The liturgical text Sūnya Puranā refers to the regional deity ‘Dharma Thakur’ as a ‘fertility deity’ associated with the agrarian class of society. The ploughman element of Bengali is ‘Shiva’, a revered peasant god who oversaw the seasonal cycle and ensured the fertility of the soil and the regeneration of the harvest. Around the time, the Dharma Thakur cult reflected the core necessities of Bengal’s rural agriculturalist society—good health, progeny and an abundance of food. Dharma Thakur implies all the movements and changes that the natural order is susceptible to. The immanent Dharma is contradictory in that he is a typical malignant-cum-protective village godhead: on the one hand, he looks out for the villagers, improving offspring and abundant crops, but on the other hand—failing to receive worship—he curses them with illnesses, barrenness and obstructions to plant regeneration. Bengali liturgical texts work as a base for didactic narration and religious performances in Bengal and Orissa. The religious performances of Gājan are based on religious narrations. Dharma worship is neither monotheist nor henotheist in nature. There is worship of symbols in the form of Kurma [tortoise]. Historians engage in debates about the religious significance of this worship. The stories mentioned in the liturgical texts show that the object of worship and its emergence are related to mythological stories where the chief deity was formless and had created many objects while creating the universe. Kurma was one of his creations. The emergence and popularity of an object of worship are always matters of sociopolitical change in a society. Bengal, during the phase of transition from Buddhist Pala rule to Brahmanic Sen rule, experienced a phase of political chaos. Buddhists had to migrate from Bengal, and due to this migration, a religious vacancy emerged in rural areas of Bengal. This situation benefited the local religious practitioners and helped in the emergence of the regional religious cult, Dharma Thakur. To look into the idea of such religious practices, it would be important to study it through contemporary religious writings. This article is an attempt at an honest reading of the tale of Dharma Thakur through the writings of Ramai Pandit.
Abstract In the early 2000s international business scholar Ann Matasar declared of the rapidly globalising grape wine sector that no other industry had ‘so resolutely excluded women from positions of influence for so long.’ Following Florine Livat and Clara Jaffré that women on the supply side of wine remain understudied, this article draws upon a large‐scale oral history project (Treading Out the Vintage 2000–2003) to make visible women as industry decision‐makers between the 1960s and 1990s. This qualitative data set nuances Matasar's findings about the relatively limited opportunities for women to exert industry influence in a historically male domain. With family farming as the main entry point to the Australian industry, few women became decision‐makers in this era, compared with women in urban sectors of the economy that benefited from gains in gender equality. Women who attained industry influence demonstrated enthusiasm and resilience while experiencing sexism and, often, balancing reproductive and domestic labour with agricultural business.
Khadi, the fabric, and charkha, the instrument, were powerful symbols of the anti-colonial resistance movement in India and continued to be treated with regard by the post-colonial nation-state. However, in recent times, these artefacts have undergone substantial transformation. From being symbolic of rural resurgence and self-help in Gandhian nationalist rhetoric and of an inspired vision of ethical living based on alternate concepts of modernity, khadi and charkha have now become fused with economic and cultural goals of a distinctively capitalist order. In order to trace the shifts in khadi and charkha’s symbolism, we chose to examine two particular domains in the twin cities of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar where a historical continuity has been claimed with the Gandhian legacies. We examined the evolving representation of the charkha in two museums, one each in the two cities, and the emergence of khadi as a fashion fabric in Ahmedabad. The article concludes with a reflection on the indifferent state of the much-vaunted khadi programme of the government in the country and in the state of Gujarat.
AbstractThis study examines the intergenerational transmission of technology in historical China by constructing a genealogy dataset of the Huang family from 1400 to 1800. The family specialised in woodblock carving for book production, and their names were documented in these volumes, enabling measurement of technological output. Analysing 902 individuals across 16 generations reveals that carving skills were primarily transmitted from fathers to sons, with little influence from other family members or external artisans. Moreover, the production of books by the Huang family experienced a decline in the early 17th century, potentially attributed to weather shocks and decreased demand for books.
“Vedic period” refers to the period when the Vedic corpus, the oldest body of South Asian literature, was composed. The Early Vedic period corresponds to the second half of the second millenniumbce, when the oldest Vedic text – theSaṃhitāof theR̥gveda– was composed. The Vedic Aryans were agro‐pastoralist nomads who migrated from Iran and spoke an Indo‐European language. Possibly a cultic confrontation led to the schism between the Indo‐Iranian speakers and the Indo‐Aryans whose entry in the Indian subcontinent entailed clashes and negotiations with different cultural communities known as the Dāsas and Dasyus. The Early Vedic tribes also fought among themselves, mainly for cattle, and eventually the Bharatas established themselves as the most prominent of them all, especially after their chief Sudās won the famous battle of Ten Kings. Vedic Aryans moved eastwards in the Later Vedic period (ca. 1000–600bce) and adopted sedentary agricultural life. The Kuru‐Pāñcālas dominated the early phase of the Later Vedic period, when rudimentary hereditary kingship was emerging. However, their position waned at the end of the Later Vedic age, and territories further east – such as Kosala, Kāśī, and Videha – gained prominence.
