9788119896851, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India, Upinder Singh (Author), Pearson Education, Hardcover, English, Worldwide

Upinder Singh is a renowned historian and professor of history at the University of Delhi. She specializes in ancient and early medieval Indian history. Her notable work, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India, offers an extensive analysis from the Stone Age to the 12th century. Singh’s research focuses on political, social, and cultural history, incorporating archaeological and textual evidence. She has authored several significant works in the field. Her contributions are widely recognized in academic circles both in India and internationally.

Preface
A Reader's Guide to This Book 
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION: IDEAS OF THE EARLY INDIAN PAST 
The main physiographic zones of the subcontinent 
Ways of dividing the Indian past
Changing interpretations of early Indian history
New histories, unwritten histories
CHAPTER 1: HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT ANCIENT AND EARLY MEDIEVAL INDIA?
Reading ancient texts from a historical point of view
The classification of literary sources: language, genre and content
Box: Ancient palm leaf manuscript
The Vedas 
The Puranas 
 The Epics
Box: Archaeology and the Mahabharata
Box: The Historical Layers in the Ramayana
The Dharmashastra
Box: Theory and practice in the Dharmashastras
Buddhist literature
Box: Songs of Buddhist nuns
Jaina literature
Sangam literature and later Tamil works
Box: Silappadikaram and Manimekalai
Early Kannada and Telugu literature
Other ancient texts, biographies and histories
Box: Banabhatta and his royal biography
The nature of ancient Indian historical traditions
The accounts of foreign writers
Box: Al-Biruni's Tahqiq I Hind
Archaeology and the early Indian past
Box: Cultural sequence at Hastinapura
Scientific techniques in archaeology
Box: Some dating methods used in archaeology
Interpreting archaeological evidence
Ethno-archaeology
Box: Social and cultural aspects of technology
Protecting sites
Epigraphy: the study of inscriptions
Ancient and early medieval scripts
Box: Deciphered and undeciphered scripts
Languages of ancient and early medieval inscriptions
Dating the inscriptions
The classification of inscriptions
Inscriptions as a source of history
Box: Memorializing death in stone
Box: An ancient theatre and an ancient love story
Numismatics: the study of coins
A brief history of Indian coinage
Coins as a source of history
Box: Counter-struck coins of the Kshatrapas and Satavahana
Conclusions
CHAPTER 2: PALAEOLITHIC AND MESOLITHIC HUNTER-GATHERERS
The geological ages and hominid evolution
Box: What does it mean to be human?
Hominid remains in the Indian subcontinent
Palaeo-environments
Box: Water and prehistoric settlements in the Thar
Classifying the Indian stone age
The palaeolithic age
Lower palaeolithic sites
Box: Stone tools of lower Palaeolithic people
Middle palaeolithic sites
Box: The Levallois technique
Upper palaeolithic sites
Box: Upper palaeolithic tools
Box: Hunter-gatherers of central India
Palaeolithic art and cults
Box: The ostrich, its eggs, and their shells
The life-ways of palaeolithic hunter-gatherers
The Mesolithic age
Mesolithic sites
Box: Tiny stone tools
The magnificence of mesolithic art
Conclusions 
CHAPTER 3: THE TRANSITION TO FOOD PRODUCTION: NEOLITHIC, NEOLITHIC-
CHALCOLITHIC, AND CHALCOLITHIC CULTURES, C. 7000-2000 BCE
The neolithic age and the beginnings of food production
Why domestication? 
The identification of domestication and food production in the archaeological record
Box: The domestication of plants
The transition to food production in the Indian subcontinent
The earliest village settlements c. 7000-3000 BCE
The north-west
The Vindhyan fringes and other areas
Neolithic, neolithic-chalcolithic, and chalcolithic communities c. 3000-2000 BCE
The north and north-west 
Box: Did people actually live in the Burzahom pits
Rajasthan
The Malwa region
The western Deccan
The middle Ganga plain and eastern India
South India 
Box: The mystery of the ash mounds
Box: Community feasting at Neolithic Budihal
The life of early farmers
Changes in cultic and belief systems
Box: Female figurines - ordinary women or goddesses
Conclusions
CHAPTER 4: THE HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION
(C. 2600-1900 BCE)
Civilization and urbanization: Definitions and implications
Box: Childe's ten-point formula
Recent discoveries and changing perspectives
Harappan, Indus or Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization?
