rajadhiraja royal title
rajasuya sacrifice performed to enhance royal or chiefly status
rajuka official designation
ranaka rank or status given to a landed intermediary
rasa a mood or an emotion evoked in creative literature, music and dance rashtracountry/administrative unit
sabha an assembly, usually small and of special persons
samanta initially a term used for a neighbour; later it referred to a landed intermediary subordinate to the king
samiti an assembly
samnyasi ascetic
samsara used most commonly to refer to the cycle of transmigration
sangha frequently used to indicate the organizational Order in the Shramanic religions and more commonly in Buddhism
sankirna jati mixed caste
sarthavaha caravaneer
sati a virtuous woman; one who has immolated herself on the funeral pyre of her husband
setthi merchant
shakti power
Shangam assembly; more specifically the earliest literary corpus of Tamil poems
shastra texts on various subjects viewed as authoritative
shatamana coin
shikhara tower surmounting the sanctum of the temple
shraddha worship of the ancestors
at a particular time of the year
shreni formal association of members of a profession; a guild
shudra the fourth and lowest varna
shunya the zero
Shvetambara literally, clad in white, one of the major Jaina schools
soma the plant from which the juice was prepared and drunk in a ritual context during some Vedic sacrifices, and thought to be a hallucinogen
stridhana the wealth of a woman given specifically to her for her own use
stupa tumulus-like structure containing relics of the Buddha or others and worshipped by Buddhists
Suryavamsha solar lineage
suvarna literally, of good colour and another name for gold
svyamavara the ceremony at which a princess chose her husband from among an assembly of suitors
thakkura the rank or status of a landed intermediary
Theravada an early Buddhist sect
tirtha literally a ford, more frequently a place of pilgrimage
tirthankara literally, a ford-maker; the teachers of Jainism
ur village assembly in south India
vaishya the third status in the varna hierarchy concerned theoretically with raising livestock, cultivation and trade
valanadu administrative unit in south India
vana forest
varna literally, colour; used for the four castes often as ritual statuses; the reference was not to skin pigmentation since in one text the four colours listed are white, yellow, red and black
varna-ashrama-dharma upholding a society organized on the basis of varna and the social and sacred duties that this entailed
velala peasants or landowners of various categories
vihara Buddhist monastery
vina lyre
vishaya an administrative unit
vishti forced labour or labour in lieu of a tax, often compared to the corvée
vratya initially referring to those who were thought not to conform to orthodoxy, it came to mean degenerate forms in various categories
yaksha a demi-god
yoni female organs of generation
yuga a period of time
ziarat a place of pilgrimage
Select Bibliographies
1 Perceptions of the Past
COLONIAL CONSTRUCTIONS: ORIENTALIST READINGS
Jones, W., Discourses Delivered before the Asiatic Society, 2nd edn (London, 1814)
Inden, R., Imagining India (Oxford, 1990)
Drew, H., India and the Romantic Imagination (Delhi, 1987)
Leslie Willson, A., A Mythical Image: The Ideal of India in German Romanticism (Durham, 1964)
Leask, N., British Romantic Writers and the East (Cambridge, 1992.)
Marshall, P. J., The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1970)
Mukherjee, S. N., Sir William Jones: A Study in Eighteenth Century British Attitudes to India (Delhi, 1983)
Said, E., Orientalism (New York, 1978)
Schwab, R., The Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Discovery of India and the East 1680-1880 (New York, 1984)
Staal, F., A Reader on the Sanskrit Grammarians (Cambridge, Mass., 1972)
Teltscher, K., India Inscribed: European and British Writing on India 1600-1800 (Delhi, 1995)
Thapar, R., The Past and Prejudice (Delhi, 1975)
Thapar, R., Time as a Metaphor of History (Delhi, 1996)
Thapar, R., Interpreting Early India (Delhi, 1992)
COLONIAL CONSTRUCTIONS: A UTILITARIAN CRITIQUE
Mill, J., The History of British India, 5th edn (New York, 1968)
Metcalfe, T. R., Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge, 1995)
Majeed, J., Ungoverned Imaginings. James Mill’s The History of British India and Orientalism (Oxford, 1992)
Philips, C. H. (ed.), Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon (London, 1962)
Smith, V., Early History of India from 600 BC to the Muhammadan Conquest, 4th edn (Oxford, 1957)
INDIA AS ‘THE OTHER’
Weber, M., The Religion of India, repr. (Glencoe, 1967)
Kantowskcy, D., Recent Research on Max Weber’s Studies of Hinduism (London, 1986)
Durkheim, E., The Elementary Forms of Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology (London, 1915)
Hubert, H. and Mauss, M. Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function (tr.) (London, 1964)
Mauss, M., The Gift, repr. (New York, 1967)
Bougle, C., Essays on the Caste System, repr. (Cambridge, 1971)
‘DISCOVERING’ THE INDIAN PAST
Cumming, J. (ed.), Revealing India’s Past (London, 1939)
