4 ms·

Why hasn’t Indian history been better researched as you say? Curious about this.

by c54 6y ago

riazrizvi 6y ago
It’s often because of political influence campaigns that history is actually destroyed, and in such periods there is no appetite for objective historical research. If you are a Muslim ruler trying to convert your subjects and the Sun Worshippers are leading a resistance then destroying their 700 year old temple that reinforces their identity is a no brainer. This type of thing is widespread throughout the world [1] so there’s no reason to doubt it has a much longer history than records can follow. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_heritage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_heritage
dilippkumar 6y ago
I started studying Indian history and I immediately ran into problems. The first one is language - in the region I am interested in (the southern parts of India) - primary sources appear in several different languages. It's not sufficient to have passing familiarity with a language - a ton of these ancient writers were poets trying to out-do each other with their skills at crafting verses. To research Indian history, one must learn several languages. As someone who isn't trying to actively research history, secondary sources suffice for me. But then, one runs into the next big hurdle there. There have been very few authors writing about south Indian history post Independence. In 1928 (if I recall correctly), someone at the University of Madras wrote a PhD thesis on the Pallavas. I haven't been able to find any other material focused on the Pallavas published since then. Oh, and the 1928 PhD thesis - there's only a handful of those copies in the really large libraries around the world. A low quality scan of one of these copies has made it to the internet - and that remains my best source of information on the Pallava dynasty. Then there are people like the Khalbaras - a bunch of rulers who came out of nowhere and ended up dominating 3 superpowers in that region. Yet, these guys didn't leave behind any historical record and only passing references to them as "the imprisoners of 3 crown princes" remain as tombstones and signposts for a group of rulers who would have to take down armies of war elephants multiple times to get to that point. There are also open problems of Chronology in several important periods (for example, the era covered by the Sangam literature - Karikala and all those guys). This is basically a group of poems that record history in disconnected joints. (It's not known how much of this is real history and how much is invented by poets). We have the pieces of a puzzle, with possibly some fake pieces, but we don't know how you'd arrange them in a timeline. And then, there's the wars. Anyone who studies Indian history will quickly realize that Gandhi is an extreme anomaly. In southern India, it was a matter of pride for a king to die in battle. Imagine a culture where the rulers have cultural incentives to be suicidally belligerent (with War Elephants!!!). Now imagine a world where that is the cultural norm for over a thousand years. These rulers were warriors and the literature that they encouraged were mostly poets who wrote verses praising various military exploits. Several of these kingdoms emerge and disappear all the time - and they all chose different languages as the court language, several of them invented their own alphabets (looking at you Pallavas), they all straight up lied in several records. It's a lifetime's task to sort out 300 years of history for an area half the size of Germany. Then, to make matters worse, almost all historical artifacts from south India were removed from the temples and forts that they have been found and made their way to various collectors and museums in Britan during the Britsh Raj. If you want to study south Indian history, a trip to a museum in London will give you a lot more than walking around endlessly in South India. Then there's the lack of funding. It's absolutely embarrassing how little the various historians in India earn. Lately, I've been finding more books by historians in America (and even Japan) than those written by people in India. Then you have the frauds like Sanjeev Sanyal who destroy history by mixing up well established history and his own opinions on history and using the authenticity of the accepted history to add credibility to his baseless opinions. Studying Indian history is hard.
- Uhhrrr 6y ago
  > Studying Indian history is hard. But the way you write about it makes it sound fascinating, too! Could you recommend a couple good books in English?
  - dilippkumar 6y ago
    > good books Unfortunately, I don't know any that I can recommend as being a "good" book (which is again part of the problem). There are a couple of really dry academic books that you can read if you're sufficiently motivated - 1. The Cholas by K. A. Nilakanta Sastri https://www.amazon.com/Colas-Most-Comprehensive-Written-Cholas/dp/B072Y356N1 https://www.amazon.com/Colas-Most-Comprehensive-Written-Chol... 2. Politics, Kingship and Poetry in Medieval South India by Whitney Cox https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Kingship-Poetry-Medieval-South/dp/1107172373 https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Kingship-Poetry-Medieval-Sou... 3. South India under The Cholas by Y. Subbarayalu https://www.amazon.com/South-India-Under-Cholas-Subbarayalu/dp/0198077351 https://www.amazon.com/South-India-Under-Cholas-Subbarayalu/... 4. A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar by K. A Nilakanta Sastri https://www.amazon.com/History-South-India-Prehistoric-Vijayanagar/dp/0195606868 https://www.amazon.com/History-South-India-Prehistoric-Vijay...
  - ketcomp 6y ago
    I don't know what OP of this comment (dilippkumar) thinks of Manu Pillai's various books but he is another author/historian whose book I would recommend - I got the same feeling of awe reading his books that I got from dilippkumar's comment here.
  - raz32dust 6y ago
    I recently read "Kerala History and Its Makers" by Sreedhara Menon. It focuses on the southern state of Kerala, as the name suggests. A relatively light read and probably good for beginners. It covers a broad range of time quickly. The author also comes across as unbiased and there is little to no speculation, which I like very much in non-fiction books.
KhoomeiK 6y ago
Can't say much about recent history, but the deep archaeological past of India (>~5kya) is difficult to study in part because of the environmental conditions. The heat and humidity make preservation of artifacts over long periods of time nearly impossible, meaning that even though the Gangetic plain was one of the most populated regions on the planet for millennia in the past, there's minimal trace of this civilization left. Ancient tools, shelters, and human remains just decompose in that type of climate rather than being preserved like in the deserts of the Middle East or the cold regions of Northern China and Europe.
paganel 6y ago
Because there's definitely a Western/European bias in the study of history, I recommend Jack Goody's "The Theft of History" [1] > Professor Jack Goody builds on his own previous work to extend further his highly influential critique of what he sees as the pervasive eurocentric or occidentalist biases of so much western historical writing. Goody also examines the consequent 'theft' by the West of the achievements of other cultures in the invention of (notably) democracy, capitalism, individualism, and love. [1] https://books.google.ro/books?id=jo1UVi48KywC&redir_esc=y https://books.google.ro/books?id=jo1UVi48KywC&redir_esc=y
jagannathtech 6y ago
The unbridled truth is that marxist communist and socialist thought dominated the Indian establishment - polity, academia, media - close to a century and still is well entrenched. Their portrayal of history is nothing but dark ages then glorious Islamic rule. And the hostile Islamic neighbour controlling many of the politicians like their puppets using many strategies didn't help either. And the religious conversion lobby were unfettered in creating atrocity literature and demonisation of native culture, mostly with help from enormous foreign aid. All other reasons people give here are mere technicalities.