Origin: the significance of the early Harappan phase
Box: What's the problem with diffusionist theories?
The relationship between the early and mature Harappan phases
The general features of mature Harappan settlements
Profiles of some Harappan cities, towns and villages 
The diversity of the Harappan subsistence base
Box: Animal bones at Shikarpur
Harappan crafts and techniques
Box: Sculpture in stone and metal
Box: How craftsmen made the long carnelian beads
Networks of trade
Box: Shortughai -- a Harappan trading post in Afghanistan
The nature and uses of writing
Religious and funerary practices
Box: The 'fire altars'
The Harappan people
Box: How healthy were the Harappans ?
The ruling elite
The decline of urban life
Box: Defining a state
The significance of the late Harappan phase
Conclusions 
CHAPTER 5: THE REGIONS OF THE SUBCONTINENT, C. 2000-500/600 BCE: 
LITERARY AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROFILES
Perspectives from texts
Using the Vedas as a historical source
Box: The date of the Rig Veda
Who were the Indo-Aryans?
The culture reflected in the family books of the Rig Veda Samhita
Tribes and wars
Box: Hymn to arms (Rig Veda Samhita VI.75)
Box: Kinship, trib
Pastoralism, agriculture, and other occupations
Varna in the Rig Veda
Women, men, and the household
Box: The family and the household
 Religion: sacrifices to the gods
Box: Hymn to Indra Rig Veda II. 12
Box: The soma plant and its juice
The historical milieu of later Vedic age texts
Aspects of every-day life
The emergence of monarchy
Box: The ceremony of the jewel offering
The varna hierarchy
Gender and the household 
Religion, ritual, and philosophy
Box: The Nasadiya hymn (Rig Veda X. 12
 The sacrificial ritual of the Brahmana texts
Box: The sacrificial arena
 The Upanishads
Box: The atman, according to Uddalaka Aruni
Popular beliefs and practices
Box: Atharva Veda spells
Archaeological profiles of different regions of the subcontinent, c. 2000-500 BCE
Neolithic-chalcolithic and chalcolithic cultures
The north-west and north
Box: Mythological motifs on Cemetery-H pottery
The Indo-Gangetic divide, the upper Ganga valley and the doab
The late Harappan phase
The Ochre Coloured Pottery (OCP) culture
The copper hoards
Box: The copper anthropomorphs
The Black and Red Ware (BRW) phase in the doab
Box: The problem of black and red ware
Western India
The middle Ganga valley 
Eastern India
The north-east 
The cultural sequence in Central India
The Ahar culture
The Malwa culture
The chalcolithic farmers of the Deccan
The late Harappan and Malwa cultures
Box: The curious Daimabad bronzes
The Jorwe culture
Box: Food, nutrition and health among the people of Inamgaon
Box: Goddesses with heads and without heads
Neolithic-chalcolithic sites of South India
Box: Pictures on stones
From copper to iron: Early iron age cultures of the subcontinent
A clarification about the Indian megaliths
The north-west
The Indo-Gangetic divide and the upper Ganga valley: The Painted Grey Ware 
(PGW)culture 
Box: Painted Grey Ware
 Rajasthan
The middle and lower Ganga valley
Central India
The Deccan
South India 
Box: The enigma of the megalithic anthropomorphs
The impact of iron technology
The problem of correlating literary and archaeological evidence
Conclusions
CHAPTER 6: CITIES, KINGS, AND RENUNCIANTS: EARLY HISTORICAL NORTH INDIA, C. 
