This book highlights emerging trends and new themes in South Asian history. It covers issues broadly related to religion, materiality and nature from differing perspectives and methods to offer a kaleidoscopic view of Indian history until the late eighteenth century. The essays in the volume focus on understanding questions of premodern religion, material culture processes and their spatial and environmental contexts through a study of networks of commodities and cultural and religious landscapes. From the early history of coastal regions such as Gujarat and Bengal to material networks of political culture, from temples and their connection with maritime trade to the importance of landscape in influencing temple-building, from regions considered peripheral to mainstream historiography to the development of religious sects, this collection of articles maps the diverse networks and connections across regions and time. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of history, archaeology, museum and heritage studies, religion, especially Hinduism, Sufism and Buddhism, and South Asian studies.

"This book highlights emerging trends and new themes in South Asian history. It covers issues broadly related to religion, materiality and nature from differing perspectives and methods to offer a kaleidoscopic view of Indian history until the late eighteenth century. The essays in the volume focus on understanding questions of premodern religion, material culture processes and their spatial and environmental contexts through a study of networks of commodities and cultural and religious landscapes. From the early history of coastal regions such as Gujarat and Bengal to material networks of political culture, from temples and their connection with maritime trade to the importance of landscape in influencing temple-building, from regions considered peripheral to mainstream historiography to the development of religious sects, this collection of articles maps the diverse networks and connections across regions and time. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of history, archaeology, museum and heritage studies, religion, especially Hinduism, Sufism and Buddhism, and South Asian studies"--

This book examines the social and cultural history of Bengal through two major themes — the intellectual and cultural dimension, and the socio-economic changes from the ancient to the postcolonial. Essays by major scholars highlight and analyse major debates as well as little known aspects of the region. From currency in ancient Bengal to the establishment of Calcutta, from the social history of Rahr to the challenges of writing history of mediaeval Bengal, from modern medicine to man-made famines, this book brings to the fore the diverse socio-cultural threads that constitute this region. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of Indian history and culture and South Asian studies.

The economic history of early India is a rich and diverse area of study, covering agricultural developments, trade, markets, occupation and professional groups, urbanization and the institutions that govern the economy. Recent research has expanded our understanding of the processes of transformation of the economy in different temporal contexts within the Indian sub-continent. They have particularly led us to explore connected histories given the trans-continental trading networks and movements of people from very early times. This volume seeks to draw attention to this vast and unexplored terrain in the economic history of early India, by bringing together essays on a new and rich historiography. Essays in the volume cover neglected regions, economic processes and structures. Scholars have looked at questions of settlements, crops that were cultivated and market orientation. Essays cover material culture and provide insights into how early Indians lived, what kinds of activities they were engaged in, and how they organised their production activities within and outside domestic spaces. Further the volume bring new insights on hierarchy of settlement types, nature of exchange, and the significance of a nodal site in exchange networks. Maritime history as well as the understanding of trade in its varied forms and manifestations are covered in several essays.

Objects of worship are an aspect of the material dimension of lived religion in South Asia. The omnipresence of these objects and their use is a theme which cuts across the religious traditions in the pluralistic religious culture of the region. Divine power becomes manifest in the objects and for the devotees they may represent power regardless of religious identity. This book looks at how objects of worship dominate the religious landscape of South Asia, and in what ways they are of significance not just from religious perspectives but also for the social life of the region. The contributions to the book show how these objects are shaped by traditions of religious aesthetics and have become conceptual devices woven into webs of religious and social meaning. They demonstrate how the objects have a social relationship with those who use them, sometimes even treated as being alive. The book discusses how devotees relate to such objects in a number of ways, and even if the objects belong to various traditions they may attract people from different communities and can also be contested in various ways. By analysing the specific qualities that make objects eligible for a status and identity as living objects of worship, the book contributes to an understanding of the central significance of these objects in the religious and social life of South Asia. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Religious Studies and South Asian Religion, Culture and Society.

This book offers a critical synthesis of the archaeology of South Asia from the Neolithic period (c.6500 BCE), when domestication began, to the spread of Buddhism accompanying the Mauryan Emperor Asoka's reign (third century BCE). The authors examine the growth and character of the Indus civilisation, with its town planning, sophisticated drainage systems, vast cities and international trade. They also consider the strong cultural links between the Indus civilisation and the second, later period of South Asian urbanism which began in the first millennium BCE and developed through the early first millennium CE. In addition to examining the evidence for emerging urban complexity, this book gives equal weight to interactions between rural and urban communities across South Asia and considers the critical roles played by rural areas in social and economic development. The authors explore how narratives of continuity and transformation have been formulated in analyses of South Asia's Prehistoric and Early Historic archaeological record.