Why hasn’t Indian history been better researched as you say? Curious about this.

by c54 6y ago

Why hasn’t Indian history been better researched as you say? Curious about this.

It’s often because of political influence campaigns that history is actually destroyed, and in such periods there is no appetite for objective historical research. If you are a Muslim ruler trying to convert your subjects and the Sun Worshippers are leading a resistance then destroying their 700 year old temple that reinforces their identity is a no brainer. This type of thing is widespread throughout the world [1] so there’s no reason to doubt it has a much longer history than records can follow. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_heritage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_heritage

dilippkumar 6y ago

I started studying Indian history and I immediately ran into problems. The first one is language - in the region I am interested in (the southern parts of India) - primary sources appear in several different languages. It's not sufficient to have passing familiarity with a language - a ton of these ancient writers were poets trying to out-do each other with their skills at crafting verses. To research Indian history, one must learn several languages. As someone who isn't trying to actively research history, secondary sources suffice for me. But then, one runs into the next big hurdle there. There have been very few authors writing about south Indian history post Independence. In 1928 (if I recall correctly), someone at the University of Madras wrote a PhD thesis on the Pallavas. I haven't been able to find any other material focused on the Pallavas published since then. Oh, and the 1928 PhD thesis - there's only a handful of those copies in the really large libraries around the world. A low quality scan of one of these copies has made it to the internet - and that remains my best source of information on the Pallava dynasty. Then there are people like the Khalbaras - a bunch of rulers who came out of nowhere and ended up dominating 3 superpowers in that region. Yet, these guys didn't leave behind any historical record and only passing references to them as "the imprisoners of 3 crown princes" remain as tombstones and signposts for a group of rulers who would have to take down armies of war elephants multiple times to get to that point. There are also open problems of Chronology in several important periods (for example, the era covered by the Sangam literature - Karikala and all those guys). This is basically a group of poems that record history in disconnected joints. (It's not known how much of this is real history and how much is invented by poets). We have the pieces of a puzzle, with possibly some fake pieces, but we don't know how you'd arrange them in a timeline. And then, there's the wars. Anyone who studies Indian history will quickly realize that Gandhi is an extreme anomaly. In southern India, it was a matter of pride for a king to die in battle. Imagine a culture where the rulers have cultural incentives to be suicidally belligerent (with War Elephants!!!). Now imagine a world where that is the cultural norm for over a thousand years. These rulers were warriors and the literature that they encouraged were mostly poets who wrote verses praising various military exploits. Several of these kingdoms emerge and disappear all the time - and they all chose different languages as the court language, several of them invented their own alphabets (looking at you Pallavas), they all straight up lied in several records. It's a lifetime's task to sort out 300 years of history for an area half the size of Germany. Then, to make matters worse, almost all historical artifacts from south India were removed from the temples and forts that they have been found and made their way to various collectors and museums in Britan during the Britsh Raj. If you want to study south Indian history, a trip to a museum in London will give you a lot more than walking around endlessly in South India. Then there's the lack of funding. It's absolutely embarrassing how little the various historians in India earn. Lately, I've been finding more books by historians in America (and even Japan) than those written by people in India. Then you have the frauds like Sanjeev Sanyal who destroy history by mixing up well established history and his own opinions on history and using the authenticity of the accepted history to add credibility to his baseless opinions. Studying Indian history is hard.

