Economic history writing of ancient India.
Posted by davidson on Jul.21, 2010, under Economy
The study of early Indian economic history goes back to the middle of the 19th century. Christian lanen’s monumental history of India down to the fall of vijayanagara emphasized political history. The economic sections occupied a subsidiary place. Another colonial writer Richard fick primarily dealt with social or caste relationships prevalent in north-eastern India. But many historians of the 19th and the 20th centuries wrote under the auspices of the imperial government and had pre-conceived ideas about the India’s past. The best known exponent of the imperialist view of Indian history was Vincent A. smith. He devoted himself to the study of the general history of ancient India. He made a significant observation that in the ancient times land was own by the king. British writers after smith gave special attention to Indian connection with Europe and Greek rule in India. In numismatic the study of indo-Greek coins received their chief attention. In 1916, H.G. Rawlinson wrote his ‘Intercourse between India and the western world, which covered India’s commercial contact with the Greece-roman world from the earliest times to the fall of Rome. Indo roman trade continued to attract the attention of British scholars till the fifties. From 1951, onward there was a new trend in the economic history writing and contemporary British scholars directly or indirectly provide some justification for the commercial enterprise of the European nations in India in modern times and support the British exploitation of the Indian resources. The main challenge to the historical models of writing put forward by British historians came from Indian scholars who, under the influence of growing nationalist movement, wrote in conscious opposition to the imperialist, view of Indian history. The development of nationalism and political consciousness at the term of the century made the Indian scholars keenly aware of the economic exploitation of India by the British, which formed the theme of writings of Dadabhai Naroji and R,C.Dutt. The strong nationalist movement that followed the partition of Bengal in 1905 gave a great impetus to the study of the economic condition of ancient India. A more forceful attack on the imperialist writer came from K.P.Jaswal who was considered a potential contributor of the ‘seminaries’ of sedition. At the time of nationalist movement several monographic studies were published, through several scientific themes of early economic history attracted the attention of Indian scholars in the twenties. Writer like N.C.Bandopadhya, S.K.Das M.A.Buch seeks to make a systematic study of economic development in ancient India, with special references to the land system, agriculture industry and trade. One of the earliest writings on the economic content of the arthashastra’s was by H.C.Ray. He decected in kautilya’s social and economic policies and the element of modern state socialism developed in Germany by the social legislation of Bismark of the Indian scholars of the twenties U.N.Ghoshal handled his sources most critically. His contributions to the study of the taxation system of india from the vedic age to c. A.D.1200 but it gave a detailed information detailed studies of early south Indian rconomic history was undertaken by K.M.Gupta (the land system in south india between A.D.800 and A.D.1200, Lahore,1933) and A.Appadorai (economic conditions in southern india,A.D,1000-1500,2 vols,madras,1986). In recent year detailed economic studies of the different regions of peninsular india have undertaken. K.Sundaram in his studies in economic and social conditions of medieval Andhra A.D.1000-1600 (machilipatanam and madras, 1968) gives an account of metal work, jewellery, carpentary, architecture, spinning and weaving salt manufacture etc. but analysis is absent in most of the economic writings like D.R.Das’s economic history of the deccan during the first six centuries of the Christian.
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