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South Asia
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Memorial inscriptions, engraved on memorials to the dead, are a major category of epigraphs in India. These memorials can be broadly categorised as hero stones, sati stones and memorials to those who died observing a religious vow. Principally in the third category, we have Jain memorials,…
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Indian epigraphy is a very specialised area of study in itself and also a principal medium for understanding India’s past. Once written on rock, metal, earthen materials, wood and more uncommonly on crystal, glass, carnelian, ivory, bone, shell and cloth, epigraphs stay unchanged for ever. On the…
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Central to South Asian donative epigraphy is the concept of dana (‘gift’ or ‘giving’) to individuals and religious groups, possibly in a symbiotic exchange for ritual or poetic services, or simply just for religious/spiritual merit. Dana as a socio-religious concept likely belongs to the earliest—…
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In this magisterial essay, Namita Gokhale and Dr Malashri Lal review the sweep of linguistic and literary cross currents that rode on the waves of trade, war and religion throughout South Asia. Looking back from the first decade of the 21st century, the authors stress the process of accretion…
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The earliest cities in South Asia were those of the northwestern part of the subcontinent, what we call the Harappan civilization. This was a Bronze Age civilization, a term that refers to communities using bronze as a material to make their major tools, but more importantly implies urban societies…
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