Uhhrrr 6y ago
> Studying Indian history is hard. But the way you write about it makes it sound fascinating, too! Could you recommend a couple good books in English?
- dilippkumar 6y ago
  > good books Unfortunately, I don't know any that I can recommend as being a "good" book (which is again part of the problem). There are a couple of really dry academic books that you can read if you're sufficiently motivated - 1. The Cholas by K. A. Nilakanta Sastri https://www.amazon.com/Colas-Most-Comprehensive-Written-Cholas/dp/B072Y356N1 https://www.amazon.com/Colas-Most-Comprehensive-Written-Chol... 2. Politics, Kingship and Poetry in Medieval South India by Whitney Cox https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Kingship-Poetry-Medieval-South/dp/1107172373 https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Kingship-Poetry-Medieval-Sou... 3. South India under The Cholas by Y. Subbarayalu https://www.amazon.com/South-India-Under-Cholas-Subbarayalu/dp/0198077351 https://www.amazon.com/South-India-Under-Cholas-Subbarayalu/... 4. A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar by K. A Nilakanta Sastri https://www.amazon.com/History-South-India-Prehistoric-Vijayanagar/dp/0195606868 https://www.amazon.com/History-South-India-Prehistoric-Vijay...
- ketcomp 6y ago
  I don't know what OP of this comment (dilippkumar) thinks of Manu Pillai's various books but he is another author/historian whose book I would recommend - I got the same feeling of awe reading his books that I got from dilippkumar's comment here.
- raz32dust 6y ago
  I recently read "Kerala History and Its Makers" by Sreedhara Menon. It focuses on the southern state of Kerala, as the name suggests. A relatively light read and probably good for beginners. It covers a broad range of time quickly. The author also comes across as unbiased and there is little to no speculation, which I like very much in non-fiction books.

KhoomeiK 6y ago

Can't say much about recent history, but the deep archaeological past of India (>~5kya) is difficult to study in part because of the environmental conditions. The heat and humidity make preservation of artifacts over long periods of time nearly impossible, meaning that even though the Gangetic plain was one of the most populated regions on the planet for millennia in the past, there's minimal trace of this civilization left. Ancient tools, shelters, and human remains just decompose in that type of climate rather than being preserved like in the deserts of the Middle East or the cold regions of Northern China and Europe.

paganel 6y ago

Because there's definitely a Western/European bias in the study of history, I recommend Jack Goody's "The Theft of History" [1] > Professor Jack Goody builds on his own previous work to extend further his highly influential critique of what he sees as the pervasive eurocentric or occidentalist biases of so much western historical writing. Goody also examines the consequent 'theft' by the West of the achievements of other cultures in the invention of (notably) democracy, capitalism, individualism, and love. [1] https://books.google.ro/books?id=jo1UVi48KywC&redir_esc=y https://books.google.ro/books?id=jo1UVi48KywC&redir_esc=y

jagannathtech 6y ago

The unbridled truth is that marxist communist and socialist thought dominated the Indian establishment - polity, academia, media - close to a century and still is well entrenched. Their portrayal of history is nothing but dark ages then glorious Islamic rule. And the hostile Islamic neighbour controlling many of the politicians like their puppets using many strategies didn't help either. And the religious conversion lobby were unfettered in creating atrocity literature and demonisation of native culture, mostly with help from enormous foreign aid. All other reasons people give here are mere technicalities.