This article addresses on history of mathematics (specially one of its specific branch, geometry) in Sri Lanka. Despite the large amount of research on the history of mathematics in India, China and the Middle East, that on Sri Lanka still remains limited. Sri Lanka had close relations with all these regions from ancient times and knowldge on mathematics should not be an alien subject there. This article tries to address the paucity of research on the history of mathematics in Sri Lanka while emphasizing the local character of that ancient knowldge.
Trigonometry is an indispensable tool of Indian mathematical astronomy. The concept of trigonometry originated in Greece and it was transmitted to India together with astronomy.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth century India witnessed the rise and growth of cultural and political nationalism with its unflinching support to revive ‘indigenous’ culture, system or tradition. A sudden interest in the revival of ‘indigenous’ medical systems of India during the same period was a natural corollary to the aforesaid phenomenon. This led to the growth of a medical revivalist movement centred largely around the portrayal of Ayurveda as an ‘indigenous’ self. Ayurveda in such a discourse became a true representative of a ‘time-tested’, ‘authentic’, ‘indigenous’ healing culture of India. However, a close analysis of the contemporaneous Ayurvedic discourse reflects gender-oriented concerns and predilections. The present article explores some of these gendered concerns and predilections of Ayurveda thereby showing how the Ayurvedic discourse on health and medicine, despite its claim to rationality and scientificity, was not separate from its social surroundings. Set in the early twentieth century United Provinces, this article reflects on the ideas and notions of the Ayurvedic practitioners who, in many ways, became handy in reinforcing patriarchy. Even Yashoda Devi, the famous female Ayurvedic practitioner from Allahabad who had expertise on women-oriented diseases, cannot be cleared of this blame. Thus, this article attempts a gender-sensitive analysis of the late colonial Ayurvedic discourse.
A Lion amongst the Cattle: Reconstruction and Resistance in the Northern Transvaal. By Peter Delius. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. By Mahmood Mamdani. Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, c. 1800 to Recent Times. By Emmanuel Akyeampong. Juan Maria Schuver's Travels in North East Africa 1880–1883. Edited by Wendy James, Gerd Baumann and Douglas H. Johnson. The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923. By Justin McCarthy. A History of the Modern Middle East. By William L. Cleveland. The Modern Middle East: A Reader. Edited by Albert Hourani, Philip S. Khoury and Mary C. Wilson. A History of the Arab Peoples. By Albert Hourani. The Middle East: 2000 Years of History from the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day. By Bernard Lewis. The Near East since the First World War: A History to 1995. Second Edition. By M. E. Yapp. The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia, and the Gulf 1745–1900. By Hala Fattah. The Suez Crisis. By Anthony Gorst and Lewis Johnman. Eden, Suez and the Mass Media: Propaganda and Persuasion during the Suez Crisis. By Tony Shaw. Genealogies of Conflict: Class, Identity and State in Palestine/Israel and South Africa. By Ran Greenstein. Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945–1958. By Irene L. Gendzier. Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993. By Yezid Sayigh. Vision or Reality: The Kurds in the Policy of the Great Powers, 1941–47. By Borhanedin A. Yassin. Return to Empire: Punjab under the Sikhs and the British in the Mid‐nineteenth Century. By Andrew J. Major. The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860–1940. By David Omissi. Rearguard Action: Selected Essays on Late Colonial Indian History. By D. A. Low. Native Place, City and Nation: Regional Networks and Identities in Shanghai 1853–1947. By Bryna Goodman. The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy. By Michael Hunt. Containing the Cold War in East Asia: British Policies towards Japan, China and Korea, 1948–53. By Peter Lowe. The Tragedy of Lin Biao: Riding the Tiger during the Cultural Revolution 1966–1971. By Frederick Teiwes and Warren Sun. China as a Great Power: Myths, Realities and Challenges in the Asia–Pacific Region. Edited by Stuart Harris and Gary Klintworth. Distant Asian Neighbours: Japan and South Asia. Edited by Purnendra C. Jain. Postwar Japan: 1945 to the Present. By Paul Bailey.
Divided into seven chapters, the compact A Vietnam War Reader is a brilliant guide to one of history’s most analyzed conflicts. This volume’s excellence is rooted in the editor’s choice of documents and his narrative introductions to each chapter; every chapter introduction concludes with questions for discussion. Professor Michael H. Hunt brings a lifetime of knowledge and scholarship to this edited book. Very few, if any, scholars have the gift for succinct, engaging narrative combined with an encyclopedic knowledge of this subject. And while the author may have strongly-held opinions on his topic, he asserts at the outset that, “Throughout I have tried to keep my own views on a leash so that readers will feel free to grapple on their own with the important questions still surrounding the Việt Nam War” (xiv).