Past Before Us By Romila Thapar - 1357 Words

As pointed out by Romila Thapar in her book â€Å"Past before Us†, there are two types of historical traditions in ancient India, the embedded history and the external history. The embedded history comprises of the myths, fragmentary narratives from the Vedas, the epics such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana and the genealogies whereas the externalized historical traditions consists of the chronicles of families, institutions and regions. It also includes the biographies of persons in authority and power or caritas and also historical dramas. The popular myths of the Itihasa-purana tradition often synopsize the features of what can be viewed as historical experience, the hero-lauds and eulogies were expanded and integrated into the epic literature. Complementary to this while the externalized history does draw upon the embedded history, but it has different primary concerns and narrates a different type of historical information. Thus historical biographies (carita literatur e) have their roots in hero-lauds and the epics. The family chronicles and vamsavalis integrate myths and genealogy to other events whereas chronicles regarding the state and institutions (aimed at recording the history of a specified area) have a different variant of the same myth incorporated in them. We therefore say that the embedded forms of history are more closely related to the lineage based societies and the externalized history was more inclined towards the state systems, institutions and theShow MoreRelatedWritten Sources13656 Words   |  55 PagesFaculty of Oriental Studies University of Social Sciences and Humanities Vietnam National University December, 2012 Abstract Historians have used different kinds of sources to reconstruct the narratives of the past or to create a complete and accurate picture of what happened in the past on such aspects as politics, economy, society, culture, religion and art. Their task is not easy and obviously, studying early Indian history also follows this principle. In fact, sources of ancient Indian historyRead MoreWritten Sources13665 Words   |  55 PagesFaculty of Oriental Studies University of Social Sciences and Humanities Vietnam National University December, 2012 Abstract Historians have used different kinds of sources to reconstruct the narratives of the past or to create a complete and accurate picture of what happened in the past on such aspects as politics, economy, society, culture, religion and art. Their task is not easy and obviously, studying early Indian history also follows this principle. In fact, sources of ancient Indian historyRead MoreA Summary On A Ã…Å¡ Oka Maurya1456 Words   |  6 Pagesit’s evident that AÅ›oka was so much more than a passive or secular emperor. Although Chandragupta Maurya did not define who his grandson was, he certainly had influence on him. Or if not directly on him, on his father and then onto AÅ›oka. Romila Thapar discusses the religious affiliation of Chandragupta early on in the foundation Mauryan dynasty. As Chandragupta accepted Jainism later on in life it became far more likely that his descendents would be interested in non-orthodox sects of religion