600-300 BCE
The sources, literary and archaeological
Box: History from grammar
The 16 great states
The ganas or sanghas
Box: The conflict between the Sakyas and the Kosalans
Box: Vassakara seeks the Buddha's advice on how to defeat the Lichchhavis
Political conflicts and the growth of the Magadhan empire
Box: Ajatashatru's visit to the Buddha
Box: The chronology of the early dynasties of Magadha
The Persian and Macedonian invasions
Box: The storming of the Malla citadel
Land and agrarian expansion
From village to town: the example of Atranjikhera
The emergence of city-life
Box: The legendary city of Kusavati
Archaeological and literary profiles of early historical cities
The north-west
The Indo-Gangetic divide, the upper Ganga valley and the doab
The middle and lower Ganga valley
Central India and the Deccan
Urban occupations, crafts, guilds, and money
The new social elites: gahapati and setthi
Trade, trade routes, traders
Class, kinship, varna and caste
Box: Duties in times of distress
Box: Varna and jati
Gender, the family and the household
Box: Marriage, according to the Grihya sutras
The renunciatory tradition
Box: The Samannaphala sutta
The Ajivikas
Early Buddhism
The life of the Buddha
The Buddha's teaching
Box: The analogy of the raft
The Buddhist sangha and the laity
Box: The seven kinds of wives
The social implications of the Buddha's teaching
Box: The Agganna Sutta 
Buddhism and women
Box: The 8 conditions imposed on nuns
Early Jainism
The Jaina tirthankaras, Vardhamana Mahavira
The Jaina understanding of reality
Box: The liberated man
The discipline of the Jaina monastic order and the laity
Box: On not killing earth-bodies
The social composition of the Jaina sangha and laity
Box: The true Brahmana
Box: Malli or Mallinatha
Conclusions
CHAPTER 7: THE MAURYA EMPIRE, C. 321-187 BCE
The major sources for the Maurya period
Kautilya's Arthashastra 
Box: Statistical analysis of word frequencies in the Arthashastra
Box: Megasthenes' Indika
Box: The Greeks on the Greeks
Megasthenes' Indica
Ashoka's inscriptions
Box: The different categories of Ashokan inscriptions and their location
Archaeological and numismatic evidence
The Maurya dynasty
Box: The legends about Ashoka in the Ashokavadana
Literary and archaeological profiles of cities
Box: Pataliputra and the palace according to Arrian and Aelian
Some aspects of rural and urban life
Box: References to famine relief in the Mahasthan and Sohgaura inscriptions
The nature and structure of the Maurya empire
Box: Kautilya's daily time-table for a king
Box: The life of a king, according to Megasthenes (via Strabo)
Box: Rock edict 6 (Girnar version)
Ashoka and Buddhism
Box: Minor Rock 1(Rupnath version)
Box: The fifth pillar edict (Delhi-Topra pillar)
Box: The 13th rock edict (Shahbazgarhi version)
Box: Ashoka's assessment of his success The Shar-i-Kuna Greek-Aramaic 
inscription:
Ashoka's dhamma
Sculpture and architecture
Box: Ancient and modern quarries at Chunar
Box: The medieval and modern history of the Ashokan pillars
Box: The discovery of an Ashokan stupa at Deorkothar
The decline of the Maurya empire
Conclusions
CHAPTER 8: CULTURAL INNOVATION AND INTERACTION: C. 200 BCE-300 CE
The political history of North India: The Shungas
Box: The Besnagar pillar inscription of Heliodorus
The Indo-Greeks 
Box: Coins of the Indo-Greek kings
The Shaka-Pahlavas or Scytho-Parthians
The Kushanas
The Shaka Kshatrapas of western India
Box: A lake, a storm and a king
The Satavahana empire in the Deccan
Box: The royal portrait gallery in the Naneghat cave
Kings and chieftains in the far south: The Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas
Box: The royal drum
Villages and cities
Cities of the north-west
The Indo-Gangetic divide and upper Ganga valley
The middle and lower Ganga valley and eastern India
Box: Chandraketugarh
Central and western India 
Cities and towns of the Deccan
Box: Plant remains from Sanghol
Cities of the far south
 Box: Madurai in the Maduraikanchi
Crafts and guilds in the subcontinent
 Box: Guilds as bankers
Trade and traders in the subcontinent
Box: Why did people travel in ancient times?
