Historiography of Ancient India: Trends in Indian History Congress

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Study of early Indian historiography has received greater attention of scholars in recent years and some interesting works have been seen to come out. This book is characterized by a pioneering dash into an accumulated mass to ancient Indian history writings over the years contained in the proceedings of Indian History Congress. It introduces a serious researcher Dr. Vandana Verma expressing her interdisciplinary and evaluative insight which distinguishes the work from other studies.

It is a departure from identifying trends of Indian historiography on the basis of observed biases or presuppositions. It is also marked by a refreshingly fresh approach to the historical development based on concrete data. Bibliography is impressive and up-to-date and presentation is lucid. Prof. Samaresh Bandyopadhyay's enlightening 'Foreword'explains the background of this work.

Vandana Verma has done her M.A. in English (Allahabad University) and Ancient History (Agra University) and D.Phil. in Ancient History from Allahabad University. She has an excellent academic record. She is as an Academic Consultant, Ancient History, (SOSS), UP Rajarshi Tondon Open University, Prayagraj. She is Ex- Class One Gazetted Officer in Higher Education, Uttar Pradesh.

Study of early Indian historiography has received greater attention of scholars in recent years and some interesting works have been seen to come out. Dr. Vandana Verma no doubt, aims at producing such a work but, interestingly enough, she has utilized a new type of source, hitherto hardly striking any scholar working in the field. In fact, her work has been prepared on the basis of a thorough and critical study of the invaluable material on the different trends of writing early Indian history available in the Presidential Addresses of the Ancient India Section and also in some addresses of the General Presidents, incorporated in the Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. The Indian History Congress was established in 1935 and stalwarts in the field of study of the history of our great country ornamented the posts of its General President and 'Ancient India Section' President. Obviously, therefore, their learned discourses contain exciting details about the difference in approaches for the reconstruction of the early history of India. Study of the trends noticeable in writing history of early times in such discourses, therefore, is of absorbing interest, though the task does not seem to be an easy one. However, dividing the work into four well-defined chapters, each having several sections and sub-sections, Dr. Sm. Verma at first reviews briefly the prevailing historiographical trends prior to the establishment of the Indian History Congress. She then deals with the study of interactive expansion of sources, new queries on such sources and adoption of more sophisticated tools of research along with the study of new aspects and dimensions offered by the historians of early India pursuing their study in the new environment of fresh methodological-framework and newly discovered source-material or newer interpretations of already known sources. She also takes into consideration the interesting area of different approaches.

The idea of present work germinated in an environment when the safronization and anti-safronization debate was rocking the condition of historical studies so much so that even international conferences were not spared the ordeal of unparliamentary altercations. We wondered, why such a sorry state of affairs has come up. Is it because of a speculative approach to historiographical trends of Indian history and mere generalization about them? Can there be a factual and empirical approach to ancient Indian historiographical trends based on actual writing or assessment of its trends as attempted from time to time along with the concomitant processes of expanding source-base, selected approaches and hypotheses and adoption of models or tools of historical investigation? It cannot be located and analized unless the studies of historiographical trends are given on a concrete base. Driven by this consideration, it was decided to work on this theme making the proceedings of the Indian History Congress the desired concrete basis of our study.

Allied to philosophy of history, historiography is generally looked upon as a theoretical subject dealing with speculative and disciplinary aspects of history writing. Apart from notional debates such as those on objectivity of history. history as art or science, or historical explanations etc., historiography often proceeds to discus methodology and modes of investigation and formulation of historical theme in a general way. Departing from this general notion of historiography the present work intended to capture trends of ancient Indian historiography as reflected in the proceedings of Indian History Congress. But finding the task to be too stupendous, it was decided to take Presidential Addresses of Indian Section I, and some of the General Presidential Addresses dealing with ancient India as symbolic of the proceedings. The work therefore, actually presents historiographical trends as reflected in these selected Presidential Addresses of Indian History Congress dealing with the works of practising historians. We have started this study discusing the trends prevailing on the eve of the founding of Indian History Congress and have focused in the subsequent chapters mainly on the trend of expanding source-base, aspects and dimensions of writing history of ancient India and the approaches developed to deal with the way to answer questions put to India's ancient past and its study material.

**Contents and Sample Pages**