Course Description

This course aims to foreground Early India within the context of broader changes that happened in early phases of human history. We begin the discussion with diverse migratory patterns and shifts towards agriculture, complex social formations and early state structures shaped early India in specific ways. These historical processes are crucial to our present shape; our life-world as well as thought-world. By focusing on society, economy, polity and cultural spheres of human lives we discuss major changes in the region in the longue durée. We will study the Neolithic South Asia, Harappans, Vedic people, state formation, social institutions, religious processes, Mauryan state, Gupta rule and early Tamilkam as an entry point to discuss several changes in the region. We also aim to introduce the diverse nature of sources and the many ways in which they have been read by historians.