 Long-distance trade
 Box: The description of Kaveripattinam in the Pattinapalai
 Box: The Periplus Maris Erythraei (The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea)
Trade with East and Southeast Asia
Indo-Roman trade
 Box: Recent excavations at Arikamedu
The wider roles of trade and traders
Aspects of social change in north India and the Deccan: varna, caste, gender
 Box: The Jatakas as a source of social history
Society in early historical South India 
 Box: An ancient Tamil love poem
 Box: The glorification of a heroic death
Philosophical developments: astika and nastika schools
 Box: The Bhagavad Gita
Looking at the history of religions beyond the framework of 'isms'
The worship of yakshas and yakshis, nagas and nagis
Goddesses, votive tanks and shrines
Vedic rituals
Puranic Hinduism
Shaivism or Shivaism
The formation of the Vaishnava pantheon
Shakti worship
The emergence of Mahayana Buddhism
 Box: Krishna and Balarama on Agathocles' coins
 Box: Monastic and lay practices in texts versus inscriptions
The Digambara-Shvetambara divide in Jainism 
Religious architecture and sculpture
Early Hindu temples and sculpture
Buddhist architecture
Buddhist stupas-monasteries of the north-west 
Stupas of central India - Sanchi and Bharhut
Stupas of Andhra Pradesh
Early relief sculpture at Buddhist stupa sites
Buddhist caves in the western ghats
The Jaina caves at Udayagiri and Khandagiri
Early sculptures from the north-west: the Gandhara school
Early stone sculptures from Vidisha and Mathura
Terracotta art
Box: Gifts of water pots from ancient Gandhara
Box: The unique donations at Bandhogarh
Conclusions
CHAPTER 9: THE GUPTA EMPIRE AND ITS CONTEMPORARIES
C. 300-600 CE
Political history
The Gupta dynasty
Box: Ramagupta - did he exist?
Box: The inscription of king Chandra and the legend of the shakey pillar
The Vakatakas of the Deccan
Box: A queen's grant
Other dynasties of peninsular India
Administrative structure of the Gupta and Vakataka kingdoms 
Box: An ancient panchayat?
Revenue resources of states
Land ownership
Types of land, land measures and land tenure
Royal land grants
Box: The land grant deal, according to Vakataka grants
Patterns of urban history
Box: The daily routine of the sophisticated man-about- town
Craft production, guilds and trade
Aspects of social structure: Gender, forms of labour, slavery and untouchability
Box: The ganika in Sanskrit kavya
Patterns of religious developments
 Box: Hari-Hara
The emergence of Tantra
 Box: The emergence of tantra
The evolution of the 
Vaishnava pantheon
Shaivism
 Box: The various forms of Shiva in the Elephanta cave
The cult of the great goddess
The worship of other deities
Buddhism
Box: Kumarajiva (343-413)
Jainism
A classical age of art?
Religious architecture
Box: discovery of Ajanta
Sculpture
Box: Vishnu rescuing the earth, at Udyaygiri and Eran
The classical age of Sanskrit literature
Box: The cloud messenger
Box: The Natyashastra
Astronomy and and mathematics
Medical knowledge
Box: The ideal hospital, according to Charaka
Box: Sushruta on surgeons and surgery
Conclusions
CHAPTER 10: EARLY MEDIEVAL INDIA C. 600-1200 CE
Sources, literary and archaeological
Political narrative and political structure
Box: The image of the ideal king in inscriptions of Orissa
Box: Rudramadevi, the female king
The Deccan 
Box: The Aihole inscription of Pulakeshin
The far south
Box: Death and memorialization
Box: Religious and political symbolism in the Tanjavur temple
North India: The Pushyabhutis, Harshvardhana
 Box: A Chinese monk in India
Eastern India
 Box: Some origin myths of the dynasties of Orissa
The Rajput clans
 Box: The Tomaras and Delhi in legends and inscriptions
 Kashmir and the north-west 
 Box: Didda
Royal land grants
The political implications of land grants
Brahmana beneficiaries of royal grants
The nature of brahmadeya settlements
The impact of Brahmana settlements on agrarian relations
Land grants as part of larger social and cultural processes
Rural society: regional specificities
Urban processes in early medieval India
South Indian states: centralized empires, segmentary states, feudal polities or 
otherwise? 
The administrative structure of South Indian kingdoms
Rural society in early medieval South India
Irrigation and cash crop cultivation in the Deccan and the far south
Urban processes in South India
Trade and traders of South India
The history of religions in early medieval India
Buddhism in early medieval India
Major centres of Jainism
Shankara and Advaita Vedanta
The Hindu cults
Vaishnavism and Shaivism
The Shakti cult
South Indian Bhakti: The Alvars and Nayanars
The philosophical underpinnings of South Indian bhakti and later 
developments
Patronage to temples
The architecture of early medieval temples
Nagara, Dravida and Vesara styles
The art and architecture of western India and the Deccan
The architecture and sculpture of the Pallava kingdom
The Chola temples
Chola metal sculpture
Conclusions
Note on diacritics
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Credits
About the Author

Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication:

India -- History.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pearson Education (Jan. 19 2024)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8119896851
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 1.73 kg
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 27.9 x 21.6 x 3.1 cm