Protohistoric Foundations: History of Ancient India (Vol-2)

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The present volume, i.e. Volume II, discusses the post-Stone Age development, dwelling on a vast array of interlinked themes such as the beginning of food-production, the phenomenon of the Indus civilization in all its regional diversities and features, and finally, the establishment of a ‘village India’ on the subcontinental level and its transformation into the phase of early historic urban growth. The volume is titled Protohistoric Foundations because these contain the seeds of what we see in the later contexts including the village India that we can still see, despite the impacts of modern socio-economic forces around us.

Dilip K. Chakrabarti is Emeritus Professor of South Asian Archaeology at Cambridge University and Dean, Centre for Historical and Civilizational Studies, VIF. He has a large number of research books and articles to his credit.
Makkhan Lal, taught at Banaras Hindu University and Aligarh Muslim University. He was a Visiting Fellow in Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He was elected member of the Executive Committee of World Archaeological Congress representing South Asia (1986-94) and also Academic Programme Co-ordinator and Treasurer of World Archaeological Congress-3 (1990-94). He is founding Professor-Director of Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and Management (established by the Government of Delhi) and a Senior Fellow at Vivekananda International Foundation. He has a large number of books and research articles to his credit.

Most authentic historical sources identify Indians as among the first to learn writing. The UNESCO has recognised Vedas as the 'first literary documents in the history of humankind," transcending beyond their identity as scriptures. It seemingly looks inexplicable that the people who had such an old and unbroken tradition of writing have relatively limited records available on the rise and fall of empires, chronicles of kings and kingdoms, military conquests and defeats etc. If history has to be seen and interpreted through the prism of physical and material events, the contention that there is an absence of historiography in India may have some justification. However, if history has to be understood as an elucidator of human societies as they existed in the past, their civilisational growth, intellectual attainments, development of institutions that governed and held them etc. then the argument of 'absence of historiography" would appear frivolous. It needs to be underlined that in the Indian intellectual tradition, all knowledge was a quest for truth and the truth was seen as something that was time and space consistent. Though relevant for their time and age, physical events were seen as transient and thus only peripheral to real knowledge. The writings thus centred around more sophisticated dimensions of human endeavour encompassing among other things the purpose of life, the rules that governed and influenced life, relationship of humans with nature, social dynamics etc.