Mauryan India

Irfan Habib, Vivekanand Jha

Paperback

978-93-82381-62-4

Tulika Books, New Delhi, 2015

200 pages

INR 500.00

Out of stock

SKU

pro_1315

Mauryan India, as part of the People's History of India series, covers the period from about 350 BC to about 185 BC, thereby encompassing the invasion of Alexander (327-325 BC) and the history of the Mauryan Empire (c. 324-185 BC). There is a detailed account of the inscriptions of Ashoka and their significance. A picture of the economy, society and culture of the time follows, constructed out of the varied sources available, epigraphic, textual and archaeological. An effort is made throughout to keep the reader abreast of recent discoveries, and to share with them the reasons for all conclusions and inferences. There are special notes on Mauryan chronology, the date of the Arthashastra, the science of epigraphy, and the dialects of Ashokan Prakrit. As many as fifteen excerpts from Indian and Greek sources, including ten full edicts of Ashoka, are provided. There are nine maps (five of them exceptionally detailed) and twenty illustrations (black-and-white). The volume is addressed to both the general reader and the student, and attempts to cover all topics that conventional textbooks include besides much other material that a 'people's history' needs to be concerned with, such as economic life, technology, social structure, gender relations, modes of exploitation, language, varied aspects of culture, etc. It is hoped that it will be considered a readable addition to what has so far been written on the Mauryan Empire.

Other volumes available in the People's History of India series:

1. Prehistory
2. The Indus Civilization
3. The Vedic Age
4. The Age of Iron and the Religious Revolution, c. 700 - c. 350 BC
6. Post Mauryan India, 200 BC - AD 300
7. Society and Culture in Post-Mauryan India, c. 200 BC - AD 300
14. Economic History of India, AD 1206-1526, The Period of the Delhi Sultanate and the Vijayanagara Empire
20. Technology in Medieval India, c. 650-1750
23. The Establishment of British Rule, 1757-1813
25. Indian Economy Under Early British Rule, 1757-1857
28. Indian Economy, 1858-1914
30. The National Movement: Origins and Early Phase to 1918
36. Man and Environment

Irfan Habib

Irfan Habib, Professor Emeritus at the Aligarh Muslim University, is the author of The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 15561707 (1963; revised edition 1999), An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (1982), Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception (1995), Medieval India: The Study of a Civilization (2007), Economic History of Medieval India, 12001500 (with collaborators) (2011) and Atlas of Ancient Indian History (with Faiz Habib) (2012). He has co-edited The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I (1982), UNESCOS History of Humanity, Vols. 4 and 5, and UNESCOS History of Central Asia, Vol. 5. He is the General Editor of the Peoples History of India, and has authored several volumes in the series.

See more books by Irfan Habib

Vivekanand Jha

The late Vivekanand Jha was Director, Indian Council of Historical Research, and editor of the Indian Historical Review (20 vols, 1974-94), making it India's most substantive historical journal. He also edited Itihas (Hindi), Vols I-III (1992-94), and co-edited Indian Society: Historical Probings (1974), as well as the Journal of Studies on Ancient India (1998) of the World Association for Vedic Studies. One area of his scholarly interest was the early history of the Untouchables (the theme of his doctoral thesis, 1972), on which he published several papers. He also published studies of the Bhagavadgita. In 1990 he presided over the Ancient India section of the Indian History Congress.