Tod, J., Annals and Antiquities of Rajastan (Oxford, 1821)
Kejriwal, O. P., The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India’s Past, 1784-1838 (Delhi, 1988)
NOTIONS OF RACE AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON INDOLOGY
Poliakov, L., The Aryan Myth (London, 1974)
Max Müller, F., Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas (London, 1888)
Max Müller, F., India What Can it Teach Us? (London, 1883)
Trautmann, T. R., Aryans and British India (Delhi, 1997)
Robb, P. (ed.), The Concept of Race in South Asia (New Delhi, 1995)
HISTORY AND NATIONALISM
Jayaswal, K. P., Hindu Polity, 2nd edn (Bangalore, 1943)
Altekar, A. S., State and Government in Ancient India (Banaras, 1949)
Majumdar, R. C., Raychaudhuri, H. C. and Datta, K. K., An Advanced History of India (London, 1961; 3rd edn, Delhi, 1973)
THE SEEDING OF COMMUNAL HISTORY
Thapar, R., Mukhia H., and Bipan, Chandra, Communalism and the Writing of Indian History, repr. (Delhi, 2000)
Panikkar, K. N., The Concerned Indian’s Guide to Communalism (Delhi, 1999)
Pandey, G., The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi, 1990)
MARXIST HISTORIES AND THE DEBATES THEY GENERATED
O’Leary, B., The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical Materialism and Indian History (Oxford, 1989)
Bailey, A. M. and Llobera, J. R. (eds), The Asiatic Mode of Production. Science and Politics (London, 1981)
Gough, K., Rural Society in Southeast India (Cambridge, 1981)
Anderson, P., Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, 1974)
Hobsbawm, E. J. (ed.), Introduction to Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (London, 1984)
Wittfogel, K., Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, 1975)
Hobsbawm, E. J. (ed.), Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (London, 1964)
Kosambi, D. D., Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Bombay, 1957)
Sharma, R. S., Indian Feudalism (Delhi, 1980)
Jha, D. N. (ed.), Feudal Social Formation in Early India (Delhi, 1987)
Byres, T. and H., Mukhia (eds), Feudalism and non-European Societies (London, 1985)
Chattopadhyaya, B. D., The Making of Early Medieval India (Delhi, 1994)
Stein, B., Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi, 1980)
Karashima, N., South Indian History and Society, Studies from Inscriptions AD 850-1800 (Delhi, 1984)
HISTORY AS A SOCIAL AND HUMAN SCIENCE
Burke, P. (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2001)
Braudel, F., On History (Chicago, 1980)
Chakrabarti, D. K., A History of Indian Archaeology from the Beginning to 1947 (Delhi, 1988)
Chakrabarti, D. K., Theoretical Issues in Indian Archaeology (Delhi, 1988)
Ucko, P. (ed.), Theory in Archaeology (London, 1995)
Heninge, D., Chronology of Oral Tradition (Oxford, 1974)
Vansina, J., Oral Tradition as History (Madison, 1985)
Wachtel, N., The Vision of the Vanquished (Hassocks, 1977)
Hivale, S., The Pradhans of the Upper Narmada Valley (Bombay, 1946)
Deshpande, M. M., Sanskrit and Prakrit: Sociolinguistic Issues (Delhi, 1993)
Chaudhuri, K. N., Asia Before Eu
rope. Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1990)
Abu-Lughod, J., Before European Hegemony. The World System AD 1250-1350 (New York, 1989)
Reynolds, S., Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994)
Wickham, C., Land and Power (London, 1994)
Klass, M., Caste: The Emergence of the South Asian Social System (Philadelphia, 1980)
Berreman, G., The Hindus of the Himalayas (Berkeley, 1963)
Srinivas, M. N., Collected Essays (Delhi, 2002)
Roy, K. (ed.), Women in Early Indian Societies (Delhi, 1999)
Sharma, R. S. and Jha, D. N. (eds), Indian Society: Historical Probings. In Memory of D. D. Kosambi (New Delhi, 1974)
Haskell, F., History and its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past (London, 1993)
Baxandall, M., Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford, 1973)
Sebeok, T., Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. 5: Linguistics in South Asia (The Hague, 1969)
CULTURAL HISTORIES OF A DIFFERENT KIND
Evans, R. J., In Defence of History (London, 1997)
Skinner, Q., The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences, repr. (Cambridge, 2000)
2 Landscapes and Peoples
TIME AND SPACE
Braudel, F., On History (Chicago, 1980)
Braudel, F., The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (London, 1973)
Horden, P. and Purcell, N. The Corrupting Sea (Oxford, 2000)
Thapar, R., Time as a Metaphor of History, repr. (Delhi, 1992)
Law, B. C., Historical Geography of Ancient India (Paris, 1954)
Chattopadhyaya, B. D., A Summary of Historical Geography of Ancient India (Calcutta, 1984)
THE LANDSCAPE
Subba Rao, S., The Personality of India (Baroda, 1958)
Spate, O. H. K. and Learmonth, A. T. A., India and Pakistan, a General and Regional Geography, 4th edn (London, 1972)
Singh, R. L. (ed.), India, a Regional Geography (Varanasi, 1971)
Guha, R. (ed.), Social Ecology (Delhi, 1998)
Gadgil, M. and Guha, R. The Fissured Land: an Ecological History of India (New Delhi, 1992)
Reade, J. (ed.), The Indian Ocean in Antiquity (London, 1995)
The Penguin History of Early India Page 71